7 ms·

It appears to be an all in one, preconfigured/partially-or-completely assembled rack server for on-prem hosting, complete with pre-configured software. Just my

by junon 3y ago

It appears to be an all in one, preconfigured/partially-or-completely assembled rack server for on-prem hosting, complete with pre-configured software. Just my perception given the front page. I agree it's a bit vague.

7thaccount 3y ago
They have been on HN numerous times over the years iirc. But yeah, I had completely forgotten what they did and had to read through all of it.
nithril 3y ago
If it is on-prem, calling it "cloud" computer is imho misleading / marketing term.
- steve1977 3y ago
  Absolutely. The point of cloud computing is that I don't have to care where something is running and that I (theoretically) have infinite elasticity and can scale in and out as fast and much as I need to. None of that applies here.
  - dist1ll 3y ago
    This server is for cloud operators - i.e. for organizations that are building their own cloud infrastructure. That's why Oxide is drawing comparisons to hyperscalers.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      If you are building your own cloud infrastructure, you're not doing cloud computing. Unless you rent it out and are a cloud provider, but the website at least does not seem to target those.
      - growse 3y ago
        Nonsense. The operative bit of "cloud" is "provision and de-provision instantly via an API, without much concern for what's going on inderneath", not "lives in someone else's datacenter".
        steve1977 3y ago
        It’s called cloud because it’s not in your own data center. Usually cloud symbols were used in network diagrams to depict systems/networks outside of our concern. Also you could don’t really get elasticity with a system like this. If anything, that would be the operative bit for me.
        vidarh 3y ago
        That was the case ~15+ years ago. Private cloud has been a term for the majority of that time to evoke the elasticity and virtualisation without the "not in your own data center" bit, because to most users of a cloud the operative bit is that they don't have to worry about where the computer is or talk to someone to provision one, not whether it sits in the corporate data centre or off at Amazon. Hybrid clouds even means devs might not know whether it sits in the corporate data centre or a public cloud, because it could be either/or depending on current capacity. > Also you could don’t really get elasticity with a system like this. If anything, that would be the operative bit for me. "You" as in "the organisation as a whole" don't get elasticity. "You" as in "your department" or "you as an individual" do get elasticity.
        ninkendo 3y ago
        > "You" as in "the organisation as a whole" don't get elasticity. "You" as in "your department" or "you as an individual" do get elasticity. Right, but to the degree that you get elasticity, it starts to look more and more like "someone else's computer", no? If multiple people/departments/etc are provisioning virtual instances on one shared cloud infra, with nobody who's using the provisioning API caring about the underlying capacity (and capacity is planned indirectly by forecasting, etc), then it really starts to sound like "someone else's computer" to me. That "someone else" just happens to be another org within the same company.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > Absolutely. The point of cloud computing is that I don't have to care where something is running and that I (theoretically) have infinite elasticity and can scale in and out as fast and much as I need to. Define "I"? I-as-developer can call an VMware/OpenStack API with an on-prem/private cloud and get a new instance just as easily as calling an AWS API. I-as-developer does not have to worry about elasticity if the IT hardware folks have the capacity.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      Private cloud is a marketing misnomer.
      - throw0101a 3y ago
        I'm sure all the folks running OpenStack in-house, including NASA and CERN, would disagree. From a developer's perspective an API call is an API call, and to them it's just another instance.
      - zeckalpha 3y ago
        VPC doubly so then.
  - spamizbad 3y ago
    How much you care depends on your role. As an engineer, an Oxide system works like any other cloud provider. You’re just interacting with its API and tooling like you would with Google Cloud or AWS. To someone on the IT/Operations side, obviously there are differences but theres SIGNIFICANTLY less labor required to build-out and operate an Oxide system vs a rack full of servers. The biggest difference for these people is that there’s actual hardware vs a Cloud Provider, but also costs are fixed so there’s likely no monthly or quarterly meetings with finance arguing over the cloud bill, tying people up to try and shave a few thousand off the bill every month. In finance/accounting, Oxide is probably the most different: now compute is CapEx rather than OpEx. Depending on your company’s stage that can be a wonderful thing for the bean counters.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      > To someone on the IT/Operations side, obviously there are differences but theres SIGNIFICANTLY less labor required to build-out and operate an Oxide system vs a rack full of servers. But it’s also gonna be much more restricted. So I guess one could see as kind of “Apple for data centers”? Have a nice appliance and be happy as long as it runs as it should (but hope it never stops working as it should).
- vidarh 3y ago
  Every "cloud" computer is on-prem for someone, and "private cloud" has been a term for at least a decade to refer to "API-based provisioning of resources like with a cloud but in your own data centre/office" that may not be "technically" a cloud but carries the meaning clearly for anyone in the business. What they're selling is building blocks for private/hybrid/public clusters that may or may not fit your definition of cloud depending on where they happen to be located but where what the term signifies is that it is built to be a building block of a cloud setup that includes features above and beyond a "regular" server to provide what most people tend to associate with a cloud. That is, you're getting APIs to spawn virtualized compute and storage, rather than having to install a hypervisor and management APIs etc. and combine the resources into a cohesive whole yourself. My guess is that most of them will end up being sold to either hosting providers to provide cloud services to their customers or companies large enough to operate their own data centres where the IT department will use them to offer cloud services to other parts of the business, where the term really is not misleading anyone. It's too big even for most "private clouds" in smaller companies, because they tend to be too small to be able to order by the rack even when there are APIs etc. offered to developers to provision compute and storage (e.g. years ago I used to operate a hybrid cloud setup with a ~1000 or so VM instances across several countries, and while we had several racks worth of gear we physically owned in aggregate, we didn't have any full racks in any individual location).

