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Comment by bitlad | Hacker News Reader

I am wondering when would you use kubernetes on oxide vs running kubernetes with kubevirt on baremetal?

At first look, it feels like oxide is equivalent to proxmox or some virtualization tool, may be it uses qemu stuff underneath.

Just curious.

The reason I am asking this is that, we have lot onprem scenarios in our business. We are tightly coupled with k8s, to solve this we started building an internal project that is kubernetes API compatible [1] but runs containerd or WASM or our platform natively.

Just curious how oxides work in this scenario

[1] https://github.com/debarshibasak/superkube

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Good question. We use our own hypervisor[0] that's not KVM/QEMU. We don't have nested virtualization today so we don't follow the KubeVirt model, though we are discussing what CRDs like OxideInstance would look like for those that want to operate solely in Kubernetes manifests.

The core primitive on Oxide is the instance (virtual machine). We could support some container primitive, but that's a larger product direction discussion. Our host OS is Helios (Illumos) so there are details to iron out there regarding what abstractions we would build and expose to the users. Not impossible but not something we're currently pursuing either given that we have other immediate product asks.

If you're at a scale where compute density, power efficiency, security, and rack-level API management matters then that's where Oxide makes sense for you.

[0] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/propolis

Could there theoretically be a swappable hypervisor for oxide some day? I'm imagining a oxide Linux distro of sorts running on the hosts, and using kvm for vms, but still oxide control plane bits downstream. Then you get nested virt and gpu support, and could maybe even virtualize a traditional oxide host. Like running multi-host vcenter clusters inside a single esxi, amazingly powerful lab scenarios, teardown is even fun

Theoretically, yes. Practically, highly unlikely.

Switching to Linux and KVM would gain the ecosystem benefits but Oxide would lose control of the host OS which can impact our security stance. Better to tightly integrate at this layer and expose the primitives that are needed. It's not impossible, but we're already maintaining the existing Helios host OS. Adding another wouldn't be beneficial.

You would use Oxide if you hate Dell/HPE/Lenovo/Supermicro. Also most people won't run k8s on bare metal because they want to dynamically provision a bunch of clusters.

You treat the hardware as a software problem and provision it dynamically. Also keeps I/O high if you have data locality (HCI).

you can do that on k8s

Oxide is shipping the baremetal server as well, with integrated hypervisor - so running kubernetes with kubevirt on it makes less sense than integrating with the host hypervisor

Yeah me too. Like I kinda compare oxide to coreweave and coreweave is built on top of k8s afaik. I'm wondering what the underlying tech oxide leans on. If I was doing this I would be using talos and k8s on baremetal and building on top of that. Container first rather than VM first seems like a big advantage imo. Most workloads will be containers.

Coreweave is a cloud provider right? I dont think it is apple to apple comparison.

What's a cloud? K8s is a cloud imo, so is what oxide is providing afaict

Cloud is an API you can hit to get access to hardware. Oxide sells hardware.

Oxide has an API on top that gets you services. The whole pitch is AWS with purchased hardware, no? That's cloud

Yes but you buy the hardware and have to rack it, and then you have a cloud at home.

Extreme nit: because you purchase a rack at a time, you don't actually rack it. You wheel it in, plug in network and power, and hit "on".

Oh man, genuinely thank you for that nit. Gives me different imagery to imagine for the Oxide node I'll never be able to afford.

I'm glad, I meant it in semi-jest, because it's true, but also just a very funny thing to "well actually" about.

> The whole pitch is AWS with purchased hardware, no?

HBOM

SBOM

Unparalleled support w/ vertical integration

Tons of companies will see you a "cloud". The other parts seem pretty unique.

Most security minded orgs and also AWS deploy containers in VMs for better security

oxide and coreweave?

Oxide is in-house custom everything. Switches. Racks. Power bus. BMC. Firmware. OS. Software and APIs. Virtualization. Etc.

When oxide provide your metal?

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