5 ms·

How is this even possible for $35? 50 staging servers per seat ($1450 Value) 11GB RAM per server 8 CPUs per server

colinchartier 6y ago
We spent six months developing a hypervisor that lets us treat any linux VM as a lambda - We pass on the efficiency to our users as a value add.
- lasdfas 6y ago
  You should probably be selling that if it works well. That is something I have not seen.
  - deadbunny 6y ago
    <mostly sarcastic> Bakevm with tooling > create userdata script for cloud init to copy payload to server > create systemd oneshot service to run payload && shutdown
    - colinchartier 6y ago
      You should try it! Our baking interface looks more like Docker than a traditional VM provision (ala Packer) Also, we keep the baked images around for a week and trigger them whenever they are requested (with, say, HTTP, or terminal access)
    - lasdfas 6y ago
      I may be misunderstanding the product, but it seems to be able to run a webserver on each "server".
- lykr0n 6y ago
  More info on that would be cool. Something like Amazon's FireCracker?
  - colinchartier 6y ago
    Sort of - FireCracker is less suited for testing use-cases because it still cold-boots. We use the same kernel features that let laptops resume when the lid is opened instead, they're less mature for production but much faster for staging and testing.
    - lykr0n 6y ago
      Ah. VMware does something similar for hot provisioning VMs from a point in time memory snapshot. So you guys boot the image in the background, then capture a memory dump of it so you can quickly launch VMs from that snapshot? Or you boot the VMs the traditional way the first time, and then just suspend them when not in use?
      - colinchartier 6y ago
        We do even more, we take snapshots as the "Layerfile" runs - this basically lets you merge the memory dump semantics you mention with the interface of Docker. Also, we monitor which files are read by any step in the process, and let you skip setup chunks that don't need to run (i.e., installing libraries) without needing to micromanage what files you copy into the staging server.
        lykr0n 6y ago
        Man that sounds cool. I don't have any use for something like that, but I would love to see it opensourced to play with it (which I assume you guys won't be doing anytime soon)
    - TechBro8615 6y ago
      Are you using socket activation or something similar? I think there are really interesting use cases around that paradigm for packing services onto one host. Some blog posts I remember from when I was exploring this idea a few years ago: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers... https://www.ctl.io/developers/blog/post/running-drupal-in-linux-containers-but-not-docker-on-pantheon https://www.ctl.io/developers/blog/post/running-drupal-in-li...
- mike_d 6y ago
  Why are you trying to tackle some small little market of staging servers for the handful of companies that actually care about this? Take your Hypervisor and sell it to companies that want to efficiently lift-and-shift legacy systems in to the cloud and make your investors super happy.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

We spent six months developing a hypervisor that lets us treat any linux VM as a lambda - We pass on the efficiency to our users as a value add.

lasdfas 6y ago
You should probably be selling that if it works well. That is something I have not seen.
- deadbunny 6y ago
  <mostly sarcastic> Bakevm with tooling > create userdata script for cloud init to copy payload to server > create systemd oneshot service to run payload && shutdown
  - colinchartier 6y ago
    You should try it! Our baking interface looks more like Docker than a traditional VM provision (ala Packer) Also, we keep the baked images around for a week and trigger them whenever they are requested (with, say, HTTP, or terminal access)
  - lasdfas 6y ago
    I may be misunderstanding the product, but it seems to be able to run a webserver on each "server".
lykr0n 6y ago
More info on that would be cool. Something like Amazon's FireCracker?
- colinchartier 6y ago
  Sort of - FireCracker is less suited for testing use-cases because it still cold-boots. We use the same kernel features that let laptops resume when the lid is opened instead, they're less mature for production but much faster for staging and testing.
  - lykr0n 6y ago
    Ah. VMware does something similar for hot provisioning VMs from a point in time memory snapshot. So you guys boot the image in the background, then capture a memory dump of it so you can quickly launch VMs from that snapshot? Or you boot the VMs the traditional way the first time, and then just suspend them when not in use?
    - colinchartier 6y ago
      We do even more, we take snapshots as the "Layerfile" runs - this basically lets you merge the memory dump semantics you mention with the interface of Docker. Also, we monitor which files are read by any step in the process, and let you skip setup chunks that don't need to run (i.e., installing libraries) without needing to micromanage what files you copy into the staging server.
      - lykr0n 6y ago
        Man that sounds cool. I don't have any use for something like that, but I would love to see it opensourced to play with it (which I assume you guys won't be doing anytime soon)
  - TechBro8615 6y ago
    Are you using socket activation or something similar? I think there are really interesting use cases around that paradigm for packing services onto one host. Some blog posts I remember from when I was exploring this idea a few years ago: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers... https://www.ctl.io/developers/blog/post/running-drupal-in-linux-containers-but-not-docker-on-pantheon https://www.ctl.io/developers/blog/post/running-drupal-in-li...
mike_d 6y ago
Why are you trying to tackle some small little market of staging servers for the handful of companies that actually care about this? Take your Hypervisor and sell it to companies that want to efficiently lift-and-shift legacy systems in to the cloud and make your investors super happy.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]