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After using GCP and AWS for years and paying exorbitant amounts as a student, I was thinking of just switching to some old Dell rack server. Glad that Oxide wi

by sdan 7y ago

After using GCP and AWS for years and paying exorbitant amounts as a student, I was thinking of just switching to some old Dell rack server. Glad that Oxide will hopefully allow people and companies to utilize their infrastructure on components that may not be so old/may be easier to use.

blondin 7y ago
well what i am getting from cantrill's article is that they wanna build the hardware and the software together. i think maybe on-prem contracts with ibm or dell might not be the target here. in fact open firmware got mentioned a few times. i wish them luck, it's a very interesting approach they are taking here.
- sdan 7y ago
  I feel like they could incorporate a lot from https://www.openstack.org/ https://www.openstack.org/ for the software side.
davidrupp 7y ago
“exuberant”? I think “exorbitant” makes more sense in this context. Edit: Unless you were really really happy about what you paid, I guess.
- sdan 7y ago
  Yeah, exorbitant. Didn't like paying $300 a year just to run some simple websites/databases
  - ekvilibrist 7y ago
    EC2 instances?
  - ak217 7y ago
    $300 a year is nothing compared to colocating your own server, or even getting a business-grade network connection. If you can get away with hosting on your own computer on a residential connection, that's great for you, but it's a totally different product from what AWS/GCP/colocation offer. By the way, reserved instance pricing on AWS and GCP starts around $20/year. But if you know how to use S3/GS and Dynamo/Datastore, you don't even have to use an instance.
    - sdan 7y ago
      Can you point me towards getting an AWS/GCP instance for around $20/year? Is it AWS or GCP? Also what type of instance? What are the specs? At the moment I just use EC2 and GCP instances (and a couple of GCS buckets)
      - ak217 7y ago
        Sure - on AWS, it's the 3 year reserved term for a t3.nano ($51 for 3 years or $27 for 1 year for 512 MB RAM and burstable CPU as described here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstable-credits-baseline-concepts.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstabl...). https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/pricin... On Google, the comparable offering is an f1-micro instance, which goes for $3.88/month (https://cloud.google.com/compute/vm-instance-pricing#pricing https://cloud.google.com/compute/vm-instance-pricing#pricing).
  - dang 7y ago
    Ok, I edited the GP for you.
ak217 7y ago
After paying to colocate an old rack server and paying exorbitant amounts as a student, I now enjoy using pay-for-what-you-use AWS and GCP services. A colo box can be great if you can amortize the cost among a dozen friends. Otherwise, I think your money goes much farther on AWS and GCP, especially if you know some basic cost saving techniques like reserved instances or not using instances at all (Lambda, Fargate, S3 and other on-demand services/their Google equivalents can cover a lot of needs nowadays).
nikisweeting 7y ago
Having done both rack server and cloud... I honestly prefer the rack server. Power is cheap in my area, we have fiber, and I like being able to buy an SSD on Amazon for $100 and walk over and slide it in without having to pay an ongoing increased monthly rate. Uptime isn't as good but that's fine if the stuff isn't critical.

by sdan 7y ago

blondin 7y ago

well what i am getting from cantrill's article is that they wanna build the hardware and the software together. i think maybe on-prem contracts with ibm or dell might not be the target here. in fact open firmware got mentioned a few times. i wish them luck, it's a very interesting approach they are taking here.

sdan 7y ago
I feel like they could incorporate a lot from https://www.openstack.org/ https://www.openstack.org/ for the software side.

davidrupp 7y ago

“exuberant”? I think “exorbitant” makes more sense in this context. Edit: Unless you were really really happy about what you paid, I guess.

sdan 7y ago
Yeah, exorbitant. Didn't like paying $300 a year just to run some simple websites/databases
- ekvilibrist 7y ago
  EC2 instances?
- ak217 7y ago
  $300 a year is nothing compared to colocating your own server, or even getting a business-grade network connection. If you can get away with hosting on your own computer on a residential connection, that's great for you, but it's a totally different product from what AWS/GCP/colocation offer. By the way, reserved instance pricing on AWS and GCP starts around $20/year. But if you know how to use S3/GS and Dynamo/Datastore, you don't even have to use an instance.
  - sdan 7y ago
    Can you point me towards getting an AWS/GCP instance for around $20/year? Is it AWS or GCP? Also what type of instance? What are the specs? At the moment I just use EC2 and GCP instances (and a couple of GCS buckets)
    - ak217 7y ago
      Sure - on AWS, it's the 3 year reserved term for a t3.nano ($51 for 3 years or $27 for 1 year for 512 MB RAM and burstable CPU as described here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstable-credits-baseline-concepts.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/burstabl...). https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/reserved-instances/pricin... On Google, the comparable offering is an f1-micro instance, which goes for $3.88/month (https://cloud.google.com/compute/vm-instance-pricing#pricing https://cloud.google.com/compute/vm-instance-pricing#pricing).
- dang 7y ago
  Ok, I edited the GP for you.

ak217 7y ago

After paying to colocate an old rack server and paying exorbitant amounts as a student, I now enjoy using pay-for-what-you-use AWS and GCP services. A colo box can be great if you can amortize the cost among a dozen friends. Otherwise, I think your money goes much farther on AWS and GCP, especially if you know some basic cost saving techniques like reserved instances or not using instances at all (Lambda, Fargate, S3 and other on-demand services/their Google equivalents can cover a lot of needs nowadays).

nikisweeting 7y ago

Having done both rack server and cloud... I honestly prefer the rack server. Power is cheap in my area, we have fiber, and I like being able to buy an SSD on Amazon for $100 and walk over and slide it in without having to pay an ongoing increased monthly rate. Uptime isn't as good but that's fine if the stuff isn't critical.