[libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Immanuel, Yehowshua U]

I was looking at RaptorCS workstations and was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire system from MOBO to firmware is nearly entirely open source with exception of the ethernet card firmware and the CPU RTL of course.

However, compared to their competitors which are equally performant i9s and threadripper systems, they are about twice as expensive. This makes me wonder, what are the primary PPC server customers in this market?

I know for example that the US military uses NXP PPC processors in aircraft. Also, the auto industry STILL uses PPC a lot. But who would be interested in a more expensive POWER server? I couldn’t find much on this from usual Google sources...

Yehowshua
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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Lauri Kasanen]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 01:52:47 +0000
"Immanuel, Yehowshua U" <yimmanuel3@gatech.edu> wrote:

> I was looking at RaptorCS workstations and was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire system from MOBO to firmware is nearly entirely open source with exception of the ethernet card firmware and the CPU RTL of course.
>
> However, compared to their competitors which are equally performant i9s and threadripper systems, they are about twice as expensive. This makes me wonder, what are the primary PPC server customers in this market?

Well, first of all, people don't run i9s or threadrippers on servers.
Those are customer-class, customer-availability, no ECC, less RAM
accessible, etc. They run Xeons and Epycs, which are comparable to POWER
in price. (hobbyists not counted here, for home servers money tends to
come first)

Their customers tend to value openness and security (their own keys, not
the vendor's, for a truly secure boot; no ME backdoors). They may also
be using accelerators made for POWER's custom buses, faster than PCIe.

- Lauri

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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Cole Poirier]

> On Apr 4, 2020, at 10:55 PM, Lauri Kasanen <cand@gmx.com> wrote:
> Well, first of all, people don't run i9s or threadrippers on servers.
> Those are customer-class, customer-availability, no ECC, less RAM
> accessible, etc. They run Xeons and Epycs, which are comparable to POWER
> in price. (hobbyists not counted here, for home servers money tends to
> come first)
> 
> Their customers tend to value openness and security (their own keys, not
> the vendor's, for a truly secure boot; no ME backdoors). They may also
> be using accelerators made for POWER's custom buses, faster than PCIe.
> 
> - Lauri

OpenCapi and the rest of the Open Power Foundation projects are incredibly cool!

Some brief info with links below. As far as I am aware we don’t have plans to use this interface in Libre-SOC V1, but please correct me if this is incorrect. If it’s the the case that we are not using the interface, would you still like me to add this to the resources section of the wiki?

From the OpenCAPI-Accelerator website (https://opencapi.github.io/oc-accel-doc/):

“What is OpenCAPI?
OpenCAPI (Open Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface) is the third-generation coherent interface and is an open standard for coherent high-performance bus interface. Driven by emerging, accelerated heterogeneous computing and advanced memory and storage solutions, it provides the open interface that allows any microprocessor to attach to:
Coherent user-level accelerators and I/O devices.

Advanced memories accessible via read/write or user-level DMA semantics
Its specifications and ecosystem are managed by the OpenCAPI Consortium. The reference designs are open source and available on Github at the https://github.com/OpenCAPI/OpenCAPI3.0_Client_RefDesign”

So like Lauri said it allows users to have openness and security, for better control over their own hardware. It also allows devices to interface with various external I/O, at some pretty mind blowing speeds too, which I think is shown on slide 13 of this 2018 presentation (https://openpowerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Myron-Slota.pdf).

Gen1 and Gen2 were layered over PCIE but now in Gen3-Power9 the protocol runs on new OpenCAPI hardware. Another important advantage appears to be that the upgradability and forwards and backwards compatibility are much higher than with previous solutions.

From the Open Power Foundation Website (http://openpowerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/oppa-1/content/dbdoclet.50429986_67380.html):

“Chapter 1. Overview

This document defines the OpenCAPI Power Platform Architecture (OPPA) for the IBM™ POWER9™ systems. The information contained in this document allows various OPPA-compliant accelerator implementations to meet the needs of a wide variety of systems and applications. Compatibility with the OPPA allows applications and system software to migrate from one implementation to another with minor changes.”

Cole
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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:34 AM Cole Poirier <colepoirier@gmail.com> wrote:

> Some brief info with links below. As far as I am aware we don’t have plans to use this interface in Libre-SOC V1, but please correct me if this is incorrect. If it’s the the case that we are not using the interface, would you still like me to add this to the resources section of the wiki?

you misunderstand the purpose of the wiki.  if you find something cool
or useful *do not wait to ask* - just add it.

if you are unsure about where to add it, add it to your personal page
or to a discussion link, or to a "TODO: investigate" section at the
end of any half-appropriate page.

the purpose of the wiki is to A save time B not lose anything which
happens within hours to minutes on a mailing list.

l.

