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Xbox As A Server Farm Commodity Box
ballpoint writes: "Yahoo has this story suggesting the Xbox as a cheap platform for a web server, by packaging Apache as a game. The article was written by Adam Barr, an ex-Microsoft employee who previously suggested running Linux on the Xbox. I suppose there are still more 'games' for the Xbox in the pipeline." With all the talk about making Dreamcasts into rendering farms, perhaps that would be a good application as well.
That would be a really cool app. Heck, having an sshable Linux install like the Cobalt Qube running on Xboxes would be awesome. Almost enough to make me buy one.
:)
And, obviously, if it could run Linux, then Linux could run apache. I suppose that just a web server would be good, but why think small? Use it for a cheap firewall or router. Run sendmail. Run RC5.
And, obviously, make a beowulf cluster of these.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If the content on the site has anything to do with the Microsoft X-Box, prepare to have a pack of lawyers land on you very quickly.
As I have said many times, true render farms need loads of memory.
I wouldn't want a render box with less than 1 gig of ram. Regardless of what renderer you are using, if you really need a render farm, you are going to have to spend money on MHZ and memory.
I wish it could be different.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
And Microsoft wonders why Apache and Linux owns the web hosting market. That's the most horrific story I have heard all day.
If Microsoft really wanted to own the web server arena what they would do is release a slimmed down version of Windows 2000 complete with development tools, Commerce server (and all that entails) and then price it low enough that you would be crazy not to use it. Limit it to one processor machines, and cut out nifty stuff like failover, but make it a fairly complete package. As it now stands I can afford the added cost of learning Linux and PostgreSQL and Zope, because I know that it is time invested in tools that I will be able to use over and over again royalty free. If Microsoft were to release a more useful set of tools for a reasonably low price I would be very tempted to rethink my strategy.
They could then upsell to developers and businesses that needed the full version of the tools. As soon as your business got big enough for a dual processor machine, or failover, or even putting the database on a separate machine. Of course, at that point the company probably wouldn't feel nearly as bad about the cost of the full blown version of the tools.
If Microsoft goes into the hardware business, especially the server hardware business, then you can bet your last nickel that the hardware OEMs will go on a media frenzy about how cool their new "Linux application servers" are. The last thing that the OEMs are going to allow is for Microsoft to undercut them in their fastest growing market. Since they won't be able to compete with Microsoft on price (MS gets Windows for free) they will have no choice but to use Linux to make up the difference.
Linux servers made by folks that make inexpensive hardware for a living are very likely to be less expensive than the best that Microsoft can do.
My guess is that the Blade Server edition will simply be a low-cost slimmed down version of Windows 2000. Of course, it will probably have very limited use, and it will still be more expensive than free. Microsoft can try and compete in the low cost arena, but my guess is that they haven't got a prayer. Linux is nearly a match for the best that Microsoft can throw at it in the server arena. A cut rate version of Windows would look positively anemic compared to what you get for free with Linux.
Microsoft's only chance, in the web hosting arena, is to fold more features into the OS. Heck, I wouldn't personally even consider Microsoft for my web servers until it could touch the usefulness I get out of Linux, PostgreSQL, and Zope at a low basic price (and with nicer interfaces). Those tools may be harder to learn, but the knowledge pays for itself easily over time.
how many do we need to buy to drive M$ out of business?
It doesn't matter how many we buy - if there's one thing MS is good at, it's business - they'd be foolish to bet their core business on a game console. Sure - we could make them lose a signifigant ammount of capital - but the number of consoles produced will likely be VERY carefully balanced against the licensing fees they've already collested from prospective developers.
Post intelligently: I didn't think I grunted much!
Post calmly: I am worried but calm.
If you can't be deep, be funny: Not much room for that.
Read Slashdot regularly: I do that
Post Early: as soon as I can say somthing intelligent
Post often:Thats what this is.
Stay on topic: Apache==free software on xbox (close enough.)
Be original:I gleened info from other posters and drew an original conclusion
Read it before you post:Did that to.
Log in as a registered user:Did that.
I can understand how this post might not get any moderation, but troll. I think I scared someone!
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Look I don't know who moderated me as troll in the above post, but it dosn't make sense. Here are Slashdot's tips for karma improvment...
Post intelligently: I didn't think I grunted much!
Post calmly: I am worried but calm.
If you can't be deep, be funny: Not much room for that.
