Hybrid IT solutions specialist CoreSite, a notable subsidiary of American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT), this week announced an interesting new partnership with Oxide Computer Company to leverage colocation capabilities at CoreSite's Silicon Valley SV2 data center.
Oxide is a startup with some new takes on server design. In October 2023, Oxide announced a $44 million Series A financing round led by Eclipse with participation from Intel Capital, Riot Ventures, Counterpart Ventures and Rally Ventures – bringing Oxide’s total financing raised to date to $78 million.
Delivering a dedicated rack-scale system with unified hardware and software elements, the commercially available Oxide Cloud Computer’s networking, compute and storage capabilities are purpose-built to deliver hyperscale cloud computing to on-premises data centers.
The new server enables enterprises to run on-premises cloud workloads by combining these three central capabilities. Essentially, it enables enterprises to deploy hyperscale-grade cloud infrastructure on-premises and in colocation environments.
Oxide Cloud Computer Essentials
Oxide says its "secure, open-by-design" system features unified hardware and software with end-to-end observability.
"The rack-level system consists of 32 Oxide compute sleds and highly available Oxide-designed switches, with a power shelf in the middle," states the company.
All components are integrated into a cabled backplane, which simplifies maintenance and upgrades.
Bryan Cantrill, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Oxide, noted that the platform comes with "everything needed to run a cloud," including such elements as: per-tenant isolation; self-service networking as needed; elastic compute capacity; and high-performance, non-volatile memory express-persistent block storage service features.
Cantrill said, “The Oxide Cloud Computer empowers developers to build, run and operate any application with enhanced security, latency and control. It helps IT teams accelerate strategic initiatives while enterprises experience the economic and operational benefits of cloud ownership for the first time.”
He added, “For an industry that’s been wildly underserved for too long, we’re proud to partner with CoreSite to offer a purpose-built, rack-scale system that delivers hyperscale cloud, on-premises.”
CoreSite Collaboration Benefits
Oxide chose CoreSite's Silicon Valley data center SV2 in Milpitas, California for furnishing colocation services and support with product demonstrations. By colocating in a CoreSite facility, Oxide said it is able to demonstrate the full power, efficiency and potential of its system.
Oxide can access hundreds of cloud, network and IT providers as well as enterprises by colocating at the highly interconnected CoreSite.
Additionally, CoreSite's N+1 power and mechanical redundancies, 24x7x365 operational support and physical security capabilities provide the reliability that Oxide customers demand, the company said.
Meanwhile, CoreSite's network-dense data centers and blended IP services facilitate the network performance and flexibility for optimal data volume transport and quick setup, the partners added.
Maile Kaiser, Chief Revenue Officer at CoreSite, said, “CoreSite is thrilled to partner with Oxide Computer Company – an innovation pioneer that is introducing new technology in the marketplace and solving the challenges that come from digital transformation."
Kaiser added, “We strive to operate as an extension of our customers’ teams and provide the IT infrastructure and interconnectivity platform that enables companies like Oxide to succeed.”
More on the Oxide Cloud Computer
As a unified system, Oxide Cloud Computers are shipped complete with all the software required to run full cloud computing services, requiring no assembly.
As reckoned by the company, the net result is that Oxide customers can go from rack install to developer availability in a matter of hours, compared to weeks or months.
Further, Oxide notes its Cloud Computer significantly improves energy efficiency over traditional servers.
The company claims the platform is at least 35% more efficient than traditional racks equipped with AC power supplies in each server, which also results in a smaller physical footprint.
The partners emphasized the unique high performance benefits the Oxide Cloud Computer achieves via leveraging CoreSite's colocation solutions and data center campus' robust ecosystem, which offers hundreds of cloud, network and IT providers and enterprises.
"CoreSite and Oxide share the vision that the world is not going to be strictly a public cloud computing world, and customers should not have to sacrifice the advantages of cloud when choosing to own their compute,” asserted Steve Tuck, Founder and CEO at Oxide Computer Company.
