Showing posts with label ARM partner. Show all posts
Packet.net strong-ARMs cloud for $0.005 per core per hour
CEO
Zachary Smith told The Register that the company's cooked up the cloud for a
few reasons. Price is one: Packet will offer ARM cores at a tenth of the price
it charges for Intel cores, at US$0.50 per hour per server, or $0.005 per core
per hour. Smith thinks that will be a head-turner by itself.
Packet.net,
a bare-metal cloud aimed at developers, has flicked the switch on cloud-running
servers powered by a pair of Cavium's 48-core ARMv8-A ThunderX processors.
He
also thinks developers will appreciate the chance to try native Docker on
many-cored machines and appreciate the opportunity an ARM-powered cloud
represents as they pursue 100 per cent portable software. He believes open
source folk will see the arrival of an ARM-powered cloud as incentive to
accelerate cross-platform versions of their pet projects.
Even
ARM will benefit, he says, because having a working cloud on the market will
give both it and licensees more reason to innovate for the data centre.
ARM's
recent purchaser, SoftBank, recently tipped some money into Packet.net, but Smith
swears he's had a long-term ambition to offer an ARM-powered cloud, if only
because he enjoys having multiple ARM server CPU vendors willing to do deals.
That kind of competition is not currently possible in the x86 world, at least
until AMD returns to servers in 2017.
Smith
also feels that ARM clouds are inevitable, probably thanks to telcos looking to
offer cores to rent at the edge of their networks. The CEO feels that telcos
will build edge clouds because they're sick of over-the-top players having all
the fun and profits: this time telcos want to build a revenue-generating
platform beyond mere carriage.
For
now, Packet's ARM cloud offers 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04, but promises that CoreOS,
FreeBSD and CentOS are in the pipeline. Four different ARM server
configurations are also in the works.
The
cloud will have an API, a portal, and will also be accessible from DevOps
favourites likes Terraform and Ansible. Four of the company's bit barns – in
Parsippany New Jersey, Sunnyvale California, Amsterdam and Tokyo – will offer
the service as of Tuesday.
"We
want to offer a super-cheap, 'you would be stupid not to try it'
offering," Smith told The Register. "If we can get the open source
ecosystem rebooted, I think Intel's grip on the data centre will be
shattered." ®
Packet’s not-so-secret weapon: energy-sipping bare-metal servers using ARM processors.
A
little-known startup is making a big bet that it can parlay new ARM chips, and
backing from a Japanese investment giant, to make its presence felt among the
cloud computing giants.
The
company, Packet, on Tuesday is launching new rentable “bare metal” computing
services based on the ARM v8 chip architecture from its data centers in New
Jersey, Northern California, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. Customers can set up and
launch these resources within minutes, Packet said
The
move is unusual because ARM chips are not commonly found in the servers that
power corporate data centers or public cloud computer services, such as those
sold by Amazon AMZN -1.47% Web Services. They do, however, dominate the
smartphone market—scratch an Apple AAPL
-1.87% iPhone (God forbid) and you’ll
see an ARM chip. And many techies see ARM’s energy-efficient design as an
interesting option for servers going forward.
Bare
metal servers, unlike typical cloud-based servers, are not virtualized. That
means they can run certain jobs, like databases, faster than virtualized cloud
servers. IBM IBM -2.15% , Rackspace RAX 0.00%
and some other cloud companies already offer bare metal options for
rent.
New
York-based Packet, which disclosed $9.4 million in funding from Softbank in
September, aims to satisfy what it sees as a growing market for bare-metal
computing on demand. Softbank is a great ally for Packet, since it is buying
ARM Holdings for $32 billion. ARM Holdings is the U.K. company that controls
and licenses ARM processor designs to manufacturers.
Packet
CEO Zachary Smith acknowledges that this is a David and Goliath tale in many
ways. Intel chips dominate cloud computing services and equipment, as they do
inside corporate data centers. And Amazon Web Services and Microsoft MSFT -0.71%
Azure are the behemoths in the public cloud market; both organizations
sell (or rent) massive amounts of computing power to customers from their
Intel-dominated data centers.
Smith
has no problem stipulating that Intel owns “99 point whatever percent” of the
data center chip architecture, with a smattering of IBM-backed Power chips and
Oracle ORCL -1.42% SPARC chips here and there. Likewise, he
admits that Intel INTC 0.23% x86 chips work with everything, that Intel
fields a huge partner ecosystem of software, hardware and add-on providers, and
that it also owns the biggest-and-best fabrication facilities.
But,
he also insists that big changes over the past year are shifting the balance of
power. “There are a billion smartphones out there with ARM chips,” Smith noted.
As a result, there many manufacturers and plenty of ARM licensees working with
the technology. What that means is ARM now has an ecosystem all its own, which
is something Softbank and Packet hope to capitalize on.
Taking
on established cloud giants like Amazon Web Services is a long shot but there
are some critical nuances to consider.
First,
the market for rentable computer resources is growing fast enough now to float
many boats, including newcomers, provided they have funding and innovative
services that corporate developers and their IT strategy overlords want.
Second,
even cloud giants admit that new chip technologies will be critical as cloud
computing matures. Energy-efficient ARM chips that already power an estimated
95% of smartphones are bound to get a look, especially if their use can reduce
data center power requirements. Microsoft and Google also talk up x86
alternative chips for some uses. And Amazon last year bought Annapurna Labs, an
ARM chip licensee. Clearly, there is interest here.