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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Immanuel, Yehowshua U]

> you misunderstand the purpose of the wiki.  if you find something cool
> or useful *do not wait to ask* - just add it.

@Cole, what page did you add it to? I have some other links I’d like to drop in as well.

Yehowshua
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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sunday, April 5, 2020, Immanuel, Yehowshua U <yimmanuel3@gatech.edu>
wrote:

> > you misunderstand the purpose of the wiki.  if you find something cool
> > or useful *do not wait to ask* - just add it.
>
> @Cole, what page did you add it to? I have some other links I’d like to
> drop in as well.


there's a top level resources page which is as good as any.

l.



-- 
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Immanuel, Yehowshua U]

As mentioned earlier, I’ve been having some meetings at the startup school Create-X and one of the topics that comes up frequently concerns target markets, who else has had success in our space, and competitors.

One question I’ve been looking into is just how successful is FOSS/libre hardware, and who needs it?
I’ll add my findings to the wiki later.

Fantastic Interview with RaptorCS I found on the wiki resources page that talks about who needs open auditable systems that RaptorCS provides below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5Ihqg72T3c&feature=youtu.be

Main benefits of POWER that I was able to glean:
 - POWER is really good at handling behemoth amounts of IO - far superior to x86
 - POWER works well with OpenCAPI, delivering somewhere near 5 - 10x speedup relative to PCIE Gen4
 - According to Raptor, IBM takes feedback on POWER ISA quite seriously and works hard to improve for next spec
 - Very easy to add data hungry accelerator to POWER systems, again, because of OpenCapi
 - RaptorCS customers tend to desire direct control over the on-mobo BMC, which RaptorCS provides through FOSS firmware - can guarantee physical hardware access not necessarily equal to root access
 - 99% of Debian APT supported - AMD ROCM works out of the box.

After some digging around, RaptorCS solutions are not necessarily too expensive, the hardware is enterprise grade and falls in that price bracket. Also, included in that higher price tag is the peace of mind knowing that your system is fully auditable.

I will add this information to the resources section soon.

# Commodity POWER hardware available:

You can buy a Raptor Blackbird 4-core POWER9 system for $1468. While this seems a bit expensive compared to a comparable high end i7 intel system, you get access to the processor data sheet, pinouts, and mobo. All firmware, etc. Also, OpenCAPI seems to be a big reason alone customers are wiling to pay the extra price tag.
https://www.raptorcs.com/content/BK1B01/intro.html


Lastly, any intel or AMD system integrator using an x86/64 chip is not even allowed to provide mobs schematics under NDA alone.

You can also by the T2080 chip from digikey for $273. It comes with a full data sheet and everything.
I couldn’t find any benchmarks, but from the spec sheet, I’d hazard performance is comparable to a mid end i5 processor. Makes sense that this chip see notable use in the auto and defense industry as it has respectable DSP capabilities. Its only viable ARM competitor is Nvidia Jetson which is notably cheaper. System integration with T2080 seems notably easier however as it is has no NDAs.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/nxp-usa-inc/T2080NXE8TTB/568-13639-ND/7648244


Conclusion:
RaptorCS clearly demonstrates that a FOSS hardware business model is economically feasible. Encouraging news for us!

Yehowshua
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Re: [libre-riscv-dev] Who Buys Talos Workstations?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 7:46 AM Immanuel, Yehowshua U
<yimmanuel3@gatech.edu> wrote:
>
> As mentioned earlier, I’ve been having some meetings at the startup school Create-X and one of the topics that comes up frequently concerns target markets, who else has had success in our space, and competitors.

whenever i have had conversations with people about EOMA68, that they
can instead of moving the *data* from device to device, move the
*computer* from device to device (Memory Card pause Computer Card)
they absolutely get it and are delighted and really enthusiastic and
supportive.

in the current world environment that becomes even more important.

the Intel Compute Card project only failed because Intel tried shoving
*hardware-level encryption* into the specification.  if you look up
NexDock's story, Chinese ODMs completely failed to be able to cope
with the "changes" required - the differences between this
insanely-complex requirement and what they normally "cookie-cut clone
and shove out the door", at the **BIOS** level.

USD 250,000 wasted later, NexDock, the *only* company to publicly tell
people that they were doing an Intel Compute Card product, gave up.

simplicity is key.  EOMA68 comprises 68 pins, being an Aggregation
Standard: a standard that aggregates *other* standards, those
standards (USB3, I2C, SD/MMC) being *decades* old *well-established*
and simple standards.

start small, think big.

l.

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