Thursday, October 26th 2023
Oxide Unveils the World's First Commercial Cloud Computer
Oxide Computer Company today unveiled the world's first commercial Cloud Computer, a true rack-scale system with fully unified hardware and software designed for on-premises cloud computing. The company also announced a $44 million Series A financing round led by Eclipse with participation from Intel Capital, Riot Ventures, Counterpart Ventures, and Rally Ventures to accelerate production for Fortune 1000 enterprises. This brings the company's total financing raised to date to $78 million.
Despite the rapid rise of cloud computing, the vast majority of IT infrastructure today continues to live outside the public cloud in on-premises data centers, where enterprises are forced to cobble together a set of disjointed hardware and software components to run their businesses. Since its inception, Oxide's mission has been to solve this problem, developing the first unified product that delivers the developer experience and operational efficiencies of the public cloud to on-premises environments.
"Cloud computing has been at the foundation of digital transformation, and yet it remains restricted to a centralized, rental-only model. Every enterprise today has financial, security, latency, and reliability needs that require them to own their computing infrastructure and the rental-only model has denied them modern cloud capabilities for these use cases. We are changing that," said Steve Tuck, CEO and co-founder of Oxide.
"Oxide addresses the most urgent needs of stakeholders in enterprise IT. They have eliminated the trade-off between cloud and on-premises so enterprises can achieve cloud performance across every aspect of their business," said Andy Fligel, Senior Managing Director at Intel Capital. "Oxide makes it possible to 'own the cloud' instead of renting it—a concept that could shift the economics of cloud computing."
"Oxide essentially wrapped all the hopes and dreams of a software engineer, IT manager, and a CFO into a single box. It's best-in-class infrastructure with a clear and obvious ROI," said Will Coffield, Partner at Riot Ventures, an Oxide investor. "Oxide provides the first alternative to the public cloud that doesn't require any sacrifices. There is a massive market for this, and Oxide assembled an Avengers team to pull this off."
Unified Hardware & Software
Oxide recognized four years ago that to deliver a world-class cloud infrastructure product, every aspect of the hardware and software stack needed to be redesigned and rebuilt. Co-founders Steve Tuck and Bryan Cantrill, armed with decades of cloud infrastructure experience at Dell, Sun Microsystems, and Joyent, assembled a band of 60 veteran technologists skilled in software, mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineering to take on this challenge and transform the most fundamental corner of computing.
"After years of building cloud infrastructure, we knew firsthand the pain of on-premises deployments, and we knew that addressing these pain points would require taking on the entire problem of the rack-scale computer - hardware and software," said Bryan Cantrill, CTO and co-founder of Oxide. "While we were not the only ones to see this, many believed that the problem was too daunting for a new company: despite the large market, the conventional wisdom was that one simply couldn't find the investors and technologists necessary to fund, design, and build it. We had the audacity to prove that thinking to be wrong."
"Successfully combining rack-scale hardware innovations with deeply integrated cloud software is nothing short of a massive engineering feat—and one that can't be solved with a single engineering breakthrough alone," said Seth Winterroth, Partner at Eclipse. "The Oxide team meticulously rethought and re-tooled every single layer, node, and resource of the entire technology stack, from deep within hardware to the software interfaces. This milestone marks the start of a paradigm shift in the world of IT—Steve, Bryan, and the Oxide team are ushering in and defining an entirely new category in IT."
Instant IT Transformation
The Oxide Cloud Computer's networking, compute and storage capabilities are purpose-built to deliver hyperscale cloud computing to on-premises data centers. The Cloud Computer significantly improves energy efficiency over traditional servers; uses less space than traditional on-premises infrastructure; ships complete with all the software required to run full cloud computing services; and requires no assembly. The net result is that Oxide customers can go from rack install to developer availability in a matter of hours, compared to weeks or months.
Oxide empowers developers to build, run, and operate any application with enhanced security, latency, and control, and frees enterprises to up-level IT operations and accelerate strategic initiatives. Oxide customers include the Idaho National Laboratory as well as a global financial services organization. Additional installments at Fortune 1000 enterprises will be completed in the coming months.
To learn more about the Oxide Cloud Computer, visit oxide.computer.
About Oxide
Oxide Computer Company is the creator of the world's first commercial Cloud Computer, a true rack-scale system with fully unified hardware and software, purpose built to deliver hyperscale cloud computing to on-premises data centers. With Oxide, enterprises can fully realize the economic and operational benefits of cloud ownership, with access to the same self-service development experience of public cloud, without the public cloud cost. Oxide empowers developers to build, run and operate any application with enhanced security, latency, and control, and frees enterprises to up-level IT operations to accelerate strategic initiatives. Oxide customers include the Idaho National Laboratory as well as a global financial services firm. To learn more about Oxide's Cloud Computer, visit oxide.computer.
Despite the rapid rise of cloud computing, the vast majority of IT infrastructure today continues to live outside the public cloud in on-premises data centers, where enterprises are forced to cobble together a set of disjointed hardware and software components to run their businesses. Since its inception, Oxide's mission has been to solve this problem, developing the first unified product that delivers the developer experience and operational efficiencies of the public cloud to on-premises environments.
"Oxide addresses the most urgent needs of stakeholders in enterprise IT. They have eliminated the trade-off between cloud and on-premises so enterprises can achieve cloud performance across every aspect of their business," said Andy Fligel, Senior Managing Director at Intel Capital. "Oxide makes it possible to 'own the cloud' instead of renting it—a concept that could shift the economics of cloud computing."