Read Slashdot regularly: I do that
Post Early: as soon as I can say somthing intelligent
Post often:Thats what this is.
Stay on topic: Apache==free software on xbox (close enough.)
Be original:I gleened info from other posters and drew an original conclusion
Read it before you post:Did that to.
Log in as a registered user:Did that.
I can understand how this post might not get any moderation, but troll? I think I scared someone!
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
But don't expect me to fly in 'em (Or sail in any of their battleships.)
M$ is a terrorists's best friend.
Closed hardware, closed software and an inferior crash-prone attitude where your life is acceptable colateral damage. I see very little difference between the regard for others as evidenced by either Bill Gates and his crew and Tim McVeigh and his clique and Sadam Hussein and his rabble and...
The vultures of history are unfortunately replete to satiation with the carrion such disdain for others engenders.
I pity his kids when they try to get any allowance of the ol' man.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The author shows his ignorance by comparing raw storage cost with a network storage device. While the network storage device certainly is more expensive per gig, it also likely supports every RAID level imaginable, with multiple hardware redundancies. I would imagine that it probably supports fibre either out of the box or with a reasonable add-on. And it likely does a doze other things "correctly" from an enterprise computing point of view.
Yeah, the X-toy beats it in terms of raw storgage costs, but what level of support will Microsoft give you if your X-box goes up in flames? I've used a number of different network storage devices that had support available that rivals Sun -- if you box goes down you can have an engineer on-site fixing it in a matter of a few hours.
While the x-toy might make a fine web-server for a very low end, low volume site, it wouldn't handle anything that really takes a beating. Morevoer, any IS manager who puts anything close to mission critical on such a machine would be fired within minutes of such a decision being discovered. And deservidly so!!
The x-toy is going to be cheap hardware, good for some toy uses, but no company (and certainly no IS manager) who knows computing is going to ever do anything of real significance on this machine. It simply isn't designed to be the kind of durable, dependable, servicable, supportable, supported hardware that companies demand. The days of running your company on your kids Apple IIc (or its modern day equivilant - the X-toy) are over.
They can use the legal precident of the video game consoles to back the actions up in court....
I think you are blowing hot air -- there are no such legal standards. In fact, just the opposite: Sega sued Accolade (?) for actually including a "Sega(tm)" logo in a unlicenced game. Accolade won because it turned out the console wouldn't boot unless the game contained that bitmap, so breaking copyright was necessary for interoperability.
As Atari versus Activision proved, there is no way a console company can required 3rd parties to obtain a licence to produce software, in the US.
However, licencing has become common for a few reasons:
1) Forcing 3rd parties to licence is legal in Japan, a big market. (This plus Nintendo's US patented cart slot pretty much required 3rd parties to deal with Nintendo.)
2) Game systems have gotten so complex hardware-wise that it's useful to be on the official dev program and get the docs and SDKs.
3) Game systems can use crypto keys to autheniticate media. The first system to do this was the Atari 7800, BTW, but apparently MS will also be implementing this in the XBox.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I thought Microsoft has announced that there will be some sort of crypto verification in the bootcode of the thing to prevent people from running non-approved software. (If they didn't, their game licencing plan will just be bypassed.)
I believe the quote was "If someone gets Linux running on the XBox, there's a job waiting at Microsoft for them."
Anyway, check ZDNet about Microsoft's murmuring about a Win XP "Blade Server" edition. Essentially a stripped down web server setup designed to compete with Linux/Unix that will no doubt have it's own specialized set of server hardware. MS has enough resources to keep this project seperate from the XBox (and keep the traditional Windows hardware OEMs happy).
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Is it possible for MS to lock the hardware to prevent alternative OS images from running on it? Obviously there's a limit as to how much they can prevent the determined screwdriver and soldering iron weilding hardware hacker from subverting the hardware, but I'm thinking of some kind of integrated componentry that would power the machine off or otherwise cripple it unless an MS-approved OS or application was running on it.
Such a lock might fall short of someone really talented, but the vast majority of dilettantes looking for a low budget server box (including people who want farms) may be totally stuck with a games-only machine.
I'm not sure I see why you wouldn't want just run linux on the thing. Remote administration would be far easier - if you could come up with an install that didn't need any console input you would never need to create drivers for keyboard/mouse/video in linux, and beyond that its just an intel chip anyway so you don't need to do any major kernel hacking. If you're thinking of using these to sell web hosting, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to have an OS that will allow full remote configuration and access, instead of hacking a stripped down OS up to functionallity? Who knows how "broken" the version of win2k on Xbox is, but I'm guessing it wont be just a matter of running an apache installer, so why not use the time getting linux/bsd booting on it instead of a single app?
