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'Cultlike' Devotion: Apple Once Refused To Join Open Compute Project, So Their Entire Networking Team Quit (businessinsider.com) 239

Posted by BeauHD from the cult-like-following dept.
mattydread23 writes: Great story about the Open Compute Project from Business Insider's Julie Bort here, including this fun tidbit: "'OCP has a cultlike following,' one person with knowledge of the situation told Business Insider. 'The whole industry, internet companies, vendors, and enterprises are monitoring OCP.' OCP aims to do for computer hardware what the Linux operating system did for software: make it 'open source' so anyone can take the designs for free and modify them, with contract manufacturers standing by to build them. In its six years, OCP has grown into a global entity, with board members from Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Intel, and Microsoft. In fact, there's a well-known story among OCP insiders that demonstrates this cultlike phenom. It involves Apple's networking team. This team was responsible for building a network at Apple that was so reliable, it never goes down. Not rarely -- never. Building a 100% reliable network to meet Apple's exacting standards was no easy task. So, instead of going it alone under Apple's secrecy, the Apple networking team wanted to participate in the revolution, contributing and receiving help. But when the Apple team asked to join OCP, Apple said 'no.' 'The whole team quit the same week,' this person told us."
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'Cultlike' Devotion: Apple Once Refused To Join Open Compute Project, So Their Entire Networking Team Quit More

'Cultlike' Devotion: Apple Once Refused To Join Open Compute Project, So Their Entire Networking Team Quit

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  • odd--- (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @08:32PM (#53104807)

    the cult-like Apple doesn't like competing cults?

    • Apple only likes cults that worship buying their stuff.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        A company only likes organizations that likes to buy its stuff. Wow! And you figured this out all by yourself?

    • Re:odd--- (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:18PM (#53105027)

      the cult-like Apple doesn't like competing cults?

      More like engineers are move devoted to their technology than to whomever happens to employ them at any given time. Particularly large, overbearing corporations that saddle them with a lot of rules and marketing idiots.

      This is more a story about how technical people work than it is about Apple.

      • Don't forget to mention.
        Who work in an area where they can easily find a job elsewhere.
        I bet these guys had jobs ligned up before the "bravely" quit Apple.
        Rarely a whole department will quit at the same time. If the job really sucks you will see a migration where people quit over the course of months. Because normally before you quit you need an other job.
        Having Apple not join open compute sounds more liike the first intent to look elsewhere. Then the reason to quit.
        I expect they all just got picked up b

        • Re:odd--- (Score:5, Interesting)

          by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @07:40AM (#53106395)

          Don't forget to mention.
          Who work in an area where they can easily find a job elsewhere.
          I bet these guys had jobs ligned up before the "bravely" quit Apple.
          Rarely a whole department will quit at the same time. If the job really sucks you will see a migration where people quit over the course of months. Because normally before you quit you need an other job.
          Having Apple not join open compute sounds more liike the first intent to look elsewhere. Then the reason to quit.
          I expect they all just got picked up by some companies they found out they were all quitting at the same time so they used that as the reason for their exit interview.

          What they did was found a new company, SnapRoute - http://www.snaproute.com/our-s... [snaproute.com]

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It's also a story about technical people who have options. If Apple's standards for their network were so exacting and impressive, it is pretty unlikely that they had anyone just clinging to the job because they didn't have much hope of finding another one.

        If you are already considered good enough with the existing tech that unemployment isn't a serious concern; and your current employer is specifically denying you the opportunity to be part of the cool new tech, why would that inspire you to stay with t

      • More like engineers are move devoted to their technology than to whomever happens to employ them at any given time.

        Or their careers. Time spent becoming expert in a system that's not used anywhere else is time not spent becoming expert in stuff that might be needed in your next job. Getting locked in to your employer is very risky and has little if any benefit.

    • All hail Bob! All hail Bob! https://youtu.be/Qt9MP70ODNw [youtu.be] http://www.subgenius.com/ [subgenius.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pmontra ( 738736 )

      No cult likes competing cults. What's interesting is that the cult of OCP is stronger than the cult of Apple, that open wins against closed. It's comforting.

  • Never Down (Score:5, Insightful)

    by speedplane ( 552872 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @08:43PM (#53104873) Homepage

    This team was responsible for building a network at Apple that was so reliable it would never down. Not rarely — never.

