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What would be a good use case for diskless computing? RAM is very expensive even when compared with top of line NVME SSD drives.

ExBritNStuff 8y ago
Any kind of thin client/zero client usage, where local storage is not required or allowed. Many years ago I used a similar solution for a finance company. The users just needed to get access to a browser to connect to a specific web service.
- Immortalin 8y ago
  What was the implementation like? A unikernel spun up on demand?
  - juliangoldsmith 8y ago
    You could easily do that with Linux. You'd just need to boot via PXE, and use an NFS root. You might even be able to just use an initramfs, and not even have a mounted root.
ianhowson 8y ago
Single-purpose or embedded systems. Eliminating disks means one less thing to go wrong. Many persistent security threats cannot occur. If you want to deploy a software update, reboot the machine. No need to worry about remote updates/reboots/fails. Disk state is irrelevant if there are no disks. I shipped a system like this many years ago (scoreboard displays). Most netboot schemes require the network to be up for the client machine to operate. If you run from RAM, like this system, you only need the network to boot the machine. It can then tolerate outages or run disconnected.
stonogo 8y ago
Any datacenter usage, where you save money on hard drives by running your OS in RAM and mounting the work storage over the network. This also provides faster recovery from errors, since you're not storing any state on the working node.
tfolbrecht 8y ago
Ephemeral logs.
- Mave83 8y ago
  If you build a better system then this shown here, you will have centralized logs. Ceph Storage based on PXE can be deployed using croit.io. The pre build OS is configured to send the logs to the management node using systemd-journald (not the syslog crap). It's awesome.
Mave83 8y ago
It's not. You save money (OPEX and CAPEX) using diskless boot. For example debian in memory including everything you need on a server is just below 400M. We builded a lot of datacenter services on PXE on the past years. It's always handy if you do require more resources than a single server can provide. It's like a container on steroids.

ExBritNStuff 8y ago

Any kind of thin client/zero client usage, where local storage is not required or allowed. Many years ago I used a similar solution for a finance company. The users just needed to get access to a browser to connect to a specific web service.

Immortalin 8y ago
What was the implementation like? A unikernel spun up on demand?
- juliangoldsmith 8y ago
  You could easily do that with Linux. You'd just need to boot via PXE, and use an NFS root. You might even be able to just use an initramfs, and not even have a mounted root.

ianhowson 8y ago

Single-purpose or embedded systems. Eliminating disks means one less thing to go wrong. Many persistent security threats cannot occur. If you want to deploy a software update, reboot the machine. No need to worry about remote updates/reboots/fails. Disk state is irrelevant if there are no disks. I shipped a system like this many years ago (scoreboard displays). Most netboot schemes require the network to be up for the client machine to operate. If you run from RAM, like this system, you only need the network to boot the machine. It can then tolerate outages or run disconnected.

stonogo 8y ago

Any datacenter usage, where you save money on hard drives by running your OS in RAM and mounting the work storage over the network. This also provides faster recovery from errors, since you're not storing any state on the working node.

tfolbrecht 8y ago

Ephemeral logs.

Mave83 8y ago
If you build a better system then this shown here, you will have centralized logs. Ceph Storage based on PXE can be deployed using croit.io. The pre build OS is configured to send the logs to the management node using systemd-journald (not the syslog crap). It's awesome.

Mave83 8y ago

It's not. You save money (OPEX and CAPEX) using diskless boot. For example debian in memory including everything you need on a server is just below 400M. We builded a lot of datacenter services on PXE on the past years. It's always handy if you do require more resources than a single server can provide. It's like a container on steroids.