HP said its plans for the development of servers based on chips ARM

Posted by on December 4, 2011 in Hardware | 0 comments

HP said its plans for the development of servers based on chips ARM

We recently wrote about the fact that there were the first real worries about the upcoming Intel confrontation with the British company ARM processor server market, in Europe launched a program to develop energy-efficient ARM-server, HP also considering the possibility of release servers based on ARM.

Soon after that HP officially unveiled Project Moonshot – the initiative release of energy efficient servers. Moreover, this initiative is not only HP has announced the impending development platform based on the chip ARM, but also a multi-stage multi-year program that includes elements such as HP Discovery Lab, where the company’s customers will be able to experiment, to test and compare the application on the platform and partner ecosystem Pathfinder Program, which will assist in the research initiatives of customers and support the development of elements of the Project Moonshot through open industry standards.

The code name base development platform HP – Redstone. Here is her description of the hardware from the official website: “The server base platform HP Redstone – the first in the line of server platforms, the base having an extremely energy-efficient server processors. Initially the platform will use the processors Calxeda EnergyCore ARM Cortex, and future versions will include Redstone processors based on Intel Atom among others. HP Redstone designed to test and confirm the need for such systems. It includes more than 2,800 servers in a single rack, which reduces the number of cables and switching necessary peripherals, and provides a reduction of 97%. Initially, the platform HP Redstone, is expected to be available in limited quantities selected customers in the first half of next year. ”

HP says that Project Moonshot help make data centers more efficient both in terms of energy consumption, and with respect to footprint and cost. The Company expects that some of the load and the application will consume 89% less energy and take up to 94% less space, and the total cost for this will be reduced by 63% compared to the traditional back-end systems.

Originally a partner initiative Project Moonshot, which will provide its hardware, software and technical expertise will include ARM, Calxeda, Canonical (makers of Ubuntu Linux), Red Hat, and … AMD. What exactly will be the role of AMD in the project, it is not clear, but it is mentioned in the document HP hardware to simulate AMD SimNow.

“The volume of data processed in the financial markets are growing exponentially, and conventional scalable architectures can not cope with the demand without a strong increase in cost and power consumption – said Niall Dalton (Niall Dalton), director of commercial transactions in high-Cantor Fitzgerald, a company that already evaluates the possibility of technology. – HP offers a holistic approach to address this issue and is working to provide unparalleled power savings and resources for large-scale, demanding data processing applications of tomorrow. ”

In general, it seems, an initiative of research and development prospects of energy-efficient servers, launched by HP, is not some side project, and an important strategic step in the development of the server market. At the same ARM chips while playing the primary role of Project Moonshot. With the development of software, the advent of the 64-bit addressing of processors ARM, solutions-based architectures of British design chips may be for x86 formidable rival in some areas of the server market.