Slashdot Mirror
Internet Infrastructure for Everyone
just_another_sean sends in a story at Wired about a group of engineers trying to build a new server operating system that will make it easier to deploy a multitude of technologies for people and companies that aren't tech giants.
"The project is based on Google’s ChromeOS, the new-age laptop operating system that automatically updates itself every few weeks, but unlike ChromeOS, it can run more than just your personal machine. It can run every web service you ever visit, no matter how big. And it will let the companies that run those services evolve their online operations much more quickly — and cheaply — than they can with traditional server software. 'We’ve borrowed a lot of concepts from the browser world,' Polvi explains, 'and applied them to servers.' You can think of CoreOS as a new substrate for the internet. Web giants such as Google and Amazon and big Wall Street financial outfits, including the NASDAQ stock exchange, have built similar server operating systems for their own use, but with CoreOS — an open source software project — Polvi’s startup is creating something anyone can use. 'We’re building Google’s infrastructure for everyone else,' he says. In doing so, Polvi and his team hope this OS can more rapidly fill the security holes that plague our computer servers, while speeding the evolution of the software applications that run atop them."
Can anyone decipher exactly what it is he's promising? Another layer in the OSI model that tries to reinvent the Java wheel and run everything natively?
Sounds like little VMs on a bare bones OS to me. Nothing new here and yet another rehash.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Where have I heard this line before? Oh yeah, from con artist salesmen.
Let's turn our core infrastructure into shitty, worthless JavaScript crapps that run in a web browser! Now if you're doing any maintenance on the server, one wrong keystroke or closed tab will kill your DNS, mail, LDAP, etc...
it's getting old...
See subject.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
If you want all devices to run everything you need IPV6. ISPs are lagging badly. Even though it is not the hardest thing in the world. France and Asia are switching. My ISP is running a pre-pilot for over 2 years, it runs fine. They are still not roling it out for the rest of the users (probably corp funding that is lacking).
There is no way around understanding what you are doing. If you want to have services without that expertise, rent them from a managed service provider. Chances are good they will not mess up as badly as you are certain to do.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It sounds like what's "new" is putting applications in self contained, portable packages. That's what OS X does. CoreOS will be a *nix OS, like OS X.
So basically if you took OS X and removed the beautiful interface and all of the existing application packages, then removed the guaranteed hardware compatibility, then you'd be left with CoreOS.
It's called Linux and BSD....
It runs on the worstations, laptops, tablets, servers and even network gear.... no other OS can say that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And I stopped reading.
With CoreOS, the idea is to build an OS that you can instantly replace whenever you like, without breaking the software applications that run on it.
Google has long done this sort of thing on desktops and laptops. The search giant built its web browser, Chrome, so that it can automatically update the thing whenever it likes, and it eventually extended this arrangement to ChromeOS, which revolves around the Chrome browser. If you own a Chromebook, you get a new operating system every six weeks or so â" and all you have to do is reboot your machine.
[...]
Part of the trick is that Polviâ(TM)s team has pared a server operating system down to the bare minimum. The thing doesnâ(TM)t include all the bells and whistles youâ(TM)ll find in other server OSes, including most versions of Linux, and it cleanly separates the OS from the applications that run atop it.
With CoreOS, all applications sit inside âoecontainersâ â" little bubbles of software code that include everything an application needs to run. These containers then latch onto the main OS through the simplest of interfaces. That means you can easily move applications from OS to OS and from machine to machine â" much as you move shipping containers from boat to boat and train to train â" but it also means you can easily update the OS without disturbing the applications. âoeThe way weâ(TM)re able to consistently update the OS â" and be nimble â" is to make sure we have a consistent way of running applications,â Polvi says.
That's what's being promised. Sounds ambitious.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Maybe this is for MSCEs who want to run 'Linux' but are afraid of the command line?
Not sure how an OS tuned to run on under-powered laptops would be a good choice to use as a server OS. What's the thinking there? Server OS should be stable, whereas if a laptop crashes, "turn it off and back on". It's just a totally different focus, IMHO.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
This sounds like SmartOS except based on Linux instead of OpenSolaris.
In the begining of my career, when I saw those "old guys" complaining about "technology" I thought they were just.. well, old. After 15 years working in this industry (or should I say circus), I can understand them perfectly. The old failure is the new thing being hyped.
Unlike the article, http://coreos.com/ front page actually summarizes what they are doing. Stripped down Linux kernel only OS that runs your apps in 'containers'.
Some project that's light-weight, "clean", and stable arises... as opposed to being the latest "internet thing" or "web x.0" by a 20-something programmer who's never actually written an entire stand-alone program but rather just pastes-together 30 different packages using 10 languages to produce bloat-ware that has a few obscure bad behaviors, calls "home" occasionally to report on its users, and is not actually completely understood even by its most "expert" users/developers. I grow weary of all the "new" "next great thing" announcements that amount to "some kids slapped together bits and pieces of stuff other people wrote then got a lot of web page hits, tweets, etc. released a book, did a start-up, etc" followed by a plunge into obsolescence and obscurity in the face of the next pile of cobbled-together junk that will never become fully stable before going "unsupported", and on, and on, and on....
How about some actual coding... and some pride-of-ownership of the results? Can we please get somebody to go back to the idea of a project that "owns" (in the sense of responsibility, understanding, documenting, etc) ALL of the included code. Too much of the current stuff is slip-shod slap-together crap... bits and pieces of some other guy's code glued, taped, stapled, and chewing-gummed together with a flashy GUI gooped onto the top to hide all the crimes-against-programming committed beneath; The sort of thing that sucks people in with visuals, but leaves them cursing months later when they hit all the rough seams where the bailing wire and masking tape are holding the bits together. How about an entire project coded only in C or C++ plus a scripting language like Lua or Python...with NO other dependencies on any other project. Something completely understood by and maintained by the developers and not vulnerable to changes in 50 other groups of programmers? Something that does not take days to compile and require gigs of storage because it is modern bloatware?
If this thing is based on ChromeOS then it cannot be trusted and should not be deployed on any network containing private information and if it's not being written by the ChromOS team then its "developers" probably do not fully grok what they have "created" and will eventually be unable to properly maintain/upgrade it.
No clue why Wired is writing about these guys. Is the garage thing really necessary?
I guess fabricating a joke startup is like fabricating a boy band...
Possibly. Would make sense.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This dummy thinks it's a good idea to remake a big system out of little, reusable pieces. Somehow it will all just be compatible and useful.
And he's giving it away free on the internet.
You're absolutely right. That's a terrible idea. If only Linus had had such advice!
Is data mining evil?
Uh, isn't this exactly what the GUI tool set for mac OSX server is for? I't s avery powerful suite of tools that lets you manage a suite of macs and the server services that connect them. It strikes a mid point between doing everything possible that your could do from a command line script, and being very easy to use. It's no walk in the park since you need to be fairly savvy about the services you want to provide. It just rolls up the confusing aspects of configuring and corralling all of them into a common interface, and giving you graphical ways to monitor them and the hardware health of all the macs in your intranet. it costs about $50 which is chump change. If it doens't save you 30 minutes of time then you really should not be touching any server.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.