Live data from Hacker News

The Cloud Computer

oxide.computer

781–790 of 994 posts

Re: The Cloud Computer

#781
post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone had this mindset we would be running our workloads on Microsoft Windows by now. GNU/Linux was also "risky" at some point.

Linux grew up in the bedrooms of teenagers. It was risky in the era of 486 and Pentiums. The environment and business criticality of a $1-2M rack-size computer is quite different.

I had similar thoughts about VMware (large installations) back in the day. Weird proprietary OS to run other operating systems? Yet they turned out fine.

This appears to be a much better system than VMware, is free as in software, and it builds upon a free software operating system with lineage that predates Linux.

I say this in the most critical way possible, as someone who has built multiple Linux-based "cloud systems", and as a GNU/Linux distribution developer: I love it!

Re: The Cloud Computer

#782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the area of the company I personally work on, so I don’t know those details, to be honest. We certainly make sure that everything is working properly.

So I assume there's no guarantee that it will be plug and play after the white glove installation? Otherwise I would imagine it would be a major selling point and be advertised publicly.

[dead]

Re: The Cloud Computer

#783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainframes!

"Real" mainframes have RAS (Reliability, Availability, Servicing) features such as hotswapping for all hardware components and automated HA/workload migration across physical racks. They can also do SSI (single system image), i.e. run a single workload across physical nodes/racks as if it was just multiple 'cores' in a single shared-memory computer. Oxide computers will probably end up doing at least some of this (na…

[dead]

Re: The Cloud Computer

#784
Couple questions:

1. Are there integrator companies that take these building blocks and build datacenters for other companies?

2. Are these racks intended to be bought in large quantities and put into new datacenters?

3. Is liquid cooling an option?

4. Do you sell datacenters as well as just the racks? Do you have any of your own datacenters built out?

5. Tough question: if these are so competitive and good for your customers, why aren't you also making lots of them for yourself and also selling cloud compute?

Re: The Cloud Computer

#785
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Existing vendors will provide rack integration services and deliver a turn key solution like this. Also vendors of virtualization management software have partnerships with hardware suppliers and be happy to deliver fully integrated solutions if you're buying by the rack. The difference is in those cases you have flexibility in the design which seems to be missing here. Proxmox and a full rack of Supermicro gear woul…

Those of us who've bought large "turn-key" solutions from Dell etc. have often discovered that it's actually just a cobbled-together bunch of things which may or may not work well together on a good day, depending on what you're trying to do. Just because it's all got the word "Dell" written on it, doesn't mean that the components were all engineered by people who were working together to build a single working syste…

[deleted]

Re: The Cloud Computer

#787
post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same premise as with all "turn-key" solutions. If it didn't come with software support, it wasn't really turn-key. The rest comes down to execution. Sure, we all have high hopes for Oxide. Sure, we all hate established players like Dell.

> That's the same premise as with all "turn-key" solutions. If it didn't come with software support, it wasn't really turn-key. Just about any company will sell your company a support contract. The more interesting question is, can they back it up with action when push comes to shove? I suspect most people have plenty of stories of opening support tickets with big name vendors that never get resolved. And through the…

[dead]

Re: The Cloud Computer

#788
post #504

Am I the only one who's confused by the offering? Are they selling cloud hosting or servers?

We are selling servers. You interact with those severs like you would a cloud, but it is hardware you own.

Thanks for clarifying. Do I physically connect the server to the Internet or is it colo'd somewhere you provide?

Re: The Cloud Computer

#789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I assume there's no guarantee that it will be plug and play after the white glove installation? Otherwise I would imagine it would be a major selling point and be advertised publicly.

I mean, we absolutely sell support. I just don't know anything about the details personally. You shouldn't take my lack of knowledge as a "no," just a "steve doesn't personally know."

I had assumed a simple 'yes'/'no'/'maybe sometime later' answer was just a quick phone call away with the relevant person.

But if it is a complicated enough internal issue for that not to be the case, then my apologies for pestering.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#790
post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can buy your own hardware and set it up with OpenStack and use it as a private cloud. Companies like Canonical or Redhat make a lot of money by providing software (mostly open source) to support exactly that use case. And Canonical played with a cluster-in-a-box all the way back in 2013-2014: https://www.zdnet.com/article/canonicals-cloud-in-a-box-unde... You could turn it into an OpenStack cloud in ~20 min…

> Well, you can buy your own hardware and set it up with OpenStack and use it as a private cloud. Companies like Canonical or Redhat make a lot of money by providing software (mostly open source) to support exactly that use case. Sure you can, but then who will diagnose and fix your hardware/OS interaction problems when you have parts from five vendors in the mix? If you haven't lived through this, the answer is: nob…

[dead]
Post reply on HN