War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength - Orwell's 1984
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HP is readying ARM-based servers
FLOGGER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK HP is preparing ARM-based servers using chips from Calxeda.
HP, which is Intel's biggest x86 chip customer, reportedly is readying servers based on ARM processors, which will make it the first high volume server vendor to take the plunge away from Intel. Bloomberg reports that HP has turned to chip vendor Calxeda, a firm that is part-owned by ARM.
For ARM the question of its chips appearing in servers is more a question of when, rather than if. The chip designer's low powered processors have conquered the embedded world and enjoy a near shut-out in the smartphone and tablet market. Interestingly, ARM's foray into the server market is the mirror image of what Intel is facing in the smartphone and tablet market.
The problem for Intel is that in the server market everyone is looking for a low power chip that will enable them to increase compute density. Luckily for ARM, that's exactly what its chips are known for.
ARM hasn't kept its server intentions a secret, however it was expected that it would take a couple of years before its chips were adopted by headline server vendors such as HP and Dell.
If HP really is close to inking a deal with Calxeda to launch ARM-based servers, then Intel should be worried. Not only does HP ship a vast number of servers, but the fact that such a big brand sees ARM-based servers as a viable market could open the gates for its rivals to jump on the ARM bandwagon. µ
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@User No it will not. It will only run on ARM boxes designed to run Windows 8, nothing else.
By contrast, Linux and its derivatives do run on ARM, and will even run on ARM devices not built to run it. For example, people have already got Android running on HP’s TouchPad. Do you think that’s going to get Windows 8? Not a chance.
A few things here.
Windows 8 will run on ARM, from that it's not far of a stretch that server 2012/3 will have a kernel that will support ARM as well.
32bit versions of windows supported Paged Address Extensions which created multiple segments of 4GB memory spaces that could be assigned to physical memory. 32-bit versions of 2003 data centre could support up to 128GB of RAM this way.
Ignorance is bliss hey?
Unlike windows, the 32 bit linux kernel added support for up to 64gb of memory, incorporating physical address extensions into the main kernel. Also 64 bit arm chips are in development
Windows doesn’t run on ARM, so these will have to be Linux boxes. So there won’t be any Windows bloat, which means 32-bit should be less of a problem for now.
A 32-bit server can't address much memory. What has HP done about that ?
HP had better be careful of:
1) Giving Oracle ammunition for litigation
2) Pissing off the mighty Intel. If Intel doesn't do to them what they stopped not doing to other AMD customers, the x86 hardware starts going up in price. Remember, competition is bad, but leveraging is good. Might actually tilt the scales in AMD's favor.
3) No blue men to sing, dance, and promote the servers. This would be a huge hole in the marketing to IT buyers, who rely on such INNOVATION to influence technical decisions.
4) Pissing off the mighty Vole if HP starts to use too much Linux and not enough LoseDoze 8 on those ARM servers. Here again, competition is bad to a monopoly, so might need to leverage those desktop licenses on the server sales. Of course Micr0$uck$ couldn't do this because that would be illegal, but if the courts told them to stop doing not doing it, they would comply immediately.