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.

Comments

Author shows his ignorance

[Kope]

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.

Re:Not seeing the argument to not run linux..

[IntlHarvester]

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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Can MS lock the hardware?

[swb]

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.

The Apache Game.

[TheReverand]

My favorite level is 'holes and hackers'. I just love patching my security holes before 1377 k7dd7ez come in and 0wn m3.

The X-Box will never run Linux

[egarland]

Most consoles have heavy security mechanisims to make sure the machine will only play software that is properly licenced and that the manufacturer is getting a cut of the profits on. Only developer units can run unsigned titles. The regular customer units can not run arbitrary programs. That's how they can sell the hardware at a loss. They get make money on every piece of software that is allowed to run on the box.

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.

I wonder...

[Beowulf_Boy]

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.

Crashes to Consider

[Bonker]

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.