DIY Kubernetes cluster with x86 stick-pcs
hackernoon.com
hackernoon.com
> This could then be used as the ultimate continuous delivery appliance.
and I'm scratching my head about why you'd want to run important infrastructure on a bunch of underpowered, probably unreliably, stick PCs.
> This could then be used as the ultimate continuous delivery appliance.
I interpreted this enthusiasm as meaning it was the sort of setup you would recommend to your clients. Now it sounds more like you meant it as a joke.
One of my fellow contractors asked for a laptop and his iMac was sitting there, so I pounced on it and eventually set up a set of docker images containing a couple of Jenkins slaves, headless selenium with Chrome and Firefox, and a couple of nginx reverse proxies.
If I had stayed on longer with the project I might have reconfigured the hardware we did have to run more of the backend code.
It has been really sad how often I've worked at places where some of our best engineering effort was spent on dealing with hardware shortages. Especially since they will inevitably hire another developer or two to make up for all the lost productivity that could have been fixed with $10K a year in hardware budget.
It doesn't surprise me in the least to see someone spending time figuring out how to run a kubernetes cluster on cheap hardware.
They quit sending us blank (erased) EEPROMs. We quickly ran out. I called, asked "Why did the EEPROMs stop arriving?" Answer: we had to return some before they would send any more (we had a dozen used ones on hand).
They were delaying a project that cost $100K per day, because somebody in the lab was annoyed at buying so many $50 EEPROMs.
The thing is the size they needed was 1 size smaller than anyone still sold. One day I drove halfway across town to a camera store where they dug through their leftovers drawer and found me one. $16 with tax IIRC.
I just billed the hour it took me to make the trip and made everyone promise not to make a big deal about the mysterious appearance of a second card.
The silliest part is that when you ask they always talk about how they budgeted for the developers but there's no extra money in the budget for hardware. As if you're getting the same work out of people you shafted for equipment.
Yes, your budget looks great, but your profit margin goes to hell because it takes longer to bill your customers.
;)
>For $340 I now had a cluster,20 x86 cores,10GB memory,160GB storage
which is more $ than faster ordinary desktop pc
Whatever the case, this is a neat project. Tie wraps FTW!
Is that an Anker USB charger in your stack? Did you have any trouble powering the sticks with it? I have some BBBs that won't spin up plugged into my Anker and I'm wondering if I need a firmware upgrade.
Edit: have you had any problems with heat dissipation under load? You seem to have packed things closer together than I would think.
The sticks do get warm to the touch. The case is sort of faceted like a heat sink but I'm not sure if it's just decorative. I'm planning on getting some more load and temp logging for tests soon.