back to article HP: We're still running the ARM race with Moonshot servers

Moonshot servers running ARM chips are still very much in Hewlett-Packard’s future, despite challengers dropping out of the data-centre race. That’s according to HP’s vice president of product management and marketing for Moonshot, Susan Blocher, who spoke to The Register on Tuesday. “Moonshot is very much committed to ARM …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. firu toddo
    Trollface

    New unit of measure?

    The 'huge' , as in 'packing a huge of computing bang into a space smaller than the standard x86 blade and chassis'.

    We need a definition.

    I huge is........

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. David Dawson

      Re: New unit of measure?

      I think they're maybe missing a trick. The old "should you use many or much".

      1 huge is many of not very much as all the processors are a few generations behind, but there's loads and loads of them in not very much space. For some types of app, this could be epic. We're building lots of microservice based apps, this fits perfectly. If you run on an app on a software VM (eg, the V8/ Node VM , Java JVM etc), whether you are on Intel or ARM makes no difference to the code itself, the VM handles all that.

      Personally, I want to see what The Machine would be able to do, if it ever comes out, this feels like something of a halfway house to that piece of HP magic.

  3. Gordan

    Rhetoric vs. Delivery

    HP Moonshot servers were announced many months if not years ago - yet it is impossible to actually buy one as a regular buyer like you can buy their x86 servers. There has certainly been plenty of rhetoric, but so far in terms of availability and delivery this has been pure vaporware. That is really disappointing.

    EL6 has been ported to ARM (RedSleeve) and EL7 port is being actively worked on (RedSleeve and CentOS). Debian and Ubuntu are also very committed to supporting ARM machines. But despite the Linux community having rallied, decent hardware (i.e. with more than 512MB of RAM) is scarce and almost entirely limited to Chromebooks (the old dual core model and the newer 8 core model), with the notable exceptions being the Arndale OCTA (similar spec to the new 8 core chromebook) and the Cornfed Conserver (mini-ITX).

    Boston Viridis looks quite awesome but the cost is astronimical (many times what a similar spec machine farm made of Chromebooks would cost).

    It would be nice if HP moved from words to deeds when it comes to delivering ARM servers.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Rhetoric vs. Delivery

      Anything delivered by HP will be

      - next to impossible to configure let alone order unless you are a Fortune 500/FTSE 100 company (in that case HP will do it for you)

      - Horribly late

      - Overpackeged (beyond belief)

      And...

      Cost you an ARM and a leg when compared to the comptition {pun intended}

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      1 & 2 GB Arms

      There is now a selection of 1 and 2GB 32 bit Arms. Take a look here.

      At those prices, techies can play with them and get a feel for what they are capable of. When a task matches a machine I have tried, I can select a 32-bit ARM with confidence and save money and power compared to a low end X86.

      I have yet to even here rumours of cheap 64-bit Arm boards. Perhaps something will turn up in 2016.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rhetoric vs. Delivery

      The rhetoric was what I picked up on immediately.To wit: '“Moonshot is very much committed to ARM and we have a roadmap we are committed to and working on, on ARM,” Blocher said. “We are serious about ARM. We view it as a differentiator on Moonshot and we have a roadmap will continue to execute on.”' Methinks he doth protest too much.

      Thanks for the ref. to Cornfed Systems. BTW, much search (+10 hrs to posting) turned up your comment immediately. Such is fame ;-).

    4. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Gordon Re: Rhetoric vs. Delivery

      ".....yet it is impossible to actually buy one as a regular buyer like you can buy their x86 servers. There has certainly been plenty of rhetoric, but so far in terms of availability and delivery this has been pure vaporware...." Gosh, those guys at Inkabinka must be really smart, then, seeing as you insist they are running their news service on 'vapor':

      http://www.enterprisetech.com/2014/06/23/inkabinka-moves-cloud-moonshot-launch/

      Personally, I wouldn't know about buying a unit, but hp have been trying to get us to take a demo system for months, we just can't agree on what we would do with it. Which is part of the whole ARM problem - despite it being supposedly cheaper to operate, it has to displace established x64 solutions. As I have pointed out before, whilst SUN's CMT design was pretty poor for most enterprise cases, it was probably a better platform for web serving than x64, yet the industry chose to stay with x64. ARM faces the same problem. It seems x64, whilst not perfect, is pretty good for the majority of cases, trusted and cheap enough that it may still fight off ARM, especially if Intel and AMD can get reasonable energy-savings and still allow respectable performance with current x64 applications. Maybe someone will come up with a 'killer app' for ARM, otherwise it looks like a tough sell.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Geez

    It's almost as though some other chip vendor was threatening that mainstream x86 server vendors would lose their discounts, co-marketing support, etc, if they dared move even slightly away from The One True x86 Way.

    Good job that would never happen, innit. Well, unless anyone can dig up any articles on Intel paying Dell a small fortune to not use AMD, as revealed at the US Supreme Court a few years ago. I'm sure there used to be one or two relevant articles round here, but right now all I can find is stuff like

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27809112

    OK then, well, good job it wouldn't happen again then...

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: AC Re: Geez

      "......unless anyone can dig up any articles on Intel paying Dell a small fortune to not use AMD....." If only you had bothered to do some research before falling back on the anti-Intel froth - hp heavily backed AMD, especially Opteron, and offered AMD-flavored servers, PCs and laptops from the word go. They still do. They also had Linux offerings across their server and workstation lines waaaaay back before it became fashionable.

  5. Brian Miller

    Why binary compatibility?

    "The chief problem for ARM is existing Intel apps won’t run on the chipset."

    Once upon a time, not that long ago, this would never have been an issue. Really, the data center environment was heterogeneous, and many architectures were found. It was quite typical for a vendor to distribute many versions of the product. Yes, I personally did that, and the product was compiled for over 20 flavors.

    Now we supposedly have Linux all over the place, but it's not really about Linux, is it? It's about Windows. If it were Linux, then it would be nothing to do but type "make" and then get on with it. But all of this actually has to do with Windows, and of course there's no end to that rat hole.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Why binary compatibility?

      It's about Windows in the SMB space. It's about Oracle (Linux/Solaris), Linux, AIX maybe HPUX in the Enterprise space. It's pretty much Linux (and perhaps BSD) only in the ISP/hosting/cloud world which is where Moonshot is aimed.

    2. Mark .

      Re: Why binary compatibility?

      Typing "make" requires the source, so the real issue is closed source software. Make won't help you with a closed source binary package.

      Windows does support ARM now - as indeed, Windows NT supported other architectures back in the days you talk about. But MS themselves are hobbled by the same desire for x86 compatibility from users, lack of desire to support multiple architectures if they can get away with it from companies, and a lack of Open Source.

  6. luis river

    ...and Linux-ARM server?

    I find MSFT that already this working in a version of Windows Server for "ARM", there will be surprises. Why don't triumph "ARM" with Linux server?, MSFT is not guilty and it is spectator that the industry remains impassive and idle.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: ...and Linux-ARM server?

      Agree Linux on ARM servers should not be that big a leap of imagination.

      The whispers I heard in late 2012 was that an ARM version of Windows Server was a possibility (possibly stoked up before we all realised how narrow Microsoft's ARM vision was - WinRT, oh dear ).

      Certainly Windows Server on ARM would be the game changer here, but I am sceptical we'll see it.

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