Isn't this just an ad?
edit: and the current growth-area is GPU/ML processing, where Oxide has bupkis.
Your time, hopefully, isn't.
>The margins on server kit are tiny.
And man, does it ever show.
>Oxide gets plugged here non-stop, but the audience here still struggles to see what the point is.
I'd like someone to appreciate music with; but alas, my cat doesn't like Debussy, she likes tuna, and I must love my cat for what she is.
That the HN audience struggles to see the point of a properly-integrated systems offering isn't an indictment of that offering. They (and good for them!) may never have had the professional experience of having to manage a large enterprise IT resource on questionable hardware with indifferent software support from multiple vendors.
>Sounds like a vanity project to keep some of the old Solaris talent in-pocket.
Then that would be a vanity project for Oracle; but I believe that ship has sailed.
>the current growth-area is GPU/ML processing, where Oxide has bupkis.
Nobody but nvidia has anything hw-wise in that area (for the moment...).
Even on low-end hardware, the cost of competent deployment amortizes to zero. Like most industrial pursuits, the deployment cost of the first box is high; the cost for each additional box is orders-of-magnitude less. Add the end of Moore's Law into the mix--getting many years of economic service out of boxes that would have been obsolete within the year--the cost is lower still. There are people out there who've been running aisles of rock-bottom supermicro gear, for almost decade, without incident. Gabriel's Law: "worse is better". FAANG rode Gabriel's law to the bank.
> Then that would be a vanity project for Oracle
As for "in-pocket", I did not mean Frankenstein's Solaris. I meant Operation Paperclip. Knowledge was acquired on someone else's dime, and it would be imprudent to leave this talent disengaged--to be retrieved and used by one's competitors.
> Nobody but nvidia has anything hw-wise in that area
Exactly. That is the castle that needs to be stormed. That is where the treasure is. 0xide is running a war against an already-dying kingdom. They might as well be playing minecraft.
Have there? But not you I take it?
Bryan worked at joyant and ran a public cloud on dell and supermicro gear. And it seems they had plenty of problems.
I have heard the same sentiment im other places.
Additional evidence comes from the cloud providers themselves. Why did all of them develop their own stuff if operations with that stuff is so problem free?
Google tried it and rejected it quickly.
I have a variety of customers running a variety of different x86_64 gear. From an up-time perspective, there has been low correlation between price and reliability. If we're talking non-x86_64 systems--like zSeries or industrial control systems--then the price and the reliability are correlated, but that is not an x86_64 market, and probably never will be.
> Bryan worked at joyant and ran a public cloud on dell and supermicro gear. And it seems they had plenty of problems.
Never called it perfect. I wrote "worse is better"--the "best" losing out to the "good enough". The supermicros I mentioned were "good enough". Of course Cantrill et. al. had problems with them, since they were running Solaris/Indiana on x86_64 gear, expecting Sun-tier SLAs. They'd need Sun-tier hardware to accomplish that, but the Sun that made that kind of gear is dead, just like Joyent. They are both dead for a reason: worse is better. Google also used bare-bones discount servers in their early days (not wasting money on brands, SLAs, and fancy cases[0]).
> Additional evidence comes from the cloud providers themselves. Why did all of them develop their own stuff if operations with that stuff is so problem free?
Let's say there are three tiers of users 1) small-fries who spin up a few AWS images, 2) businesses who've grown to the point where public cloud is no longer economical, but not invested enough in computing to justify developing their own hardware, and 3) FAANG, who have so much money and so much need that it would be absolutely stupid for them not to develop their own hardware. At FAANG-scale it's no longer just about cost or quality; it's about being in control of your own business. #2 would seem to be 0xide's target market, but as someone who inhabits that space, I am unimpressed.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Google%E2%80%99s_First_...
What good enough is depends. Sure maybe if you built new processors and everything it would be even better.
But using the same processor at the core as typical servers, and just sounding it with a slightly different architecture can improve things. That's exactly what google does too.
> Of course Cantrill et. al. had problems with them, since they were running Solaris/Indiana on x86_64 gear
Ah the old 'its the os fault' excuse. Classic.
> dead, just like Joyent
Joyent was bought, it didn't go bust and the actual infrastructure is still running.
> Google also used bare-bones discount servers in their early days
Again, that's exactly what I am saying. Why do you think google stopped doing that?
> At FAANG-scale it's no longer just about cost or quality; it's about being in control of your own business.
Except if you actually listen to interviews of the people who did those innovations at Google and co, they stopped working with the traditional vendors and did costume stuff, it was because they couldn't get the quality out of the traditional architecture.
That is also why google invested in coreboot, linuxboot and are running their internal infrastructure on things like NERF firmware, instead of the standard you get from the typical vendors.
> #2 would seem to be 0xide's target market, but as someone who inhabits that space, I am unimpressed.
Have you done an actual detailed comparison with real price quotes compared to a traditional system plus all the software and setup and so on? Because if you haven't its not worth much as an opinion.
