They sell rack-as-compute.[0] Their minimum order is one rack: You plug in power and network, connect to the built-in management software (API), and start spinning up VMs.
[0] With built-in networking and storage.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_data_center
Also:
* https://www.deltapowersolutions.com/en/mcis/data-center-solu...
* https://atos.net/en/solutions/high-performance-computing-hpc...
* https://www.zelladc.com/zella-max
Search for "shipping container data centre" or "containerized datacenter".
Sun did that experiment:
This achievement is clearly worth a lot to people.
It's nice, it's just nothing new.
"no cables no assembly just cloud" wtf is that
When people hear cloud, it means that aspects such as electricity costs, electricity stability, Internet, bandwidth, fire protection, safety, etc etc are abstracted away.
Oxide IS on-premise, right? The website is very vague and wishy-washy.
Size of doorways, weight bearing capacity of floors, electrical service parameters, environmental conditions, etc.
e.g. Does it actually handle electrical voltage fluctuations of +/- 1V, or whatever is advertised?
The guaranteed parameters of a fully set up machine:
Minimum performance metrics, software compatibility with whatever the sales department promised, maximum power draw, etc.
e.g. Can it reliably hit X metric (FLOPS, IOPS, Integer calculations, etc.)?
And so on.
Or does the customer need to take on some risk and hazard associated with installation, configuration, initial boot up, etc.?
e.g. If someone buys with the intention of using it up to X FLOPS, and the machine only delivers Y FLOPS once it's all said and done, what happens?
Otherwise I would imagine it would be a major selling point and be advertised publicly.
But if it is a complicated enough internal issue for that not to be the case, then my apologies for pestering.
No cables, except for a few cables.
I think their description conveys what it does just fine for the target audience.
To be super clear about it, this is referring to not needing to cable up all of the individual sleds to the rack upon installation. It doesn't mean that we recommend connecting a rack of compute to your data center via wifi.
The comment you replied to was not questioning the value of integrated cabling. It was pointing out that the product description on the site does not make sense.
"Cloud computer" sounds like a server you rent from AWS. It's kind of like calling Rust "cloud compiler."
If you choose to use words that your audience doesn't understand, or even worse understands to mean the opposite of what you want them to mean, it's a good idea to explain these words immediately using conventional words with conventional meaning. The comments by throw0101a did that.
The product seems really cool, but there is no way I would've understood what it was from the website.
And for what it's worth, I don't think you need to explain what's happening to Steve, it seems to me that he understands perfectly well. To me you come across as being rather condescending and in my opinion Steve is being commendably polite in response.
Cloud as a term is pretty undefined/overloaded. It makes sense to me if I think about 'cloud' computing as API-based provisioning on pooled resources.
I believe the episode name was "Virtualizing Time"
Ehrm. What is that exactly?
Are you alluding to cute design, different user interface? Or ditching then common PC component modularity? "Thinking differently"?
One difference is that Oxide development was done in the open and they don't seem hell bent on creating a closed ecosystem. (Yet, at least)
You are also correct that we diverge from Apple in other ways, such as our commitment to openness, rather than secrecy.
The first iMac famously made it easy to connect to the Internet; The 'i' in iMac was for "Internet". Its setup manual was a couple of pages long, mostly pictures and IIRC, just 37 words.