[Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

[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 buy Intel's 14nm chips.
Virtualization also helps.

New servers always cost a lot, and it's not trivial to switch over hundreds
of boxes. That's because you're not going to make ARM CPUs work as drop-in
replacements.


On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 7:55 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 accounting methods to avoid paying taxes with tax
> havens. Dell's corporate structure adventures are not the sort of
> corporate behavior concordant with a mission to empower anyone other
> than Dell stockholders.
>
> 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. We still failover when machines go out of service, and sure the
> caches would have different RAM configurations, 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. Why ask our donors to keep all those useless
> transistors warm?
>
> 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 to
> transition to less expensive hardware. And maybe some people who know
> how to order chassis?
>
> Best regards,
> James
>
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