this is sad [LWN.net]

this is sad

Posted Jun 20, 2016 7:46 UTC (Mon) by alankila (guest, #47141)
In reply to: this is sad by rqosa
Parent article: Klumpp: A few words about the future of the Limba project

> If some variety of Android does eventually get used on servers, then it will just be used to run the same kinds of server software (RDBMSes, web-application servers, etc.) that Linux runs today.

This is probably true. The key thing for me is the cost and reliability of the hardware. I think that at first, a server like this wouldn't probably be running in a rack in server room somewhere, but it would be more like some RPi-sized box installed in the customer premises that happens to run Android instead of some traditional Linux distribution. These small and cheap devices are becoming powerful enough to suffice to run operations and act as localized hubs that can even control hardware via the GPIO things. And they have very attractive price tags.

to post comments

this is sad

Posted Jun 20, 2016 8:54 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

> This is probably true. The key thing for me is the cost and reliability of the hardware.
Nobody really cares about hardware reliability for commodity servers. As long as it doesn't die every day, you just migrate to another hardware in case of problems.

> I think that at first, a server like this wouldn't probably be running in a rack in server room somewhere, but it would be more like some RPi-sized box installed in the customer premises that happens to run Android instead of some traditional Linux distribution.
Why? The current direction is away from customers' premises to consolidated server farms. And it makes little difference for AWS or Google Compute what OS you're running inside a VM.

this is sad

Posted Jun 21, 2016 23:44 UTC (Tue) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (2 responses)

I think we just have very different kind of deployments in mind. Cloud-style crap is only possible if your networking is reliable. If it isn't, you want locally deployed servers again.

this is sad

Posted Jun 22, 2016 1:02 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

At this point in time, it's usually cheaper and easier to upgrade your network connection. Sure, lots of places on Earth still don't have reliable Internet connectivity, but would you place your office there?

this is sad

Posted Jun 23, 2016 0:25 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Sure, lots of places on Earth still don't have reliable Internet connectivity, but would you place your office there?

You mean, like London?

I wish my internet connection was reliable (things like CG-NAT and bufferbloat don't help ...)

For a "necessary utility", the availability of reliable internet is extremely patchy. Fortunately, the government has decided that "broadband for all" is a necessity - until a couple of months ago the phone companies' push for "superfast broadband" quite explicitly ignored the 10% of UK households that don't have broadband at all, it was initially intended as a pure upgrade of existing broadband, not rolling broadband out to the "have nots".

Cheers,
Wol