Hardware Podcasts

Holistic Boot

Oxide and Friends · 11 Oct 2022 · 1h 31m · Episode 30

What this episode covers

Brian Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, and Josh Baker of Oxide Computer Company discuss their 'Holistic Boot' approach, which eliminates the traditional BIOS and BMC to reduce attack surface and improve reliability. They detail specific failures in industry-standard firmware, such as BMCs failing to boot idempotently and Intel Management Engine issues, explaining how these opaque layers cause unpredictable behavior. The team explains their custom 'foible' bootloader and service processor design, which allows them to boot directly into the OS kernel, resulting in faster development cycles and higher system quality compared to relying on proprietary vendor firmware.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Oxide Computer Company, Intel, Dell, AMD, NVIDIA
Products
PERC
Also
Brian Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, Josh Baker, Dan Moseley, Redfish, BMC, Management Engine, Richmond 16, SMM, foible, PSP

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