    Leave it to business insider to make ludicrous claims about network availability. If Apple's network had 99.99% uptime, and it would cost ten billion dollars to add another 9 to it, I'm pretty sure they'd rather pocket that money than spend it on more redundant switches/routers.

    • My network has 100% uptime. 2-0 team is undefeated (Score:4, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:11PM (#53104995) Journal

      100% uptime means the network wasn't down in time period you're talking about. My network has 100% uptime this week.
      Maybe last year I had crappy up time, but this year my network doesn't go down (hasn't gone down).

      I enjoy the first few weeks of football season because my team is always undefeated, at least until the end of the first game.

      Actually 100% uptime even over a long period isn't THAT difficult - heteregenous reduncancy pretty much does the trick. That's heterogenous, not homogenous. In other words, you have redundancy for everything, but not by having two of the exact same things. You have a pair of connections (or sets of connections) to the outside world - a metro ethernet connection from one provider, and a direct MPLS connection from another. A Cisco router in the metroE and a Juniper on the MPLS.

        It's extremely unlikely that both providers will go down at the same time. It's extremely unlikely that both the Cisco (or pair of Ciscos) and the pair of Junipers will crap out simultaneously.

    • When I saw that quote, I called BS. NOTHING is 100%.

    • 99.99% means about 1 hour (52 minutes and 33.6 seconds) a year.
      For your work place that may be good but Apple is needed by thousands of places and that down time may not be acceptable.

  • Opportunists, not Cultists (Score:5, Interesting)

    by slacktide ( 796664 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @08:55PM (#53104931)
    They did not quit because they had some sort of cultlike devotion. They quit because they recognized a business opportunity to "get in on the ground floor" and form a startup. "Instead, they founded a startup called SnapRoute, led by Jason Forrester, the former team leader. While Forrester declined to talk to us for this article, SnapRoute's website hints at the story. " Lord knows I've been tempted to leave my big ol' company to pursue similar ventures... Can never convince enough principles to join me. The lure of that pension plan (yes, still have one...) is too strong.

    • Can never convince enough principles to join me.

      Perhaps if didn't call them opportunists [dictionary.com], they'd be more interested in joining you?

      The lure of that pension plan (yes, still have one...) is too strong.

      Which is why many people are starting to realize that 401k's are actually a better choice.

  • Been there, done that, got cancelled (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:00PM (#53104953)

    I was part of Apple's licensing software team twenty years ago---1996.

    At the time, the Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) was the big item, essentially the same as OCP. Standardize the API at a hardware-abstraction layer, and let everyone build compatible machines. The manufacturer would write the HAL (BIOS) and a variety of operating systems can run on the hardware. (At the time, it was MacOS, OS/2, Novell Netware, and a couple others I've forgotten.)

    My question at the time was "How does Apple make any money when the platform becomes a commodity, and millions of units come into the market on barges from Chinese manufacturers?" Naturally, Apple would cease to sell computers. This was the OS-licensing situation in spades.

    Steve Jobs cancelled Apple's participation in CHRP as well as all OS licensing, knowing that Apple makes most of its money selling the computer. IBM got out of the PC business when Dell and Gateway built PC-compatibles cheaper. Now they're starving as Acer and everyone else builds the platform.

    Why would this be any different today than it was two decades ago?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platform

    • This might have been interesting if OCP was in anything even approaching the same space as CHRP used to be.

      It isn't.

    • Re:Been there, done that, got cancelled (Score:5, Informative)

      by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:46PM (#53105107)

      IBM got out of the PC business when Dell and Gateway built PC-compatibles cheaper. Now they're starving

      No, they are not "starving". They got out of the PC business when it became a low margin business, a good decision.

      Why would this be any different today than it was two decades ago?

      Apple isn't selling server hardware anymore (they already failed in that market once).

      As for Apple's desktops, they should get out of that market entirely because they won't be able to make the margins they are accustomed to in the future.

      • As for Apple's desktops, they should get out of that market entirely because they won't be able to make the margins they are accustomed to in the future.

        Never underestimate the allure of a white case with rounded corners. To some.