Eh, we know both will happen in the end anyway..
You might be able to get customers to buy into it if you can properly defend your position (pass along savings to customers, large amount of clustering and redundancy of machines for the same $$$, etc.). On the other hand, what about the High Site-to-Server sites? (ie. we'll put 2700 websites for a user and each one gets miniscule amount of traffic).
:)
In that case, the sites are often either low or no cost (so the Customer is less likely to complain, especially if you can be cost competitive). Also, in those cases the customer is less likely to actually see the physical site. If they query the machine then it would still probably be Linux (or BSD) running on x86. Perhaps they might not recognize the distribution (or else they might, in which case they either will think its cool, or a terrible idea).
But it doesn't necessarily follow that its a bad move to use them as web servers. Heck, what about for the burgeoning home market? Suddenly everyone and his brother is getting a Cable Modem or a DSL line. More and more kids now a days are experimenting with Linux, webs servers, etc. While the idea of cheap, and most likely non-secure, boxes in proliferation is a bit scary, I can see the market for a 'Linux X-Box setup kit' that includes a pre-compiled version of Linux (and some standard utils on a DVD/CD), perhaps a plug converter if the USB port has a different shape (assuming the Protocol changes are reverse engineered), and perhaps a partition utility for dual booting. Suddenly your game console could host your web-site (or you could develope games on it, transfer them to your PC w/CD-R, and pass them to your friends). It would be verry funny if the X-Box became what the Indrema aspired to
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Just put them behind a load-balancer.
This is a pretty common way to scale webserving to 'n' machines, while allowing machines to fail.
Or you could use two (or more) of them with
failover. Something where one takes over the
mac address of the other on failure.
or... Imagine a beow... nah...
What if they had those little penguin logo stickers on them?
:-)
Now compare your impression against little windows logos...
Cool geek factor aside, it seems ironic, if not silly, that someone would want to buy one of these to run Linux. The Linux user's classic apology for using Windows is that it's for games, so I don't see why you'd bother running Linux on a box designed for games.
Yeah, cause I need my command line to look all spiffy in 3D!
~Sean
My favorite level is 'holes and hackers'. I just love patching my security holes before 1377 k7dd7ez come in and 0wn m3.
Lets see here....
...Adam Barr, an ex-Microsoft employee...
...suggested running Linux on the Xbox...
Yep, I under stand the ex-Microsoft part more than ever now.
http://www.freebsd.org
It's probably to prevent the opposite: taking large cheap PC harddrives are putting them in your TiVo. I don't think TiVo would care if you bought more of their units so you can have just the hard drive. TiVo makes money on each sale.
-no broken link
X-box isn't the release name, is it? I thought it was just the "working name", like Chicago.
-no broken link
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
anyone who designes a gaming console that cant withstand "a couple of hours" turned on is an idiot. as for ps and ps2, they can go weeks turned on just fine (ours is often playing the SSX opening demo for days before someone realizes they left it on).
ever play ff7 in one sitting? (beginning to end).
There is no reason to assume Micros**t will not control the consumer PC market within 5 years.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
The X-Box may share a lot of architecture with PC's but this definitely not going to be a PC. It's a console and it will have standard console restrictions on what it can do. There were easy ways around this on the Dreamcast. There won't be on the X-Box.
It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft will try to start with the X-Box as a video game console and slowly migrate the closed harware platform to be in the mainstream business PC's space. This could be their answer to the Linux threat. A closed PC hardware platform that only runs Microsoft approved software. They can use the legal precident of the video game consoles to back the actions up in court....
Think about it.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
This really opens up lots of posibilities. I think that having apache on an xbox is a great idea, but I don't think it is the best thing you could do with an xbox by a long shot. The hardware in one is more than what is in my computer now by a very wide margin. If linux was customized for it there would be endless possibilities. Everything could be compiled for pentium III's making sure that everything is making as much use of the processor as possible, put on an ISO that runs as a game to boot up linux, and off you go. Clustering would easily become a possibility. Auto detection of other xboxes on the network wouldn't be hard at all, and they could automatically turn themselves into a cluster, eighther for redundancy or speed. The difficulty I have seen is that when people are trying to install netBSD or linux on dreamcasts, everything is left up to them. If only ISO's were distributed with everything already on them, it would be so much easier. I don't know if the xbox is made to not take CDR's though. Render farms, emulation, fileservers, mp3 players dvd players, diviX players, the possibilites are vast, and all the while you are screwing microsoft because they are selling them at such a loss. Beautiful!
