OpenPower | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Sat, 20 Dec 2014 15:38:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png OpenPower | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Rackspace to lower reliance on Intel, set to use OpenPower servers https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/rackspace-to-lower-reliance-on-intel-set-to-use-openpower-servers/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/rackspace-to-lower-reliance-on-intel-set-to-use-openpower-servers/#respond Sat, 20 Dec 2014 04:10:03 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=227509 Rackspace, one of the world’s largest web hosting and cloud companies, this week officially became a member of the OpenPower foundation, the organization that develops “open-source” servers powered by next-generation IBM Power microprocessors as well as chips based on the Power architecture. The move means that the company will reduce its reliance on CPUs from …

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Rackspace, one of the world’s largest web hosting and cloud companies, this week officially became a member of the OpenPower foundation, the organization that develops “open-source” servers powered by next-generation IBM Power microprocessors as well as chips based on the Power architecture. The move means that the company will reduce its reliance on CPUs from Intel Corp. over time and will be able to better tailor its servers for its needs.

“We think that by working within this new community, Rackspace can deliver improved performance, value, and features for our customers,” said Aaron Sullivan, senior director and distinguished engineer at Rackspace, who is focused on infrastructure strategy.

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Rackspace is not new to open-source development. The company co-founded the OpenStack and co-chairs the Open Compute project, it clearly understands all the value that open-source co-development brings to the table.

Rackspace claims that it has been involved with the OpenPower for more than 18 months. The company has been evaluating the technology, current performance results and future potential. Rackspace claims that everything about the OpenPower platforms is so promising that it makes a great sense to build an OpenPower-based, Open Compute platform that will run OpenStack services.

The web hosting and cloud provider claims that in order to continue gaining server performance in the coming years cost-efficiently, it will need not only to build efficient machines, but to build machines from the very ground up, which includes designing central processing units, memory and storage technologies.

“Moving forward, as we consider the performance levels we want to provide customers with future cloud offerings, we’ll need to start moving into chips, memory, and storage,” said Mr. Sullivan.

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At present Rackspace does not reveal a lot of details about its work with OpenPower, but it clearly be among the most active contributors. Still, given the fact that Rackspace does not conduct a lot of research and development itself, it will hardly influence technologies on the fundamental levels, like IBM, Nvidia, Samsung, Micron or others.

Rackspace said that it decided not to develop its own chips based on ARM architecture because the latter still cannot match performance of Intel’s x86 or IBM’s Power processors.

While Rackspace’s participation on the OpenPower foundation means that eventually the company will lower purchases of Intel’s chips, the chip giant remains confident that it will remain a leading microprocessor supplier going forward.

“We recognize it’s a competitive industry and we fully recognize and expect that the industry will, always has and always will, explore new options and experiment with those options,” said Mark Miller, a spokesman for Intel, reports Bloomberg news-agency. “We’re confident that we’re going to continue to deliver what our customers need and help solve the industry’s big issues.”

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KitGuru Says: While it is nice to see Rackspace supporting the OpenPower platform, the key thing about the announcement was not emphasized. Rackspace has been working with the OpenPower alliance for more than 18 months without revealing it. We have no idea whether other cloud service providers also quietly participate in development of OpenPower servers without making announcements. As a result, we have no idea how broad the industry support for OpenPower servers is. What if, in addition to Google and IBM, companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and other are also interested in OpenPower machines? This could mean a revolution on the market of servers and the end of Intel’s dominance.

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Inspur to build servers featuring IBM’s Power processors, software https://www.kitguru.net/professional/server/anton-shilov/inspur-to-build-servers-featuring-ibms-power-processors-software/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/server/anton-shilov/inspur-to-build-servers-featuring-ibms-power-processors-software/#respond Wed, 27 Aug 2014 03:11:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=209079 Inspur, a leading server maker from China, and IBM have agreed to jointly develop servers featuring IBM software and Power microprocessors. In particular, the two companies ported IBM DB2 and IBM WebSphere application server software to operate on Inspur TSK1 mission-critical servers. “Inspur looks forward to teaming with IBM to drive business innovation for local …

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Inspur, a leading server maker from China, and IBM have agreed to jointly develop servers featuring IBM software and Power microprocessors. In particular, the two companies ported IBM DB2 and IBM WebSphere application server software to operate on Inspur TSK1 mission-critical servers.

