Rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond: Oracle launches rugged edge-of-network box for hostile environments

Oracle has launched a rugged computer-filled box which users should feel comfortable dropping from a 1.2m height but no more than 26 times. What Big Red calls the Roving Edge Device is a 40-core, 512GB RAM, 61TB storage machine that can take Oracle's cloud where there is no cloud. The point of the "ruggedized, portable, …

[Anonymous Coward]

What's old is new again.

Imagine that, local computing.

[Potemkine!]

Re: What's old is new again.

"Edge computing", the new frontier!

Gonna love Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What's old is new again.

Yeah, what's next, a "personal" computer that sits on every worker's desk??

[PM.]

Re: What's old is new again.

You mean personal desktop cloud ?

[Mike 137]

Re: What's old is new again.

Imagine that, local computing

The difference is that this one's leased.

Oh.... so were mainframes, weren't they.

[stiine]

Re: What's old is new again.

No, but they were quite expensive.

[Chris G]

Salt fog resistant

So it's rugged enough to operate in the San Francisco Bay area or Newcastle?

[Rob Daglish]

Re: Salt fog resistant

I once went on a stag do in Pagan Geordieland in the middle of winter, and believe me, there is nothing rugged enough to stand up to that... except some of the lasses who were wearing slightly less fabric than you need to make a handkerchief in weather that even polar bears were describing as "a bit parky"!

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Salt fog resistant

Been there, seen that. Some of the skirts were just wide belts.

What I don't understand is how they managed to walk in high heels on ice.

[Terry 6]

Stuck on the side

I hope it comes with a sheet of paper and a pencil, to keep a tally of how many times it's been dropped. Or would that be an optional extra?

[seven of five]

Re: Stuck on the side

With Oracle? Guess...

Obviously, you may bring your own pencil and paper IF you pay them a licence fee to do so.

[katrinab]

Re: Stuck on the side

And you have to licence it for every single pencil in your organisation or carried in by visitors, regardless of whether it is used on this paper-database.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Stuck on the side

> I hope it comes with a sheet of paper and a pencil, to keep a tally of how many times it's been dropped. Or would that be an optional extra?

You misunderstand: this version of Oracle only allows 26 executions of the "drop table" command and then it requires a factory restore and a new license payment.

[stiine]

Re: Stuck on the side

OMG, that's just evil...

[Detective Emil]

Not true without picture

I eventually found one, although not on Oracle's site. It looks like a 2U server in a Puffa jacket. Cute.

[chrisw67]

Re: Not true without picture

I had something like that for a project: it did not survive the first deployment before a forklift neatly pierced it in transit. Didn't drop it once though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not true without picture

That looks more like a Photoshopped illustration, no way it has 40 CPUs and 61TB storage.

[Mark #255]

Re: Not true without picture

40 cores, which could be done with a single AMD processor, or 2 xeons. 61 TB can be supplied by 4 HDDs, and 512 GB is 8 sticks of 64 GB (or 4 sticks of 128 GB, but that's even pricier).

[-tim]

Price seems low for Oracle.

Prices start at $160 a day per node so $58,400 per year for non-leap years. It looks like someone thinks the Department of Defense should buy Larry another yacht.

[chrisw67]

Re: Price seems low for Oracle.

"Each box can be set up in groups of five to 15 nodes for a single cluster," so "from" $292,000 to $876,000 p.a. Starting to sound more like big red now.

[Anonymous Coward]

For hostile environments

Like IT shops trying to migrate off Oracle?

[seven of five]

Re: For hostile environments

Not THAT hostile. Regular hostile, think "Australian fauna on a medicore morning"

[amanfromMars 1]

FUD Meets its Matches and Nemeses in an ACTive Autonomous AIResistance.

RED ORE for SALT fog resistance sounds like something a bellicose military might and/or a smarter intelligent mite would be both interested in mining and anxious about being delivered for further refining enrichment even to the friendliest of allies, let alone discovering private and pirate enterprises are able to supply it already suitably well processed to generous clients in alien lands for hostile environment use in foreign territories with disputed contentious areas of a potentially explosive energy and powerful nature.

Such would buy a Larry much more than just another super flying yacht. Of that you can be certainly sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ...Matches... ...AIResistance.

Larry needs IT no more, but us mortals need a place on planet Home

0ne above the surface, if possible (-:

[Kevin McMurtrie]

salty fog *

I imagine something loaded with computational power and forged in the depths of Oracle burns hot like lava. That could be a problem in salt spray, which becomes solid salt when you warm it up. Surely 61 TB is enough room for Oracle's environmental requirements, licensing agreement, terms and conditions, user manual, NDA, warranty exclusions, and mandatory product service tiers to clear up any questions.

[Vocational Vagabond]

Re: salty fog *

one suggests said 'salty fog *', is caused by the 'Network Admin' that has to provision the instal . .

[Andy Denton]

Nice Metallica reference!

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Pah!

It is ruggedized to comply with militaryMars standard

Now, that's rugged.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

1.2m height but no more than 26 times

I suppose dropping it once from 31.2m voids the warranty.

[seven of five]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

F=m*a^2, so certainly, yes.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

Erm, F=m*a

[seven of five]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

Well, makes a lot more sense. Sheeh, damn.

Where did a^2 come to play, drag?

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

> Where did a^2 come to play, drag?

Because you thought of E = m * v^2 / 2, maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

What happens at 27 drops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 1.2m height but no more than 26 times

Turn the blotter around and start from the opposite corner.

[Down not across]

RED

Can't think of RED without thinking of Marvin. He'd make short work of that puny little box.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Line of fire

Fanatical enemy trying their best to kill you on one side, Oracle Licencing Audit on the other.

If I were in a combat zone, I know which I'd prefer

[herman]

No clouds

For cloudless areas, eh? Sounds like they designed it for Saudi Arabia.

[Greybeard_ITGuy]

Headbangers rejoice!

No comment on the article, just a thumbs up for quoting Metallica!