      • The only redeeming feature of Apple's hardware is the color-matching video set-ups for publishing / marketing people. Other than that, they don't even use Xeons anymore in most of the desktops, but still charge Xeon prices.
    • They may be "starving" on the consumer side, but they have little viable competition (when you include enterprise-level support) for their enterprise-level server hardware. There is only like half a dozen real players in that market, even fewer with US-based support staff. My Dell support for my servers is in my state, and support for my SAN is only a state away. When I needed "global support", I quickly get connected to a bi-lingual rep. They've saved my ass a few times just this year lol.
    • This is why most of the people involved with OCP are either companies that buy enormous amounts of server capacity; or suppliers who fear that they'll be discarded entirely if they don't participate.

      CHRP cut directly against Apple's business of selling computers. OCP is gunning for servers and switches. Apple sells neither; but buys a lot of both given how much 'cloud' they are serving up these days.

      Clearly they decided that it wasn't in their interests to participate(whether because they'd rather do

  • Apple makes stupid hardware decisions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:20PM (#53105041)

    If I were an apple hardware engineer I'd quit too. Clearly a company that's selling 3-4 year old technology as a new "top spec" computer doesn't value their hardware wing.

    Don't get me started on the fact that their only laptop with a network adapter is 4+ years old...

    • Re:Apple makes stupid hardware decisions (Score:5, Funny)

      by swalve ( 1980968 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:45PM (#53105103)
      That's just courageous. Someone will invent gigabit wireless.

      • " Someone will invent gigabit wireless."

        Dell has been shipping "wigig" docks since at least 2013
        https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wigi... [duckduckgo.com]

        I used one last week with a new dell laptop. They have a range of only a few feet, but they do work and can share screens and network and all that over it. In fact the one i was using is second generation. Its an intel technology.

        http://www.dell.com/support/ar... [dell.com]

        • At least in my experience, 802.11ac bandwidth drops off so rapidly with distance that if you want the advertised speed you could be using a 10 foot cat5e cable anyway.

          To be fair, 802.11b is just 17 years old and couldn't beat 11 Mb/s anywhere. So the fact that 802.11ac can reach 1300 Mb/s anywhere and 802.11ad (WiGig) can do 7 Gb/s is amazing. But if I had a chance to redo my networking decisions from last year I would have saved $250 for an 802.11ac router and just bought a gigabit switch and kept us

    • apple is releasing a new computer line in 2 weeks.

  • It's nice to talk about 100% uptime, but you can't protect your network from everything. As an example, what do you do if/when there's another Carrington Event [wikipedia.org] and much of the power grid goes out? Yes, some of the backbone will still be working and you have backup power, but how much and how long will it last? Even if your data centers are hardened enough to keep the flare from frying your servers and routers, all you can do is hope that the electric grid comes back before your generators run out of fue

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khallow ( 566160 )
      Well, everything doesn't happen. Another Carrington Event which didn't happen, let us note, during the time in question, would still be less than everything and would be something that they could deal with, even if it did cause an outage.
      • I used the Carrington Event as an example because its effects were so spectacular, and its effect on the modern power/communications grid (and the computers that run it) could be equally wide spread. Take your pick of any kind of disaster that brings down a major portion of the grid and the result's the same: the data centers only stay up until their reserves of generator fuel runs out.

        • I used the Carrington Event as an example because its effects were so spectacular, and its effect on the modern power/communications grid (and the computers that run it) could be equally wide spread. Take your pick of any kind of disaster that brings down a major portion of the grid and the result's the same: the data centers only stay up until their reserves of generator fuel runs out.

          Multiple data centers in multiple regions will keep the corporate lights on... There... solved that for you... next... (grin)

          • I take it that you didn't follow the link I gave. If you had, you'd have learned that the effects were observed all around the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
    • Probably nothing would happen, according to recent research [harvard.edu].
    • Enslave the lower-level employees to run the man-powered generator wheel? A true Carrington Event level disaster will fry most IC parts, and has a high chance of setting back the entire human civilization by a century or so. Fuel for the data center will be the last of your concerns...
      • Notice that I specified, " Even if your data centers are hardened enough to keep the flare from frying your servers and routers..." to point out that your equipment doesn't have a good chance of surviving such an event, but I was trying to make the point that even if the machines are still functional there's a limit to how long they'll stay up if the power's down.

