On: The Cloud Computer

[wmat]

What am I missing here? Hasn't SoftIron been building this exact thing for around 5 years? Heck, they design and manufacture all of the hardware as well.

https://softiron.com/hypercloud/

https://softiron.com/blog/run-bmc-why-we-decided-to-build-ou...

[qaq → wmat]

Not being familiar with SoftIron but I would imagine there can be more than one company working in a given niche? Why would it be surprising?

[Aachen → qaq]

The blog says they're the first

[bobthecowboy → Aachen]

Correct. I work at SoftIron. We have several HyperCloud systems in production right now. SI has been shipping purpose-built storage systems for years as the root-comment suggests, but HyperCloud (which is closer to Oxide's product) has been in production systems in defense, banking, internationally for well over a year now.

[Always_Anon → bobthecowboy]

Oxides biggest selling point is the API, which can be manipulated with Terraform. I see no SoftIron Terraform plugin.

[bobthecowboy → Always_Anon]

We do have a Terraform plugin in active development. It's good enough that I use it every day, but in fairness it isn't released yet.

Our API is also under active development, but it is open source today:

https://github.com/SoftIron/hypercloud-api

Go bindings included, other languages are under discussion.

[Always_Anon → bobthecowboy]

Your webpage is an ocean of marketing fluff and buzzwords. It's not clear that you have a product that competes with Oxide. It's not even clear how you're different than Dell or HP.

[glandium → bobthecowboy]

It looks like SoftIron is not shipping a rack in a single box, though.

[bobthecowboy → glandium]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

I believe our smallest configuration is 5 servers and a few switches.

[glandium → bobthecowboy]

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38026306 and other related threads. Oxide's product is a rack you plug in and you're done. You don't have to rack a bunch of servers yourself and cable them.

[jrexilius → wmat]

Thanks for pointing this out! I wasn't aware of SoftIron. I think its a big deal that there are two vendors on this path. And both seem to be doing it the right way. I think it makes the whole, stronger than the sum.