4 ms·

Pretty much "let's redo datacenter hardware from the ground up for current requirements, cutting off legacy things we don't need anymore"

by detaro 5y ago

jeffbee 5y ago
But the BMC would be the #1 item on my list of "things I don't need any more". How do you come up with a scratch legacy-free universe that still includes BMCs?
- panick21_ 5y ago
  That's exactly what they are doing. The are removing as many thing from the BMC as possible. It only contains a few things, it boots and hand over and allows for some remote control of the low level. That's it.
- p_l 5y ago
  Because BMC is a term for function (which turns out to be very useful and important) not a specific technology (I like the tongue in cheek "totally not a BMC" used by some people from Oxide)
- detaro 5y ago
  You don't need low-level remote management anymore? Or what specifically are you associating with the term "BMC"? (i.e. for me, "BMC" is "turn it off and on and force it to boot from network, remotely")
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Correct. The larger my installation becomes, the less I care about the state of individual machines. The ability to promptly remediate a single broken machine becomes irrelevant at scale.
    - detaro 5y ago
      So if a machine behaves odd/goes away and its OS doesn't respond you don't want management plane to be able to redeploy it/run hardware checks/... automatically?
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        If you put it that way you make it too simple. The question is whether I want a second, smaller computer inside my larger computer that may at any time corrupt memory, monkey with network frames, turn off the power, assert PROCHOT, or do a million other bad things. It's not just a tool with benefits. It has both benefits and risks, and in my experience the risks are not worth those benefits.
        detaro 5y ago
        but we are talking in the context of a project which specifically aims to do these things without the baggage of other platforms. And these things are BMC functions.
        p_l 5y ago
        So, you manage computers using crashcarts like in ugly old days of PC servers? I thought that had considerable issue with scaling...
        jeffbee 5y ago
        I guess you thought wrong. What do you think this hardware tech is doing in this video? https://youtu.be/XZmGGAbHqa0?t=224 https://youtu.be/XZmGGAbHqa0?t=224 Men with carts scale perfectly. One guy can manage 1000 machines. 2 guys can manage 2000. Perfect scaling.
        p_l 5y ago
        I see no crashcart there, only hw maintenance while crashcarts are where they belong, in the trash of history (yeah, google servers have BMCs) (For reference: a crash cart is a cart with monitor, keyboard, mouse, cabling for them, and possibly external drives to help you install base OS, used for when you have no remote management)

Pretty much "let's redo datacenter hardware from the ground up for current requirements, cutting off legacy things we don't need anymore"

by detaro 5y ago

Pretty much "let's redo datacenter hardware from the ground up for current requirements, cutting off legacy things we don't need anymore"

jeffbee 5y ago

But the BMC would be the #1 item on my list of "things I don't need any more". How do you come up with a scratch legacy-free universe that still includes BMCs?

panick21_ 5y ago
That's exactly what they are doing. The are removing as many thing from the BMC as possible. It only contains a few things, it boots and hand over and allows for some remote control of the low level. That's it.
p_l 5y ago
Because BMC is a term for function (which turns out to be very useful and important) not a specific technology (I like the tongue in cheek "totally not a BMC" used by some people from Oxide)
detaro 5y ago
You don't need low-level remote management anymore? Or what specifically are you associating with the term "BMC"? (i.e. for me, "BMC" is "turn it off and on and force it to boot from network, remotely")
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Correct. The larger my installation becomes, the less I care about the state of individual machines. The ability to promptly remediate a single broken machine becomes irrelevant at scale.
  - detaro 5y ago
    So if a machine behaves odd/goes away and its OS doesn't respond you don't want management plane to be able to redeploy it/run hardware checks/... automatically?
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      If you put it that way you make it too simple. The question is whether I want a second, smaller computer inside my larger computer that may at any time corrupt memory, monkey with network frames, turn off the power, assert PROCHOT, or do a million other bad things. It's not just a tool with benefits. It has both benefits and risks, and in my experience the risks are not worth those benefits.
      - detaro 5y ago
        but we are talking in the context of a project which specifically aims to do these things without the baggage of other platforms. And these things are BMC functions.
      - p_l 5y ago
        So, you manage computers using crashcarts like in ugly old days of PC servers? I thought that had considerable issue with scaling...
        jeffbee 5y ago
        I guess you thought wrong. What do you think this hardware tech is doing in this video? https://youtu.be/XZmGGAbHqa0?t=224 https://youtu.be/XZmGGAbHqa0?t=224 Men with carts scale perfectly. One guy can manage 1000 machines. 2 guys can manage 2000. Perfect scaling.
        p_l 5y ago
        I see no crashcart there, only hw maintenance while crashcarts are where they belong, in the trash of history (yeah, google servers have BMCs) (For reference: a crash cart is a cart with monitor, keyboard, mouse, cabling for them, and possibly external drives to help you install base OS, used for when you have no remote management)