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Now, what would be a cool "game" is a Perl port with an interactive workbench. Teach them kiddies some Perl.
cat
Put this in your pipe and smoke it: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-311875.html?t ag=rltdnws
Here's the key excerpt from that article:
Although it is removing the ten-user limit, Microsoft said last Friday that NT Server is still the best bet for running Web servers and that it will introduce a "compelling upgrade" for Workstation users that want to migrate to NT Server.
cat
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
p3 733 = $117.
64 MB pc100 SDRAM = $15.
DVD drive = $40.
Total:$172
Now, lets add some accessories:
10GB IDE harddrive = $63
10/100 NIC = $5
motherboard/fan/cpu combo = $173 (subtract the price of the processor above)
Mini- Mid-tower case = $8
New total:$304 for everything but the case.
No coding required, do a fresh install of your favorite (FreeBSD) Linux distro, and you're good to go for the same price... I like my way better.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
my keyboard at my desk, i'd plan on ssh'ing into it
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
The only way to not get thier bacon fried is either pray no-one notices what a nice little server the XBox would make (fat chance), somehow cripple the HW so it can't run as a server (internal timer that powers off every X hours or so) or provide a cheap server at a similar price point (a'la WinXP Blade install).
It'll be interesting to see how they deal with this.
The Bastard.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Now I feel good about buying xboxlinux.com a year ago, I knew this was going to happen :)
Hammer of Truth
Netcraft web server hardware survey, January 2002: 30% - XBox 30% - PS2 30% - GameCube 5% - Game Boy Advance 5% - x86, UltraSPARC and other obsolete platforms
It's not that absurd for Microsoft to twiddle with things to make the components not quite 100% standard. As a Real World example, TiVo actually did this with a number of units -- they got locked drives for some of the units that require a special sequence to be sent at powerup. Presumably, the rationale was to prevent people from buying TiVos (with part of the hardware cost being subsidized by TiVo) and stuffing the drive into their PC, instead.
If TiVo could afford to do something like that, I can't imagine Microsoft not being able to look into similar options, especially in the console market -- a market where locking out unlicensed third-parties is the way to make money.
These things are so packed together, they probably start resetting themeselves after a couple hours, usually at the end of the 10th level too.
No, they won't get too hot, but the question is can MS keep them cool enough without inserting a fan that sounds like a jet engine when you boot the thing up.
"And like that
Wonder if you could use the graphics card on the xbox for anything useful.
I've heard two answers to the "Will it have a keyboard/mouse?" queston: Yes, but it will be a proprietary keyboard, and No, we are making a game machine.
I'd have to think if they are serious about gaming, especially FPS and RTS gaming, that a keyboard/mouse setup would be mandatory, no?
GTRacer
- Glad I bought a PS2 with mostly standard USB (but I'll still buy an XBox anyway {Go Apache!})
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
but will it support wine?
can we expect this? "linuxgames - proudly powered by by xbox.."
Microsoft does not appear to be implementing any software safeguards or eeproms or roms that will attempt to detect and prevent any non-Microsoft programs from executing. Or Maybe, I am wrong and their plan is to detect ip packets being routed around microsoft.com, causing the much hyped MS WinXbox kernel to launch an eMail around the default gateway pointed to microsoft.com. I don't know what they'll do to prevent the subjugation of their system. I am all talk today.
Does anyone have a URL for a page that discusses any of their software that may try to do this?
ahhhhh... haha
Please remove BOOGERS when sending me eMail. Thankyou...
Sincerely,
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
If these things will overheat?
I know playstations get awful hot,
kind of like laptops, they aren't meant to run 24/7/365.25
I have a p75 as my server sitting under my steps in my room, it has no fans, and is cold to the touch, the heatsink is barely luke warm.
These things are so packed together, they probably start resetting themeselves after a couple hours, usually at the end of the 10th level too.
on OSOpinion.
One of the points brought up about using the XBox for apache server farms was the commercial appearance. Imagine you are walking through a potential webhosting location that you are considering to host you new online business and you see your pages being served up by XBoxes. How fast would you be out of there?
