New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
IIRC, They build their own hardware
Relevant Link: https://us.ovhcloud.com/about/server-production/
Pasting info from the link:
OVHcloud leverages its logistics expertise and a streamlined manufacturing process to deliver a server in less than an hour after it is ordered.
Each day, a minimum of four components are received at the Beauharnois data center.
3 T of material a month.
1 T of unused cables and unnecessary raw materials like cardboard packaging are recycled or resold. OVHcloud’s philosophy: 100% of our waste has value.
Each component is carefully selected by the OVHcloud laboratories to design the optimal hardware architectures and deliver unparalleled robustness and reliability. These technological choices also serve to improve the recovery and switchover times, as well as high availability.
We have a one-month supply of components on hand during the manufacturing process. This allows OVHcloud to meet ongoing demands and production cycles.
Servers are built five days a week and when necessary, nights and weekends. Our professional team and streamlined production approach allow for the assembly of eight components of a server in 15 minutes.
Once built, servers are moved to a test lab where they are powered and connected to the network (through a temporary IP address), and then the proprietary water-cooling system inside the casing is filled with water. Servers are tested for 25 to 30 minutes. Automated quality assurance software controls the operation of each component.
In parallel with the manufacturing, the servers are provided an IP address and assigned a specific location inside the data center.
Once an IP address and a location have been designated, the servers are assembled in a fully powered, networked, water-cooled rack.
Once these racks are complete, the hardware is transported from the production facility to the data center. Since production usually takes place in the data center, this is a short trip. For the US, however, our servers are transported from Canada.
Once at the data center, the racked servers are installed, powered, cooled, and ready for service!
We have many options depending on the business needs. From the OVHcloud website, we have server options available that only take minutes to order. Choose your server, select the location, the configuration, and the operating system, and then confirm your order.
Once the payment is verified, the delivery process begins to fulfill your order.
Once your order is complete, a server is allocated and then set-up depending on your specific configurations.
You will receive the IP address of your server by email, as well as your user ID and password for the connection.
Invoices are sent via email and include the date and time your service was delivered.
This date marks the start of your relationship with OVHcloud!
@whynotlearn I don't think so! The CPU, hard drive, RAM, and motherboard are all supplied by third parties, and they come with their own branded firmware. Especially the CPU—they can't manufacture those themselves.
Well they don't build the actual hardware themselfs, @whynotlearn was a bit wrong about that.
They buy new current hardware and use that to assemble their normal lineups, like ADV, SCALE and so on or replace broken parts in all servers. Sometimes RISE also receives new hardware, like RISE-S and bigger SKUs. Obviously they don't buy new hardware for every order, as servers are reused after cancelation.
They "recycle" their own used hardware every few years, by going through the ECO lineup, Kimsufi, SoYouStart and Rise. These were at some point now ADV or Scale and now replaced by the new lineups.
To answer the initial question, which I have not completly, I think.
OVHcloud is too big to actually buy second hand on demand. I don't say that they never did or that they never will, but they have contracts with the supplier directly, for like memory or CPUs and so on.
Agreed, Yea I didn't mean that they build these components themselves but rather that they buy these individual parts and assemble them together.
Yes. They build their own servers.
Most big data centers buy parts and then build them, as it is much cheaper, especially if they have some contracted suppliers.
There are some low-cost service providers that specialize in purchasing used hardware to build servers.
Not sure what their latest gen setups look like, or their highest end enterprise hardware configurations, but they buy new components and have always had custom minimal chassis configurations for most of their servers, which allow them to use cost effective hardware while keeping rack density high.
Their racks are essentially just thin sets of rails which bare motherboards slot into. No standard cases, no standard coolers and no per-machine power supplies. They have huge central industrial DC power supplies and central proprietary closed-loop water cooling, and route power and water to all the racks of motherboards.
Ironically it looks amateur but their hardware is more reliable than most others from my experience.
That’s certainly true; I can certainly relate.
As long as it maintains good heat dissipation and stability, none of this matters to users.
Still remember watching this video.
I actually trust their custom proprietary configs more than standard ones, since instead of random models of random products which could have defects or flaws, everything has been careful engineered and has also been tested and proven at scale.
To achieve high density, most of the products must be custom-made, right?
I know Hetzner get custom motherboards from ASUS that are slightly modified for their needs, but based on regular retail boards. I wouldn't be surprised if OVH did something similar.
These:
Also ASRock: https://wccftech.com/amd-b665-chipset-powered-mainstream-workstation-am5-motherboards-from-asus-asrock-pictured/