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Thanks for pointing that out. Which makes me think it is better to have Oxide approach instead of something like OCP. It seems to only really benefit large orga

Thanks for pointing that out. Which makes me think it is better to have Oxide approach instead of something like OCP. It seems to only really benefit large organisations.

p_l 3y ago
OCP and Oxide two different but not exclusive approaches. There are vendors providing different levels of integration, including groups that will ship you turneky systems akin to Oxide (or AWS Outpost). Those might depend on OCP Standards to provide higher level of integration than integrating normal HW solutions. Starts at integrating somewhat individual components, going through fill racks, to entire data center standards or designs for Modular Data Centers which you can load onto a truck, deliver to location, hook up and have them working (some might remember Sun containerised datacenter thing, which arguably reminds me of bigger Oxide rack in some ways) Similarly some bits designed for OCP (or hosted by OCP) contribute to wider environment, like OpenBMC, OCP Mezzanine cards
- bcantrill 3y ago
  That's exactly right. OCP is an important effort because it encourages all of these things. (And that it has been more encouraging of software in the last few years is a step in the right direction -- but it is still broadly disappointing on the open firmware front.) Another concrete example to add to the ones you listed: we are using the presence of the OCP DC-SCM connector[0] in next-gen AMD dev boards to be able to have our service processor[1] be able to control many aspects of the SoC before we have our own boards taped out. All of that said: it remains true that going ODM-direct really isn't possible for all but the largest buyers -- and even then, it is a big upfront investment in terms of both capital and engineering time. (And one remains entirely on one's own for software!) So while we are appreciative and supportive of OCP, we also very much believe that there's room for the kind of turnkey solution that Oxide offers. [0] https://www.opencompute.org/documents/ocp-dc-scm-spec-rev-1-0-pdf https://www.opencompute.org/documents/ocp-dc-scm-spec-rev-1-... [1] https://oxide.computer/blog/hubris-and-humility https://oxide.computer/blog/hubris-and-humility

Thanks for pointing that out. Which makes me think it is better to have Oxide approach instead of something like OCP. It seems to only really benefit large organisations.

p_l 3y ago

OCP and Oxide two different but not exclusive approaches. There are vendors providing different levels of integration, including groups that will ship you turneky systems akin to Oxide (or AWS Outpost). Those might depend on OCP Standards to provide higher level of integration than integrating normal HW solutions. Starts at integrating somewhat individual components, going through fill racks, to entire data center standards or designs for Modular Data Centers which you can load onto a truck, deliver to location, hook up and have them working (some might remember Sun containerised datacenter thing, which arguably reminds me of bigger Oxide rack in some ways) Similarly some bits designed for OCP (or hosted by OCP) contribute to wider environment, like OpenBMC, OCP Mezzanine cards

bcantrill 3y ago
That's exactly right. OCP is an important effort because it encourages all of these things. (And that it has been more encouraging of software in the last few years is a step in the right direction -- but it is still broadly disappointing on the open firmware front.) Another concrete example to add to the ones you listed: we are using the presence of the OCP DC-SCM connector[0] in next-gen AMD dev boards to be able to have our service processor[1] be able to control many aspects of the SoC before we have our own boards taped out. All of that said: it remains true that going ODM-direct really isn't possible for all but the largest buyers -- and even then, it is a big upfront investment in terms of both capital and engineering time. (And one remains entirely on one's own for software!) So while we are appreciative and supportive of OCP, we also very much believe that there's room for the kind of turnkey solution that Oxide offers. [0] https://www.opencompute.org/documents/ocp-dc-scm-spec-rev-1-0-pdf https://www.opencompute.org/documents/ocp-dc-scm-spec-rev-1-... [1] https://oxide.computer/blog/hubris-and-humility https://oxide.computer/blog/hubris-and-humility