Someone doing this would be a prime candidate for both fuckedcompany.com and the top 100 dumbest dot com moments.
As consoles and other 'consumer' technology gets more and more complex, software and firmware become more and more real a problem. For example, my VCR never has any logic problems, but my APEX DVD player will occasionally fail to start a next chapter, or will garble the sound and video. It's MPEG2 drivers have apparently crashed, and the machine has to be powercycled to start running again.
Being that the Xbox is going to use a Pentium 3 processor, a piece of silicon that we *know* has at least a few minor bugs, and M$ software, I think we can be assured of having at least an occasional crash. Possibly, especially under heavy load as a webserver, this will be more often than corresponding Linux or BSD crashes, making it unsuitable for use as a webserver.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
2Micsoft's principal concern is strategic, if the playstation becomes the internet appliace then it becomes a platform competitor.
3The Xbox will probably sell to retailers at about $220. That is probably enough to meet cost of manufacture. The reason Microsoft will make a net loss in the initial years is the enormous amount of advertising they plan.
All in all the X-Box is a good thing for the video games sector. The marketing tactics of Sega, Sony et. al. are more scumbagish than anything Microsoft has ever been accused of. Produce a game for Sega and they demand a royalty from you of $10 for access to their platform.
Microsoft is not playing to win here, they are playing to disrupt the industry and break an incumbent monopoly. Putting Linux on Xbox would not upset Microsoft one little bit
The server farm idea is cute but idiotic. The cost of hardware is only part of the cost of a server farm. By the time X-box comes out $300 will not be the sweat spot of price performance. A dedicated design would be much easier to install and maintain.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Microsoft is interested in profits. Their angle on the XBox is that they will make money in the games and licensing fees, i presume.
If, after 2 months, MS finds that everyone's buying the hardware (at negative margins for MS) and not buying any software (and using Apache, nonetheless) - they'll do something to block this practice, or raise the prices to the point where this will become profitable.
the second will not happen either, as MS will be very disinclined to make inroads into the server for fear of anti-trust legislation (okay, OS, software, hardware... that'd do it...) and industry alliances with vendors who pre-package windows.
great idea, but like napster, has a critical mass beyond which it will become it's own worst enemy.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
In any case, is the Xbox competitive for general purpose applications, be they Apache or supercomputing? I kind of doubt it. Paying $300 for a 733MHz Pentium with 64M of memory, an 8G hard drive, and almost no ports isn't all that great a deal anymore. By the time the Xbox will be widely available, it will likely be a completely uninteresting deal. In addition, the form factor may turn out to be not all that convenient for building server farms (server room space is very costly, in particular when co-locating).
The Xbox is mostly about convenience: having a stable, uniform hardware platform makes writing games easier. It is also about low cost of entry: assuming the Xbox meets a price target of $300, you can't get $300 PCs, but you will be able to get something that's twice as fast for twice the money. For server farms, aggregate performance matters, not cost of entry. Its performance and features, on the other hand, seem greatly overhyped to me.
This is a common Microsoft tactic that is rarely successful.
Open Source engineers with enough time and motivation could easily backward engineer the bastardized MS USB protocol. A kernal hack could implement a driver to translate standardized USB communications into MS USB communications and vice versa. Having accomplished this task there would be no impediment to using mice, keyboards or even USB printers with the XBox.
Of course someone would still need to write an xbox driver for XFREE86 and Linux successful takes over the box.
now... with all the recent developments in the netbsd port to dreamcast i was thinking of doing a linux port when then the x box comes out this fall (pre-order this summer, thinking of calling it xlinux). This is completely different then the dreamcast port, which as some people have posted on slashdot seems a little well... pointless. But think about the possiblities of the xbox... where talking a 733 mhtz processor with 64 meg ram and a 8-10 gig harddrive, not to mention its specially designed video card and dvd player. We're not talking a game console here people, we're talking a computer. And at that a very cheap computer (last i heard x-box was going to be around $300, as microsoft takes a $200 hit per box that they'll write off on their taxes), so it makes alot of sense to get something useful on it (as opposed to whatever version of windows they're going to put on it... windows gc??? hell you'll probably be able to dual boot it with that harddrive...) like linux. Of course, if someone could build an xbox game player into xlinux... ;-).
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Hey take this article and combine it with this one http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/08/003624 7
Wammo: XBox = Low cost radio station, music server.