      • Re:You can't protect against everything. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @03:40AM (#53106045)

        A true Carrington Event level disaster will fry most IC parts, and has a high chance of setting back the entire human civilization by a century or so

        Not even close. Geomagnetic storms, including the original Carrignton event, involve very slow changing magnet fields (10s of minutes to hours) over very large areas. The source of any damage (on Earth at least) comes from induced voltages, which depends on the rate change of the magnetic field and the area of the circuit of interest. You can work out the numbers, and find that the effect it will have on something small like a cell phone would be less than walking past a fridge magnet. Even a house sized circuit would struggle to produce significant effects, as a change of a couple microtesla of field strength over 10 minutes (on the fast side) would only induce more than a microvolt of voltage if you had multiple loops of unpaired wire around your house. The area within any paired wire is much, much smaller.

        The only place such events can cause issues, due to the very small the rate change of the magnetic field, is by having lots of area. This is where power systems and old fashion communication systems are involved, because they can involve networks over very larger areas and can involve return paths through ground which is susceptible to ground currents in large systems. Modern communication based on fiber or twisted pair conductors would see no direct effect, and issues would just come down to what the power systems do. Even with the power systems, it comes down to having DC breakers installed in the right place, something already demonstrated to protect equipment just fine in past storms (a bigger storm wouldn't change that).

        So no, such an even has nothing to do with destroying ICs or sending human civilization into some pre-electronic age. The only long term concern is what would happen to large power systems where corners have been cut and a potential mess for satellites, which is certainly capable of causing massive economic damage without becoming a prepper fantasy. Otherwise, there would just be a short term power and satellite communication interruption.

    • as you can only stockpile a finite quantity of fuel, you can't guarantee staying up until the power's back

      You only need to store enough fuel to last until your first contracted for tanker truck shows up. Typically two weeks of on-site diesel is more than plenty, as long as you have a good enough contract specifying ongoing deliveries in case of an emergency. In that situation, you can keep things running for as long as your generator equipment doesn't fail from use...hopefully you count that in months or ev

  • YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @10:08PM (#53105179)

    OCP should just stick to robots that shoot people. It's what they do best.

  • Come on... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by somenickname ( 1270442 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @10:18PM (#53105221)

    I have friends that work for Apple, Google, Oracle, whatever. And I have friends that have quit en-masse from those companies. They almost always quit because they went from a cool startup to a tiny cog in a gigantic machine. These gigantic internet companies consume smaller companies and spit out all the parts they don't like. In many cases, that's most parts.

    This is not an Apple problem, it's an industry and maybe even a societal problem. I don't even think it's possible to get a good job, get an A+ rating for every performance review ever, and expect to stay at that job for 5+ years. After 10 years, you are too expensive to keep around.

    It's a race to the bottom. Throw enough cheap shit at the wall and you'll eventually meet your short term profit goals but, damn, that's a lot of shit to clean off the walls. In fact, you may not be able to clean it all off.

    Greetings, Humans. The machine churns. I'd like to introduce you to the grinding wheel...

    • Re:Come on... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @10:47PM (#53105335)
      You want to know why software never really gets better? It's because "old timers" are deliberately flushed from the system, so there is no institutional memory. Over time the same mistakes get made over and over again because no one remembers what happened the last time.

      This is not the same as hardware, because in real engineering work there are people who have a long time track record. (The phrase Software Engineering is an oxymoron.) Unfortunately the same short sighted behavior is starting to invade some engineering disciplines, so they will end up producing crap as well.

      • You want to know why software never really gets better? It's because "old timers" are deliberately flushed from the system, so there is no institutional memory.

        Um, software does get better, it's why most of us prefer new software to old software. And it gets better precisely because young people with new ideas find better ways to do things.
        Out of interest, if Software is getting worse, when was it exactly that you think software peaked? It didn't just so happen to be when you we're younger per chance? And you don't find that a huge co-incidence [mic.com] at all?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Voyager529 ( 1363959 )

          The definition of the term "better" is the key here. In broad terms, a product is "better" if it more closely meets the needs of the person or organization than what was previously being used.

          One thing that comes to mind that made old software "better" was how much smaller it was. The oldest Microsoft Office ISO I have immediately available is 2003 Professional. It's 410MB for, if memory serves, everything including Access and Frontpage. The Office 2016 Professional installer is 2.4GB, and doesn't allow for

          • I agree on software footprint / resources.