“Inspur looks forward to teaming with IBM to drive business innovation for local clients using the latest IBM technologies, business expertise and superior client support,” said Sun Pishu, chairman and CEO of Inspur. “Inspur’s growing partnership with IBM and our collaboration in the OpenPower foundation demonstrates our joint commitment to fuel innovation in China.”

Inspur’s TSK1 mission critical server is powered by up to 32 quad-core Intel Itanium 9300-series microprocessors with the Hyper-Threading technology. The server was designed entirely in China and features K-UX fault-tolerant operating system, which enables high performance, reliability, scalability, availability, security and manageability.

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IBM’s DB2 with BLU Acceleration is a platform delivering in-memory computing analytics with high performance transaction processing in one database, providing faster answers to today’s business problems. WebSphere Application Server helps customers respond to enterprise and market needs more quickly by enabling rapid development and deployment of web, mobile, social and analytic applications. In general, IBM enabled Inspur to offer technologies that previously were available only from IBM, something the company has not done previously.

IBM’s software development lab in Beijing will optimize the platform for specific partner requirements and to create new analytical applications. Inspur plans to recruit a strategic ecosystem of partners to adopt the DB2 and WebSphere platform. The agreement will help speed time-to-value for Big Data projects, whereas IBM will gain access to the Big Data market in China.

International Data Corp. expects the Big Data technology and services market in China to grow at 38.7 per cent compound annual growth rate from $165.5 million to $850 million by 2017. Quite naturally IBM wants a chunk of that market, which is why it will not only help Inspur with software, but will also likely help with other things as well.

Separately, the two companies reaffirmed Inspur’s plans to build servers based on IBM’s Power 8 microprocessors with the help of the OpenPower foundation. IBM intends to make available its new Power8 processors, support chips, and technical assistance and services to help Inspur design its systems.

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KitGuru Says: The agreement between IBM and Inspur provides IBM much better positions on the market of server software in China and will likely help the company to make business in the country.

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First non-IBM Power8 servers set to emerge early in 2015 https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/first-non-ibm-power8-servers-set-to-emerge-early-in-2015/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/first-non-ibm-power8-servers-set-to-emerge-early-in-2015/#respond Thu, 24 Jul 2014 22:59:43 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=204643 Last year IBM established the OpenPower consortium and opened up Power8 processor specifications and architecture to its partners. The goal of the organization is to create an eco-system of Power8-based servers designed for future data centers and cloud computing. The first fruits of the collaboration may become available already early next year. “The first third-party …

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Last year IBM established the OpenPower consortium and opened up Power8 processor specifications and architecture to its partners. The goal of the organization is to create an eco-system of Power8-based servers designed for future data centers and cloud computing. The first fruits of the collaboration may become available already early next year.

“The first third-party Power servers will be for cloud and high-end applications early next year,” said Ken King, general manager of OpenPower alliances at IBM’s systems and technology group, in an interview with PC World. Mr. King added that eventually the Power technology could also be used in lower-end servers.

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For years the Power architecture and the Power processors remained proprietary IBM technologies used for high-end servers and mainframes. As the world is moving away from proprietary solutions to industry-standard x86 servers based on processors from Intel, it became impossible for IBM to popularize Power itself. As a result, it formed the OpenPower consortium (OPC) with the aim to build advanced server, networking, storage and GPU-acceleration technology aimed at delivering more choice, control and flexibility to developers of next-generation, hyperscale and cloud data centers.