"Oxide essentially wrapped all the hopes and dreams of a software engineer, IT manager, and a CFO into a single box. It's best-in-class infrastructure with a clear and obvious ROI," said Will Coffield, Partner at Riot Ventures, an Oxide investor. "Oxide provides the first alternative to the public cloud that doesn't require any sacrifices. There is a massive market for this, and Oxide assembled an Avengers team to pull this off."
Unified Hardware & Software
Oxide recognized four years ago that to deliver a world-class cloud infrastructure product, every aspect of the hardware and software stack needed to be redesigned and rebuilt. Co-founders Steve Tuck and Bryan Cantrill, armed with decades of cloud infrastructure experience at Dell, Sun Microsystems, and Joyent, assembled a band of 60 veteran technologists skilled in software, mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineering to take on this challenge and transform the most fundamental corner of computing.
"After years of building cloud infrastructure, we knew firsthand the pain of on-premises deployments, and we knew that addressing these pain points would require taking on the entire problem of the rack-scale computer - hardware and software," said Bryan Cantrill, CTO and co-founder of Oxide. "While we were not the only ones to see this, many believed that the problem was too daunting for a new company: despite the large market, the conventional wisdom was that one simply couldn't find the investors and technologists necessary to fund, design, and build it. We had the audacity to prove that thinking to be wrong."
"Successfully combining rack-scale hardware innovations with deeply integrated cloud software is nothing short of a massive engineering feat—and one that can't be solved with a single engineering breakthrough alone," said Seth Winterroth, Partner at Eclipse. "The Oxide team meticulously rethought and re-tooled every single layer, node, and resource of the entire technology stack, from deep within hardware to the software interfaces. This milestone marks the start of a paradigm shift in the world of IT—Steve, Bryan, and the Oxide team are ushering in and defining an entirely new category in IT."
Instant IT Transformation
The Oxide Cloud Computer's networking, compute and storage capabilities are purpose-built to deliver hyperscale cloud computing to on-premises data centers. The Cloud Computer significantly improves energy efficiency over traditional servers; uses less space than traditional on-premises infrastructure; ships complete with all the software required to run full cloud computing services; and requires no assembly. The net result is that Oxide customers can go from rack install to developer availability in a matter of hours, compared to weeks or months.
Oxide empowers developers to build, run, and operate any application with enhanced security, latency, and control, and frees enterprises to up-level IT operations and accelerate strategic initiatives. Oxide customers include the Idaho National Laboratory as well as a global financial services organization. Additional installments at Fortune 1000 enterprises will be completed in the coming months.
To learn more about the Oxide Cloud Computer, visit oxide.computer.
About Oxide
Oxide Computer Company is the creator of the world's first commercial Cloud Computer, a true rack-scale system with fully unified hardware and software, purpose built to deliver hyperscale cloud computing to on-premises data centers. With Oxide, enterprises can fully realize the economic and operational benefits of cloud ownership, with access to the same self-service development experience of public cloud, without the public cloud cost. Oxide empowers developers to build, run and operate any application with enhanced security, latency, and control, and frees enterprises to up-level IT operations to accelerate strategic initiatives. Oxide customers include the Idaho National Laboratory as well as a global financial services firm. To learn more about Oxide's Cloud Computer, visit oxide.computer.
7 Comments on Oxide Unveils the World's First Commercial Cloud Computer
I have not understood what is the real innovation of Oxide solution. From years already exists private companies that host our servers into their datacenters, what is the big difference ?
If I'm reading this, the entire goal seems to have people have access to a personal cloud computing network. Those amongst us older than Covid-19 pandemic would recognize this as having a networked set of computers...and a cloud software which obfuscates any hardware so that all data transactions are hosted in a "cloud." To be less obtuse...what in hades are these people actually offering? It sounds like their "innovation" is the software to put onto hardware...which is so silicon valley BS that I don't even know where to begin calling them out on selling a ham sandwich for a $30 premium because you call it a Croque Monsieur and want idiots to buy it.
I don't trust this company or this "news" to be anything more than a reprint of what the company put out. Lord knows that it's just begging you to ask to link to their website by providing contradictory and flowery descriptions...which is basically nerd bait. Sigh.
oxide.computer/blog/the-cloud-computer
They are:
1. Rack-level hardware sales.
2. Custom Networking gear
3. Racks are "blind mating",
All components immediately plug into the racks, no cables required. Once pushed in, they'll boot up, fully configured with default networking settings, power, etc. etc. etc.
4. "Personal Cloud" model. They want to sell you lots of racks so that you can build your own cloud easier than Dell / HP computers (which are server-based, rather than rack based, systems). IE: It should be easier to setup a 1x Oxide Rack rather than buying 40x Dell computers and trying to turn them all on correctly.
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This is actually really cool. It seems like they're automating away a lot of the difficult and annoying parts of servers. It all depends on the costs of course, but I can imagine a lot of innovation potential here. I'm still curious why they felt the need to build custom networking gear (I have to imagine that just running with a Cisco would have been easier...).
Cloud repatriation is building up steam (AWS is losing it's luster) so a lot of companies are wanting to build out private clouds but don't know how to implement them. They're architected quite a bit differenty (both software and hardware) to old-school DCs with rows of servers-in-racks.
For gigantic private clouds covering multiple datacenters across a continent you'll probably want to hire an infrastructure team to stand something like this up and keep it running. Hardware costs alone will be in the eight or nine digit range.
For smaller companies that aren't in the Fortune 100 it might be cheaper to buy a big Oxide rig like this and only have to hire a few specially trained engineers for it's care and feeding.