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At the scale imgix is going for, and given they're already doing a lot of custom architecture work, something like Supermicro's GPGPU chassis [1] would allow th

At the scale imgix is going for, and given they're already doing a lot of custom architecture work, something like Supermicro's GPGPU chassis [1] would allow the same server density, plus use GPUs and CPUs that are 1-2 generations ahead of Apple's offerings. Regarding raw images, you don't need OS X servers to do that, just programs that can read the raw formats. That could be a windows box, or an OpenCL-enabled program like darktable [2]. Really the biggest issue here is engineering time for porting the app, and given the costs of the hardware they're using, I'd take a good hard look at how long it would take to port the software; I'd bet that they'd save money after deploying a few boxes. [1] http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2u/2028/SYS-2028GR-TRT.cfm http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2u/2028/SYS-2028GR... [2] https://www.darktable.org/ https://www.darktable.org/

mozumder 11y ago
Every raw image processor is different. You could use a different raw processor (which would complicate a client workflow), but the results would look different from the native OS X client raw image processor. If you want a solution that exactly matches OS X client, you need OS X.
skuhn 11y ago
(I'm the datacenter manager at imgix, and I wrote this article) I mentioned this elsewhere, but considering alternative solutions was definitely a part of this project. Supermicro's GPGPU chassis was one of them, as well as some of the 2U FatTwin options (which we use for all of our other system types). While it would probably have long term cost savings, it definitely isn't something that we could realize within deploying just a few systems. It would be a pretty time and labor intensive process on the software side, in order to save labor on the operations side that isn't particularly problematic for us. So, maybe in another few generations of our image renderers this will make sense, but it doesn't today.

mozumder 11y ago

Every raw image processor is different. You could use a different raw processor (which would complicate a client workflow), but the results would look different from the native OS X client raw image processor. If you want a solution that exactly matches OS X client, you need OS X.

skuhn 11y ago

(I'm the datacenter manager at imgix, and I wrote this article) I mentioned this elsewhere, but considering alternative solutions was definitely a part of this project. Supermicro's GPGPU chassis was one of them, as well as some of the 2U FatTwin options (which we use for all of our other system types). While it would probably have long term cost savings, it definitely isn't something that we could realize within deploying just a few systems. It would be a pretty time and labor intensive process on the software side, in order to save labor on the operations side that isn't particularly problematic for us. So, maybe in another few generations of our image renderers this will make sense, but it doesn't today.