Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-31 Thread Bjoern Hoehrmann
* James Salsman wrote: >Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying >datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for >instance? Related: . -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · h

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-30 Thread Liam Wyatt
As a non-technical person on this list, I have no idea what you just said Lesile (and Tim, earlier in this thread) but I greatly enjoyed reading it! Keep up the good work :-) -Liam / Wittylama On Tuesday, 31 December 2013, Leslie Carr wrote: > Oh man --- > > The trolling here is amazing!!! > > Fi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-30 Thread Leslie Carr
Oh man --- The trolling here is amazing!!! First off, you can't just plug a fiber cable into an ethernet socket. You need at least SFP+'s for 10G fiber connections, plus the cost of fiber itself -- it's way more expensive than a 100mbit connection. That said, we do use SFP+ based 10G for our var

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread John Vandenberg
Putting aside the 'tax' aspect, whether or not there is a backdoor in the shipped product is not the point of the article you linked to James. NSA is intercepting hardware deliveries and adding backdoors while it is enroute from supplier to customer. Buying new equipment gives NSA a new opportunit

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Jasper Deng
"How does that tie us to x86?" We don't use Xen, nor is that guaranteed to give us acceptable performance. "closer to $70" Please justify that claim (that would be the cost of the CPU or hard disk alone). You haven't even given us a compelling reason to spend any money at all on this. On Sun,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread James Salsman
>... Wikimedia Labs uses x86 hardware virtualization (just one example) How does that tie us to x86? http://www.eweek.com/servers/arm-server-chips-get-xen-virtualization-support/ >... a conservative $200/server estimate I have been recommending hardware which costs closer to $70 per "server" dep

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Jasper Deng
"It's not like we have anything special (or x86-specific, Jasper!) other than very high bandwidth." Wikimedia Labs uses x86 hardware virtualization (just one example). We already have transit linkages that include fiber, and new fiber is far from cheap. You persist in ignoring the costs of buying

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread James Salsman
> Maximum 100 Mbps ethernet connection We should be using fiber, which also costs less power and is orders of magnitude faster. If the words "enterprise-class" actually mean something more than "much larger markup than purchasing components" then go with something like http://www.marvell.com/

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread George William Herbert
On Dec 29, 2013, at 9:11 PM, Tim Starling wrote: > Leslie Carr wrote: >> At that point we'll probably need to redesign those boards >> which are incapable of doing these things, so we'll need a team of >> hardware engineers, plus a deal with a manufacturing plant. > > Google and Facebook are

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Tim Starling
On 30/12/13 14:55, James Salsman wrote: > If you don't like Cubietrucks, then how about RADXA? At least with > http://dl.radxa.com/rock/docs/hw/RADXA_ROCK_schematic_20130903.pdf > you know exactly what you're getting and it doesn't cost a huge power > bill. Maximum 100 Mbps ethernet connection. A

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Jasper Deng
"but the fact is it doesn't cost more money to switch to ARM, and you jettison a bunch of legacy x86 crap that nobody uses but take millions of transistors which need to be powered." ARM is not compatible with a lot of our software, and besides if we really wanted power efficiency we could instead

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Dan Rosenthal
*"And as much as I personally appreciate Wikimedia staff, I am inclined* *to agree with the sentiment that perhaps we should hire more staff until we get some who believe that it wouldn't cost $100,000 totransition to less expensive hardware. And maybe some people who know how to order chassis?"

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread James Salsman
When this came up last time, it turned out that there was some kind of a deal in place, and certainly many if not most published pictures of the Wikimedia data center feature rows of shiny Dell logos. But Dell does support Microsoft and the NSA, obviously, and also supports some very creative acco

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Jasper Deng
The WMF's servers have nothing to do with Microsoft. There do exist alternative processor architectures, not even just ARM (Itanium (probably too expensive), Tilera (massively parallel)), but I don't think migrating our software (particularly Labs' virtualization-related software) to them is trivi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread FastLizard4
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tinfoil hat time! Yes, the NSA stuff is a big deal, but saying that we're paying taxes to Microsoft and the NSA? Even if you mean taxes in a figurative sense, someone would be getting money from the WMF to buy hardware, and if the NSA can backdoor De

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Tim Starling
On 29/12/13 23:55, James Salsman wrote: > Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying > datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for > instance? > > Ref.: > http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numero

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread ???
On 29/12/2013 22:41, Philippe Beaudette wrote: On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada < emi...@gmail.com> wrote: Naw, it's a great idea. Let's switch to building our own ARM-based servers (by the way, which have already been a flop commercially), using only unproven, low

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Philippe Beaudette
On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Emilio J. Rodríguez-Posada < emi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Naw, it's a great idea. Let's switch to building our own ARM-based > > servers (by the way, which have already been a flop commercially), > > using only unproven, low-volume available motherboards and hav

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Emilio J . Rodríguez-Posada
2013/12/29 Leslie Carr > On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 5:17 AM, geni wrote: > > On 29 December 2013 12:55, James Salsman wrote: > > > >> Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes > > > > > > The WMF doesn't. > > > > > > > >> and start buying > >> datacenter equipment which costs a lot les

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread George Herbert
On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 4:55 AM, James Salsman wrote: > Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying > datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for > instance? > > Ref.: > > http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread Leslie Carr
On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 5:17 AM, geni wrote: > On 29 December 2013 12:55, James Salsman wrote: > >> Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes > > > The WMF doesn't. > > > >> and start buying >> datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for >> instance? >> >>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread geni
On 29 December 2013 12:55, James Salsman wrote: > Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes The WMF doesn't. > and start buying > datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for > instance? > > Ref.: > > http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-re

[Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

2013-12-29 Thread James Salsman
Can we please stop paying the Microsoft and NSA taxes and start buying datacenter equipment which costs a lot less? Cubieboard/Cubietrucks for instance? Ref.: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html Best regards, James __