IBM licenses the Power architecture and some other essential technologies to its allies from the OPC. Partners are required to contribute intellectual property to the organization. Essentially, IBM wants to create an alternative eco-system to Intel’s x86. IBM is not concerned that non-IBM Power-based machines will eventually be able to compete against its own high-end System-Z and other servers.

“It is about making Power relevant in the marketplace,” said Mr. King.

IBM, Google, Tyan, Nvidia and Mellanox are the founding members of the OpenPower consortium. Samsung, Altera, Micron, SK Hynix, Hitachi and many others are also members of the organization.

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Since the Power technology is new for everyone outside IBM, the company faces an uphill battle in getting server makers to move to Power, according to Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. Server manufacturers have invested a lot in x86 hardware and software, hence, they are pretty reluctant to move to anything new.

“The problem with computing systems on a shrinking user and application base is they go away. It happened to DEC Alpha, Tandem NonStop, it’s happened to dozens of systems,” said Mr. Brookwood.

Nonetheless, thanks to the fact that so many companies have already joined the OpenPower consortium, the Power technology may have a chance.

“To ensure the longevity of Power8 is to get other people to use it and develop on it,” said Mr. Brookwood.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind that several large consumers of servers – Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. – want to have fully-custom (or nearly fully-custom) hardware, including microprocessors, IBM Power should have a chance to become widespread. ARM architecture (which is available for licensing too and which can power custom system-on-chips) will probably be capable to address only low-end server space, whereas Power can offer high performance and an opportunity to customize.

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Micron joins OpenPower, set to co-develop next-gen datacenters https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/micron-joins-openpower-set-to-co-develop-next-gen-datacenters/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/micron-joins-openpower-set-to-co-develop-next-gen-datacenters/#respond Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:01:15 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=184953 Micron Technology, one of the world’s leading makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), NAND flash memory and various storage solutions for enterprise datacenters, on Friday said it had joined the OpenPower foundation, an open development community based on the Power microprocessor architecture, as a platinum member. The OpenPower foundation, which was established back in …

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Micron Technology, one of the world’s leading makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), NAND flash memory and various storage solutions for enterprise datacenters, on Friday said it had joined the OpenPower foundation, an open development community based on the Power microprocessor architecture, as a platinum member.

The OpenPower foundation, which was established back in August 2013, aims to develop advanced server, networking, storage and speeding up technology aimed at bringing more choice, control and flexibility to developers of next-generation, hyperscale and cloud data centers. The organization is developing its innovations around IBM Power microprocessors and Power architecture.

Micron joins a growing roster of technology organizations working collaboratively to build advanced server, networking, storage and acceleration technology. Being a leading developer of solid-state storage solutions for the enterprise and datacenter, Micron is interested in ensuring that its future products are compatible with new machines developed by the OpenPower.

In addition, Micron recently announced its own Automata processing technology, a programmable silicon device, capable of performing high-speed, comprehensive search and analysis of complex, unstructured data streams. Micron is clearly interested in driving Automata into next-generation datacenters as well as supercomputers.

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“Participating in the OpenPower Foundation provides a great opportunity for Micron to help drive a new and exciting collaborative development model,” said Robert Feurle, Micron's vice president of marketing – compute & networking. “This technology platform will broaden innovation and create greater choice for our customers.”

The OpenPower Foundation is highlighting four key areas for development: system software, application software, open server development platform and hardware architecture. Current focus is on software development and preliminary hardware design.

“The goal of the OpenPower Foundation is to open up the Power architecture in a way that fosters collaboration and accelerates new innovations in computing,” said Doug Balog, general manager of IBM Power systems. “Micron's deep experience in memory and storage innovations will help the foundation reach this goal.”

KitGuru Says: IBM managed to make Power truly successful on the markets of mission-critical and high-performance computing in the past, but at present Power’s market share is on the decline. The x86 architecture is slowly but surely gaining high-end server market share and it does not seem like there is a way to stop its expansion anyhow, but by offering a competing eco-system. The OpenPower foundation aims to do just that and it looks like Micron believes that the organization has enough power to create a new eco-system.

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