Tuck added, “We're very excited about the core infrastructural approach that CoreSite has taken in anticipation of hybrid IT becoming the norm. Working together, we will deliver high-quality, connected experiences to our customers. The Oxide-CoreSite relationship enables enterprises to now benefit from the capabilities of cloud computing everywhere, without compromising on the cost and control they require."
Oxide Data Center Value Proposition for Enterprise Customers
In terms of customer-centric data center industry thought-guidance, Oxide's detailed technology value proposition seems worthy of sharing. It is as follows:
"Large enterprises have spent years adopting public cloud, moving workloads and resources to fit into a usage-based rental model. While many business benefits remain clear, the service-based, rent-only model has resulted in skyrocketing monthly cloud bills that are forcing enterprises to reevaluate how much of their IT footprint can economically run there."
"Additionally, many enterprises now realize that not all applications are well-suited to run in the public cloud, and IT security posture and compliance requirements are harder to achieve. Organizations recognize they need a more predictable cost model and decision-makers are asking to maintain control and ownership, while still having cloud-like capabilities."
"When enterprises build their own full-stack systems, they face multiple obstacles: months-long setup time, disjointed products that hamper performance, inadequate reliability and efficiency as well as expensive software licensing."
"Also, systems aren't developer-friendly because the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) is limited or discouraged."
"Public cloud hyperscalers operate on infrastructure designed at the rack and data center level, not the machine level, delivering significant gains in density and energy efficiency. This type of infrastructure isn't available to other organizations to buy and use on-premises."
"What they can buy, commodity data center gear, doesn't allow them to own cloud computing at hyperscale. Oxide is blazing a new trail by creating a vertically integrated hardware and software platform: servers as they should be."
CoreSite Data Centers Bring In NVIDIA DGX for AI Adoption
Fresh off being featured in the CRN 2024 Data Center 50 List this March, even more significant CoreSite news emerged in April when the colocation stalwart announced that it will now help customers accelerate AI adoption as an NVIDIA DGX-ready data center partner, furnishing high-performance, scalable colocation and interconnection capabilities.
CoreSite has been certified as part of the NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Center program to host scalable, high-performance infrastructure for organizations looking to capitalize on rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and other high-density applications.
By choosing to host their NVIDIA DGX infrastructure with CoreSite, the company maintains its customers can benefit from a national portfolio of high-density-powered data center campus environments for NVIDIA AI and high-performance computing at CoreSite data center locations including: Los Angeles (LA3), Silicon Valley (SV9), Chicago (CH2) and Northern Virginia (VA3).
“The exponential growth of AI and other emerging applications has increased the need for highly interconnected, purpose-built data centers to meet the growing demands for IT, power and cooling infrastructure,” observed Juan Font, President and CEO of CoreSite, SVP of American Tower.
Font added, “Our certification as an NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Center program partner will enhance CoreSite’s ability to deliver the data center space, advanced cooling and ultra high-density power requirements customers need while making it easier for them to deploy advanced technologies and bring their innovations to market.”
As AI adoption accelerates, CoreSite data centers' role as notable interconnection hubms provide broad and efficient access to the data sources that are training AI models.
CoreSite notes its data centers also are environments where leading enterprises can operationalize AI technologies such as:
- Deep learning that requires scale, data access and GPU-class performance.
- Data science applications that use machine vision, natural language processing, ML and data processing application programming interfaces (APIs).
- Process modernization related to administration, operations and collaborative research and development.
CoreSite said its current customer AI use cases include:
- Autonomous vehicles and driverless delivery systems.
- Software solutions offering real-time development platforms for companies in gaming, media and entertainment, general enterprise, manufacturing, government and others.
- Entertainment streaming services making individually tailored recommendations and building customized playlists.
- Drug discovery, preventative medicine and advanced diagnostics.
This information checks out with what CoreSite data center representatives told DCF during our recent tour of the company's Northern Virginia VA3 data center.