Smith
contended that the widespread use of ARM chips in other scenarios is also
making it easier for cloud service providers (and others) to get early previews
of the technology and to develop offerings using it.
From Google Cars to Apple and McLaren to Daimler Benz and in-car voice activated Microsoft office to specially designed safety chips – the journey is only starting
So it appears that whatever else you will be
doing in your car in the future, you won’t be driving it
The
ever tightening integration of the car industry and the digital tech industry
appears to be accelerating if the number of deals, technology announcements and
rumours is anything to go by.
Cars
and digital technology are suddenly everywhere. In the period of just a couple
of days.
Apple
to buy a British supercar maker reported the FT.
This
was denied by McLaren, the UK sports car manufacturer and owner of McLaren F1
racing team. But it didn’t stop the spread of comment about why this would be
logical.
In
another breaking news story, the electric car maker Tesla is reportedly being
sued for being low on horsepower.
A
group of Norwegians is has filed a lawsuit claiming that Tesla’s Model S P85D
only reached horsepower of 469 and not 700 as had been marketed as an ‘insane’
mode. Tesla rejected the claims. The case is due to begin in Oslo in December.
In China Tesla is facing a lawsuit which centres around its autopilot function
following a fatal crash.
Over
in Germany, Daimler Benz said it would extend its deal with T-Systems, the
business arm of Deutsche Telekom which included its connected car platform.
T-Systems connects over two million Daimler vehicles across the globe via
Daimler’s proprietary connected car platform, and it will continue to operate the
existing "Mercedes me connect" services for the next generation of
vehicles as well. The services include live traffic information, safety
functions such as emergency call, convenience services such as remote control,
and infotainment apps like Internet radio and hotel/parking search functions.
Microsoft
this week said in a blog that it was working with Daimler and other auto makers
to bring voice activated Office365 to the car.
It
said: “Many of us love our cars, but we don’t necessarily love spending time in
them during the work week if it means inching forward on the freeway or being
stuck in stop-and-go traffic. When we’re behind the wheel during those long
commutes, we often end up behind the curve by the time we get to work.”
"To
help make time in the car more productive, Microsoft is working with auto
companies to bring to the car the same Office 365 communication and
collaboration services you’ve come to rely on at work. Office 365 in the car
includes Microsoft Exchange support, which integrates your work calendar, to-do
list and contacts, with all of them using your car’s voice and navigation
systems."
Daimler
AG recently announced it will start using what it calls, “In Car Office” in
some of its Mercedes models beginning in mid-2017.
“Microsoft
is working with auto companies to make time spent in vehicles more efficient
and connected to people’s daily lives,” said Kevin Dallas, corporate vice
president of Business Development at Microsoft. “This collaboration with
Daimler represents a new emphasis on consumer productivity within the car as we
look forward to autonomous driving in the future.”
The
system, “knows about your next phone conferences and dials you in automatically
while you’re in the car,” said Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of
management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, speaking at IFA 2016
in Berlin earlier this month.
The
service can also tap into your calendar data and auto-populate your car’s
navigation unit with driving directions for an upcoming meeting. In the future,
when autonomous vehicles become a reality, the service will become a platform
for more extensive tasks like Skype video chats.
Here
the in the UK and deep down at the technology level ARM Holdings, announced a
‘safety’ chip for autonomous vehicles.
ARM
has launched a new real-time processor with advanced safety features for
autonomous vehicles and medical and industrial robots. The ARM Cortex-R52 was
designed to address functional safety in systems that must comply with ISO
26262 ASIL D and IEC 61508 SIL 3, the most stringent safety standards in the
automotive and industrial markets
STMicroelectronics
is the first ARM partner to announce it has licensed the high performance
processor to enable it to create highly integrated SoCs for the automotive
market.
The
Cortex-R52 is the first processor built on the ARMv8-R architecture and it was
designed from the ground up to address functional safety," said James
McNiven, general manager for CPU and media processing groups, ARM. "We are
helping partners to meet particular market opportunities, especially in fully
autonomous vehicles and robotics systems where specific functionality is
required for safety-critical tasks. By documenting the strict development
process, fault modelling and supporting software isolation, ARM is enabling a
faster route to market for partners addressing these applications
The
Cortex-R52 offers hardware-enforced separation of software tasks to ensure
safety-critical code is fully isolated. This allows the hardware to be managed
by a software hypervisor policing the execution and resourcing of tasks. By
enabling the precise and robust separation of software, the Cortex-R52
decreases the amount of code that must be safety-certified, so speeding up
development as software integration, maintenance and validation is easier. The
processor also deals with increased software complexity while delivering the
determinism and fast context switching that real-time systems demand
The
Cortex-R52 supports our Smart Driving vision by enabling a new range of
high-performance, power-efficient SoCs for any in-vehicle application demanding
real-time operation and the highest levels of functional safety, including
powertrain, chassis and ADAS," said Fabio Marchiò, Automotive &
Discrete Group Vice President and GM at the Automotive Digital Division, STM
Microelectronics. The ability to compartmentalise software provides our users
with the best solution for safety without loss of determinism. Its
virtualisation support simplifies the consolidation of applications and
functions into a single processor, delivering a shorter integration time. DENSO,
a leading global supplier of advanced automotive technology, systems and
components is supporting the launch.
ARM
was sold to Japan's Softbank back in July. Read Why did Softbank buy ARM