            The other thing I wonder about is continual refactoring of UI.
            -CLI
            -Desktop GUI
            -Touch GUI

            Those are three distinct usage modes that the UI has to be refactored for an app to go between them. I'm not talking about that.

            But every time I update apps on my phone, usually they change the UI for no apparent reason other than trying to mimic the latest Android release "lets make them flat ugly colours this time!"

            Chrome changes UI at random too "Lets make the 'hamburger menu'

            • Agree on the continuous UI redesign: Most of the time it bring the user no benefits. It's just different following the trend of the moment. Now it's all about flat, huge amounts of whitespace and monochrome icons. Ah, and forcing touch UIs everywhere making people who use them with a kb and mouse suffer a substandard UI, certainly worse than the old UIs which were designed to the strengths of kb and mouse.
      • To be fair or maybe a little generous to the corporate overlords, there is a problem on the developer side too. Most software is in maintenance mode. Maintaining some giant ugly thing someone else built is an essential service, but it's not as much fun as building something new with the hottest... whatever. So many developers who could be doing excellent work quit because starting something new is more exciting.

    • These gigantic internet companies consume smaller companies and spit out all the parts they don't like. In many cases, that's most parts.

      Yes.

      I have an axiom that goes something like this: "If it takes 'N' people to create and sell a widget, then that widget has no business being owned by a company with 100*N employees. That way lies disappointment."

      It happens over and over. Little company makes something cool. Big company buys the shiny little company for "diversification". Big company shits on it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by afidel ( 530433 )

      This is not an Apple problem, it's an industry and maybe even a societal problem. I don't even think it's possible to get a good job, get an A+ rating for every performance review ever, and expect to stay at that job for 5+ years. After 10 years, you are too expensive to keep around.

      Lol, just left one job after 10 years, not because I was too expensive but because the new company had more resources to spend and could offer me significantly more. The average seniority at the new company for IT workers is 17

  • They lost me at Goldman Sachs (Score:5, Funny)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @11:04PM (#53105385) Journal

    If Goldman Sachs is involved I am very suspicious. They are never to be trusted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      There's at least two reasons here why GS would be interested:

      1. High frequency trading, if you control the software and make it as fast as possible, then all that is left is the networking between you and the exchange. Controlling the networking is the next step, this is total control, total integration
      2. Limit backdoors; if you own the system totally and completely, you can nearly guarantee your system has no backdoors from state actors.

      If you're as big as GS, you definitely don't want to o

  • Bet I could just walk onto campus and their wireless portion would cease working.

    Hello 2.4 GHz HPF EMF device. Easily built for less than $10 if you know how to make the tank circuits yourself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Maritz ( 1829006 )

      Bet I could just walk onto campus and their wireless portion would cease working.

      Hello 2.4 GHz HPF EMF device. Easily built for less than $10 if you know how to make the tank circuits yourself.

      Considering all the scary charges you'd get hit with, seems like you should just bring a hand grenade.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        You assume anyone can pinpoint such a signal when it's bouncing off of buildings.

        Try again when you understand the basic physics behind radio signals.

  • They violated Apple's first commandment (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @03:38AM (#53106037)

    Thou shalt not have any cults next to me!

  • I mostly see cult like devotion from Apple aficionados, who's typical answer to question "Why did you choose iPhone" typical boils down to "because Apple".

  • I expect it was less a "Cult" and more about being set up for failure.

    Being asked to do something unrealistic, then on analysis coming up with the best option, then being told by Management to do something else, the team probably looked at the situation, realized they were being set up for eventual failure and rather than following through to the enviable conclusion decided to cut their losses and start looking for more rewarding work elsewhere.

    In the end it was likely known that Management would throw them

  • The company wants a network that never goes down---a very challenging project.

    Then it prohibits the engineers from implementing the solution they chose.

    So management is demanding a high-grade service and refusing the method chosen by their experts? I assume the engineering team would also be blamed when the service failed to perform as expected.

    I would quit too. You don't get to ignore a consensus of experts and then hold them accountable for result. If they're skilled enough that you ought to be listening

  • >> building a network at Apple that was so reliable, it never goes down. Not rarely -- never.

    Thats logically impossible. No matter how many layers of failover and backup systems you have, each unavoidably has some probability of themselves failing. Even if VERY small, its still not never.

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