AMD's EPYC 9004 "Genoa" Reference Board Runs The Open-Source OpenBMC

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD's EPYC 9004 "Genoa" Reference Board Runs The Open-Source OpenBMC

For as exciting and performant as AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" series processors are with up to 96 cores, AVX-512, and the other impressive Zen 4 enhancements, there was something else subtle that got me really excited with Genoa... AMD's "Titanite" reference board for Genoa is running the open-source, Linux-powered OpenBMC!

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-genoa-openbmc

[tildearrow]

Three articles at once? Wow!

That's cool, but it's just the reference board...

[NeoMorpheus]

Observing actions like this, how the hell are people on the FOSS community still not giving AMD their business?

Yes, i know, the nvidia tech victims cant escape (yet), but the rest?

[Developer12]

Observing actions like this, how the hell are people on the FOSS community still not giving AMD their business?

Yes, i know, the nvidia tech victims cant escape (yet), but the rest?

Platform Security Processor. It's AMD's Management Engine equivalent.

In fact, the current "100% fully open source" init of ryzen platforms in coreboot is only due to the PSP starting up everything and doing ram init all before handing over to coreboot to load the OS. I don't think any of that process can or will ever be replaced by an open source alternative.

[stormcrow]

Observing actions like this, how the hell are people on the FOSS community still not giving AMD their business?

Yes, i know, the nvidia tech victims cant escape (yet), but the rest?

Begone troll. False and irrelevant equivilencies aren't discussion material.

[kozman]

Observing actions like this, how the hell are people on the FOSS community still not giving AMD their business?

Yes, i know, the nvidia tech victims cant escape (yet), but the rest?

I was wondering too. I don't know much in the BMC / Server arena but what's the advantage of OpenBMC besides the obvious Open part? Does it still need some development---to catch up to commercial BMC---but gives freedoms elsewhere? No extra costs / licensing fees a la AV1? Just curious as I don't know much about it or it's history.

[dragorth]

I was wondering too. I don't know much in the BMC / Server arena but what's the advantage of OpenBMC besides the obvious Open part? Does it still need some development---to catch up to commercial BMC---but gives freedoms elsewhere? No extra costs / licensing fees a la AV1? Just curious as I don't know much about it or it's history.

No vendor lock-in. When you buy a Dell PowerEdge Server, you are stuck using the BMC they have, and while they do have an excellent support lifetime, you get stuck with old tech after a decade of use. Their iDrac 6 for their r6xx series requires Java 6 in order to use the KVM portion of the BMC, for example.

The ability to support the software yourself after warranty and updates are gone is seriously useful to continue using them long past their security support has gone out the window. It also means you can roll your own, or add features that are specific to your needs.

Now, I have no idea how many will actually use it, but having the option is always better. If nothing else, someone could make a business of supporting and updating the BMCs after they go out of official warranty.

[torsionbar28]

No vendor lock-in. When you buy a Dell PowerEdge Server, you are stuck using the BMC they have, and while they do have an excellent support lifetime, you get stuck with old tech after a decade of use. Their iDrac 6 for their r6xx series requires Java 6 in order to use the KVM portion of the BMC, for example.

The ability to support the software yourself after warranty and updates are gone is seriously useful to continue using them long past their security support has gone out the window. It also means you can roll your own, or add features that are specific to your needs.

Now, I have no idea how many will actually use it, but having the option is always better. If nothing else, someone could make a business of supporting and updating the BMCs after they go out of official warranty.

Yes, this is huge. Dealing with clunky old Java BMC interfaces is painful nowadays. Since the BMC is usually built-in to the motherboard, there's no way to remove it, or upgrade it with a newer model. And when the vendor stops patching it, you end up with security vulns in your BMC that you have no way to fix.

Having some FOSS solution that the user can manage independently of the server vendor is huge. Has the potential to cut down on the e-waste. I know my employer has tossed out many many perfectly good working servers that were a few years old, still performed just fine, but had a BMC that was no longer receiving updates. I guess this is good for the server vendor's revenue stream.

[Volta]

Begone troll. False and irrelevant equivilencies aren't discussion material.

The ship is sinking and rats have spoken.

[MarkG]

@Michael: I saw your comment on a certain other site that reviewed this CPU (and has since corrected their omission). You, sir, are a class act.