by junon 3y ago

7thaccount 3y ago

They have been on HN numerous times over the years iirc. But yeah, I had completely forgotten what they did and had to read through all of it.

nithril 3y ago

If it is on-prem, calling it "cloud" computer is imho misleading / marketing term.

steve1977 3y ago
Absolutely. The point of cloud computing is that I don't have to care where something is running and that I (theoretically) have infinite elasticity and can scale in and out as fast and much as I need to. None of that applies here.
- dist1ll 3y ago
  This server is for cloud operators - i.e. for organizations that are building their own cloud infrastructure. That's why Oxide is drawing comparisons to hyperscalers.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    If you are building your own cloud infrastructure, you're not doing cloud computing. Unless you rent it out and are a cloud provider, but the website at least does not seem to target those.
    - growse 3y ago
      Nonsense. The operative bit of "cloud" is "provision and de-provision instantly via an API, without much concern for what's going on inderneath", not "lives in someone else's datacenter".
      - steve1977 3y ago
        It’s called cloud because it’s not in your own data center. Usually cloud symbols were used in network diagrams to depict systems/networks outside of our concern. Also you could don’t really get elasticity with a system like this. If anything, that would be the operative bit for me.
        vidarh 3y ago
        That was the case ~15+ years ago. Private cloud has been a term for the majority of that time to evoke the elasticity and virtualisation without the "not in your own data center" bit, because to most users of a cloud the operative bit is that they don't have to worry about where the computer is or talk to someone to provision one, not whether it sits in the corporate data centre or off at Amazon. Hybrid clouds even means devs might not know whether it sits in the corporate data centre or a public cloud, because it could be either/or depending on current capacity. > Also you could don’t really get elasticity with a system like this. If anything, that would be the operative bit for me. "You" as in "the organisation as a whole" don't get elasticity. "You" as in "your department" or "you as an individual" do get elasticity.
        ninkendo 3y ago
        > "You" as in "the organisation as a whole" don't get elasticity. "You" as in "your department" or "you as an individual" do get elasticity. Right, but to the degree that you get elasticity, it starts to look more and more like "someone else's computer", no? If multiple people/departments/etc are provisioning virtual instances on one shared cloud infra, with nobody who's using the provisioning API caring about the underlying capacity (and capacity is planned indirectly by forecasting, etc), then it really starts to sound like "someone else's computer" to me. That "someone else" just happens to be another org within the same company.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > Absolutely. The point of cloud computing is that I don't have to care where something is running and that I (theoretically) have infinite elasticity and can scale in and out as fast and much as I need to. Define "I"? I-as-developer can call an VMware/OpenStack API with an on-prem/private cloud and get a new instance just as easily as calling an AWS API. I-as-developer does not have to worry about elasticity if the IT hardware folks have the capacity.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    Private cloud is a marketing misnomer.
    - throw0101a 3y ago
      I'm sure all the folks running OpenStack in-house, including NASA and CERN, would disagree. From a developer's perspective an API call is an API call, and to them it's just another instance.
    - zeckalpha 3y ago
      VPC doubly so then.
- spamizbad 3y ago
  How much you care depends on your role. As an engineer, an Oxide system works like any other cloud provider. You’re just interacting with its API and tooling like you would with Google Cloud or AWS. To someone on the IT/Operations side, obviously there are differences but theres SIGNIFICANTLY less labor required to build-out and operate an Oxide system vs a rack full of servers. The biggest difference for these people is that there’s actual hardware vs a Cloud Provider, but also costs are fixed so there’s likely no monthly or quarterly meetings with finance arguing over the cloud bill, tying people up to try and shave a few thousand off the bill every month. In finance/accounting, Oxide is probably the most different: now compute is CapEx rather than OpEx. Depending on your company’s stage that can be a wonderful thing for the bean counters.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    > To someone on the IT/Operations side, obviously there are differences but theres SIGNIFICANTLY less labor required to build-out and operate an Oxide system vs a rack full of servers. But it’s also gonna be much more restricted. So I guess one could see as kind of “Apple for data centers”? Have a nice appliance and be happy as long as it runs as it should (but hope it never stops working as it should).
vidarh 3y ago
Every "cloud" computer is on-prem for someone, and "private cloud" has been a term for at least a decade to refer to "API-based provisioning of resources like with a cloud but in your own data centre/office" that may not be "technically" a cloud but carries the meaning clearly for anyone in the business. What they're selling is building blocks for private/hybrid/public clusters that may or may not fit your definition of cloud depending on where they happen to be located but where what the term signifies is that it is built to be a building block of a cloud setup that includes features above and beyond a "regular" server to provide what most people tend to associate with a cloud. That is, you're getting APIs to spawn virtualized compute and storage, rather than having to install a hypervisor and management APIs etc. and combine the resources into a cohesive whole yourself. My guess is that most of them will end up being sold to either hosting providers to provide cloud services to their customers or companies large enough to operate their own data centres where the IT department will use them to offer cloud services to other parts of the business, where the term really is not misleading anyone. It's too big even for most "private clouds" in smaller companies, because they tend to be too small to be able to order by the rack even when there are APIs etc. offered to developers to provision compute and storage (e.g. years ago I used to operate a hybrid cloud setup with a ~1000 or so VM instances across several countries, and while we had several racks worth of gear we physically owned in aggregate, we didn't have any full racks in any individual location).