ARM server future

While talking about ARM server future, Calxeda should be considered first who initially jumped into ARM server fray. Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 (based on the ARMv7 spec and only support 32-bit processing and memory addressing and 4GB memory) were introduced in November 2011. This year Calxeda is planning a Cortex-A15 core.It's chip code named "Midway" and supports 40-bit memory addressing and the memory to 16GB. This chip claims to be having twice the performance and enhanced virtualization. In 2014 they will make a move to the ARMv8 core with its "Lago" system-on-chip, providing 64-bit processing and memory addressing. Lago will help to double the performance of the processor and more than 100,000 nodes. Moreover, an ARM SoC from Calxeda called "Ratamosa" aimed at full-on enterprise applications and supercomputing workloads will also have performance enhancements.

Applied Micro wanted to be first with 64-bit ARM servers with ARM chip suitable for modern, cloudy servers .They launched X-Gene multi-core SoC based on ARMv8 design in October 2011. Initial X-Gene chip is supposed to sample in the first quarter of 2013 with being in market at the end of this year.

Marvell, Nvidia, AMD, Cavium and Samsung are also runners in the competitions although not so solid announcements made by these companies.

Many companies are working on  processors and interconnects.  So open source Linux operating system might be natural fit for the ARM chips.Chip developers and software providers can get help from Linux easily.

HP Project Moonshot

Hewlett-Packard (HP) had announced server cluster with the use of EnergyCore ARM RISC server chip. This hyperscale server is known as Project Moonshot. Redstone is going to be the first server platform under this project. HP states Project Moonshot as a extension to their previous ProLiant and Integrity server lines and not a replacement.

Moonshot is going to include superdense servers based on Intel low power Xeon and Atom chips and Advanced Micro Devices low-power x86 processors as well as multiple  ARM-based server chips.

Redstone is going to use Calxeda chips. Right now Redstone has 32 bit chips and HP says many customers think it’s fine. These chips can be targeted for web serving, web caching and data chewing workloads. 

The half rack of Redstone machines will be providing 1600 server nodes and will have 41 cables using 9.9 kwatts for $1.2m compared to traditional x86 based cluster with 10 rack space, 1600 cables using 91 kwatt for $3.3m. These numbers are impressive but the big caveat is, it will work for the workloads that can scale well on a modestly clocked (1.1GHz or 1.4GHz), four-core server chip which works only with 32-bits and has 4GB of memory.

ARM and x86 for portable devices and clouds (1)

New data center services for mobile platforms have increased demand for micro servers. the demand increase is triple in 2013 and according to research firm IHS iSuppli; the demand is going to increase in next five years.

For server design, maintenance, expandability, energy efficiency and low cost are important factors. Although Intel unveiled and reference the micro server concep, ARM architecture is gaining greater support from software and OS vendors which could put pressure on Intel.

Data centers spend 50% of the cost on power which can be reduced by using ARM architecture. ARM chips consume dramatically low power than x86 chips.ARM architectures are good for cloud computing in terms of following points. One is Scale-out workloads. Because of capability of ARM doing parallel processing very well, it is good match for large loads of data analytics, webscale applications and web search.other point is low power consumption and low cost.

The ARM architecture may face Jevon’s paradox which states that the resources increasing efficiency tends to increase the rate of consumption of that resource (rather than reducing the use).
The problems with ARM architecture: They support 32 bit instruction sets and most server operating softwares and applications use 64 bit architectures. Even if ARM servers are used in future, many applications would have to be rewritten for ARM architecture.
Also, data center buyers will have to get used to ARM technologies. Moreover they need to support multiple architectures to support their data centes.

TryStack is an OpenStack Essex on ARM sandbox is the only one available now. TryStack resembles the cloud environment which can be created by using OpenStack software. It allows testing of reference architectures. If we want to check how software running on ARM server against Xeon(Intel) server,TryStack is a sandbox for developers to play with.

The “ARM Zone” in TryStack is hosted by Core NAP. Core NAP is a service provider in Austin,TX. HP is contributing Redstone servers, Calxeda giving the server node cards, and Canonical is providing Ubuntu server 12.04 Linux to make ARM Zone. This hardware includes 25 server nodes with 24 disks. Also, 24 node-24 disk capacity of standby.