The problem wasn't Solaris. The problem wasn't x86. The problem was Cantrill & Co.'s expectations. The industry began moving to availability in software instead of hardware back in the early 2000s. Premium iron vendors fell on hard times because of this. They had a premium product with a premium price, but demand for it dried-up. Cantrill came from one of those companies, and is right to think commodity x86 hardware is crap in comparison, but it doesn't matter for the mid-tier and below markets anymore. They've already cleared this obstacle.
> That is also why google...
What Google does is irrelevant to this discussion. That is not 0xide's market. Businesses seriously competing in the compute space are going to vertically integrate as much as possible--not just motherboards and lights-out management, but all the way down to the CPU: Google's Cypress & Maple, AWS's Graviton, Apple's M1. Switching to 0xide kit is not vertical integration.
If you read with a little less haste and hostility, and a little more humility--rather than just jumping in and getting personal, you will see that I am being perfectly clear.
I am saying that this battle already played-out, 15-20 years ago. The people who need primo hardware already have things like zseries, which 0xide is in no position to compete with. The people who are competing against Azure and AWS have to make their own hardware--partly to distinguish themselves in the marketplace, partly because they'd end up sharecropping for their vendor if they did otherwise. The rest is in the commodity band, where interchangeability is key. An okay server that I can swap-out with any other vendor is an asset. A fantastic server, with custom components & bespoke tooling, that I can only get from one supplier, is a liability. All of their open sourcing makes no difference if it only runs on their equipment.
>"People who need primo hardware" ...can buy a mainframe. That is quite the take.
>The rest is in the commodity band, where interchangeability is key. An okay server that I can swap-out with any other vendor is an asset.
Setting aside the trouble one has already incurred with a system that needs to be swapped out; switching vendors (even of erstwhile "commodity" systems)isn't a neat process in any medium-to-large organization. There's purchasing, contracts for maintenance, depreciation, validation by your DC people that power and cooling for the new box is good...
And...in the end, if you your hardware is truly commodity, swapping out for another vendor is not going to yield a better outcome in the long term. You'll be riding the crap-hardware merry-go-round all over again, just on a different horse.
Here's a nickel, kid. Go buy yourself a better server.
You literally called me a 'fanboy' but I am somehow I am hostile. I didn't say anything hostile in the slightest.
You even doubled down on your position. If you were ever gone be google or a mainframe you would have done it already, so be happy with the garbage provided. That literally your argument.
> I am saying that this battle already played-out, 15-20 years ago.
Markets change over time. Its never set in stone. The industry is continuing to grow, computing needs increase for all companies and many, many billions get spend each year on new servers.
The main reason the 'fancy' hardware like Sun and friends failed, was because of the processor on the hardware side, and because of open source linux on the software side. The costume motherboards that cost slightly more and firmware weren't actually the real problem.
Also, 20 years ago was before virtualization and scripted setup were universal, things were just totally different. Those decisions should effect what the right decisions are today.
> The people who need primo hardware already have things like zseries
Again, the market is growing, any money companies who might have needed 10 computers in the past now need 100. And those that needed 100, no need 1000. And so on.
There is a gigantic gap between a mainframe and your standard Dell PC Server, there is lots of space between those things.
> The rest is in the commodity band, where interchangeability is key.
And yet a huge amount isn't actually this perfect interchangeable commodity. Sure you can get any basic OS to boot and there is some standards, but the situation isn't close to actually being a true commodity.
It also depends on where you expect interchangeability. If you define much of your infrastructure with terraform scripts and a few services to monitor everything, then that's the interchangeability layer you actually care about. Sure if you buy a bunch of Oxide servers, you can just rip one out and replace with the server from some other vendor. You have to rip out the whole rack and replace it with some other rack.
But whatever that something else is, its just gone be another target for your terraform scripts that gets monitored in a comparable way (against hat part isn't neatly standardized anyway). Industry 'standards' like RedFish are not close to providing that even for pretty low level stuff. And once you want to do more complex things there are even less standards.
If you operate a number of VxRail Dell Rack, its not that easy to just rip it out and replace it with some rack of HP machines. Again, this is specially true if you use anything but the most basic features, because very quickly you are in proprietary non-standard software hell. Guess what, Dell doesn't actually want their racks to be perfectly easily replaceable.
And if you have an issue that your Dell rack and your HP rack behave inconsistently, guess who isn't gone care about that, Dell and HP. And guess what, neither of their implementation is open source either so good luck with that. There is a reason people stick to a low number of vendors.
It definitely shows who it's actually an indictment of though.
Yes and about 5000 startups plus many large going after that market.
The market Oxide is after is proven to be large, not very innovative and very few new competitors. And guess what, its not industrial maschines that survive 50 years. Servers are not cost effective after a few years, so there is a lot of turnover. Costumer also don't have a huge amount of brand loyality.
I can see worse buissness strategies then that.