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Not really. More like one of those 8U blade boxes which holds >16 servers and reduces cabling by including a backplane - but extended to a full rack. They have

Not really. More like one of those 8U blade boxes which holds >16 servers and reduces cabling by including a backplane - but extended to a full rack. They have made a lot of fuss about the "hardware root of trust", but that seems more like a fetish of the founders than something regular customers are asking for. Personally I am more interested in the software stack - a much simpler Openstack alternative is very welcome, as long as I can use my own hardware.

panick21_ 3y ago
You laptop and your phone have hardware roots of trust. All the big cloud vendors have it. Developing modern hardware without it would be insane and irresponsible. If I am gone invest many millions into infrastructure, you better expect that I expect some basic safety features.
- rini17 3y ago
  You mean like MS Azure had? Your expectations clearly aren't relevant for them.
- CapeTheory 3y ago
  I guess you just made my point for me - a hardware root of trust is commonplace in modern computing, so I don't really get why they spent so much time talking about it.
  - zaphirplane 3y ago
    > than something regular customers are asking for. >> is commonplace You are saying it is both table stakes and no one wants it. Ok. Wonder what the 3rd comment will say
    - CapeTheory 3y ago
      I didn't say no-one wants it, just that no-one is asking for it - which is exactly what you would expect for a component which is already a standard part of server hardware.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    They have a podcast that talks about a lot of different parts of their product. Lots of part of their product are 'common place' that doesn't mean that talking about the specific approach they took can't be interesting. Just because other things have root-of-trust, doesn't mean they can't be improved. And of course having a fully open source root of trust isn't common, specially not servers. Of all the things, they have actually not talked about the hardware root of trust itself that much. There is no full podcast on only the root of trust. Compared to things like boot fireware, VM migration, network design and so on and so on. What they have talked more about is system firmware in general, including their embedded OS. Partly why the chip they used for root-of-trust came up is because they found multiple bugs in that chip. Turns out secure silicon is really hard, and if you don't have secure silicon you don't have a great hardware root-of-trust. Pretty much everything with Oxide is, generally do what the industry has done before and uses, they just want to do it better and more open. And root-of-trust is one example of that. I actually wish they would talk about it more, as they have not shared much. I think they have mentioned it will be part of some podcast episode sometimes.
    - CapeTheory 3y ago
      Ok thanks, sounds like I should finally check out this podcast. Instances where I have seen the hardware root of trust mentioned were all on Twitter I think.
      - panick21_ 3y ago
        Here is a talk that mentions a little bit about the firmware and mentions something they do with the Root-of-Trust: https://vimeo.com/877092565 https://vimeo.com/877092565 A few different podcast episodes about the product: Storage: Oxide and Friends 2/12/2024 -- Crucible: Oxide Storage OS: Oxide and Friends 1/29/2024 -- Helios Virtualization: Oxide and Friends 6/12/2023 -- Virtualizing Time Networking: Oxide and Friends 2/27/2023 -- Rack-scale Networking Boot: Twitter Space 10/10/2022 -- Holistic Boot Firmware: Twitter Space 12/13/2021 -- The Pragmatism of Hubris Switch: Twitter Space 11/29/2021 -- The Sidecar Switch As mentioned, there is no podcast about the design Hardware Root of Trust yet.
solarkraft 3y ago
> but that seems more like a fetish of the founders than something regular customers are asking for The whole company does, to me. But that may be due to their publications being so engineering focused.

panick21_ 3y ago

You laptop and your phone have hardware roots of trust. All the big cloud vendors have it. Developing modern hardware without it would be insane and irresponsible. If I am gone invest many millions into infrastructure, you better expect that I expect some basic safety features.

rini17 3y ago
You mean like MS Azure had? Your expectations clearly aren't relevant for them.
CapeTheory 3y ago
I guess you just made my point for me - a hardware root of trust is commonplace in modern computing, so I don't really get why they spent so much time talking about it.
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  > than something regular customers are asking for. >> is commonplace You are saying it is both table stakes and no one wants it. Ok. Wonder what the 3rd comment will say
  - CapeTheory 3y ago
    I didn't say no-one wants it, just that no-one is asking for it - which is exactly what you would expect for a component which is already a standard part of server hardware.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  They have a podcast that talks about a lot of different parts of their product. Lots of part of their product are 'common place' that doesn't mean that talking about the specific approach they took can't be interesting. Just because other things have root-of-trust, doesn't mean they can't be improved. And of course having a fully open source root of trust isn't common, specially not servers. Of all the things, they have actually not talked about the hardware root of trust itself that much. There is no full podcast on only the root of trust. Compared to things like boot fireware, VM migration, network design and so on and so on. What they have talked more about is system firmware in general, including their embedded OS. Partly why the chip they used for root-of-trust came up is because they found multiple bugs in that chip. Turns out secure silicon is really hard, and if you don't have secure silicon you don't have a great hardware root-of-trust. Pretty much everything with Oxide is, generally do what the industry has done before and uses, they just want to do it better and more open. And root-of-trust is one example of that. I actually wish they would talk about it more, as they have not shared much. I think they have mentioned it will be part of some podcast episode sometimes.
  - CapeTheory 3y ago
    Ok thanks, sounds like I should finally check out this podcast. Instances where I have seen the hardware root of trust mentioned were all on Twitter I think.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Here is a talk that mentions a little bit about the firmware and mentions something they do with the Root-of-Trust: https://vimeo.com/877092565 https://vimeo.com/877092565 A few different podcast episodes about the product: Storage: Oxide and Friends 2/12/2024 -- Crucible: Oxide Storage OS: Oxide and Friends 1/29/2024 -- Helios Virtualization: Oxide and Friends 6/12/2023 -- Virtualizing Time Networking: Oxide and Friends 2/27/2023 -- Rack-scale Networking Boot: Twitter Space 10/10/2022 -- Holistic Boot Firmware: Twitter Space 12/13/2021 -- The Pragmatism of Hubris Switch: Twitter Space 11/29/2021 -- The Sidecar Switch As mentioned, there is no podcast about the design Hardware Root of Trust yet.

solarkraft 3y ago

> but that seems more like a fetish of the founders than something regular customers are asking for The whole company does, to me. But that may be due to their publications being so engineering focused.