I think x86/amd64 virtualization has made ARM a much less compelling option for servers than what it would have been a few years ago.<p>I'm looking forward to benchmarks of new ARM server CPU (esp. AMDs), but in the past comparing scale out ARM boxes and tradtional servers in the same space has:<p><pre><code> 1. Been much more more in favor x86/amd64 under low load (much lower latency for users)
2. Been pretty similar under very high concurrent loads
3. Not had compelling differentiation in power consumption
</code></pre>
In short 48 1.6 GHz ARM cores doesn't farewell against even a lower end x86/amd64 server with dual quad core CPUs with SMT (hyperthreading), that is 32 logical cores at 3.0 GHz. And the x86/amd64 is much cheaper.<p>In reality I could fill a rack with these arm blades or have two quad socket x86/amd64 servers be equivalent or better...<p>I hope this changes for the sake of consumer options, but I need to see benchmarks + power usage stats to believe it.
I suppose this is one of the things you can do when you take DELL private, no institutional shareholders to sue you because you 'threatened their value' with a radical product idea.<p>As a systems guy I love the concept, but I'm a bit sad at the implementation. I would have loved to see the back plane of these things connect to a 'switch module' and take the connectors off the front. Basically a 48 port GBE switch with quad 10GbE uplinks out the "end" of the case would have been much nicer. Installing a nice SDN stack in the switch hardware such that one could virtualize the switch topology on the fly and you've got a box that you can configure in lots of ways and still get some economies of scale in both the CPU and switch infrastructure. Install a 24 port 10GbE switch on the top of the rack, and you've to 6 "copper" (18U), 24 port switch (1U), for a rack with 288 hosts, 2.3T of RAM, 288T of storage, and assuming a non-blocking 24 port switch 1. 883Mbits between any two hosts. Add a 1U boot/config management server into the rack and that is a heck of a gizmo.
They left out two most critical bits of info: power consumption and price. You can already get ridiculous amounts of x86 cores in a rack if you want, but those can get pricy to buy and to keep running.
Take a look at the HP Moonshot servers for comparison: <a href="http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/moonshot/index.aspx#.UpHyoqWO5G8" rel="nofollow">http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/...</a><p>These boxes have internal slots for 45 blades. The current generation blades are Atoms and run a variety of Linux OS offerings. Future blades will be geared towards memcache, GPU, and other types of clusters. I got a couple of these at work for eval a little while back, and it's a pretty interesting package.
I don't think these are ARMv8 (64-bit). Applied Micro should be the first one to the ARM server market with such chips, and I think they will be available soon:<p><a href="http://www.apm.com/news/appliedmicro-announces-general-availability-of-x-gene-system-development-ki/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apm.com/news/appliedmicro-announces-general-avail...</a><p><a href="http://www.apm.com/products/data-center/x-gene-family/x-gene/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apm.com/products/data-center/x-gene-family/x-gene...</a>
This is similar offering to SuperMicro 's MicroCloud. Except with ARM instead of x86.
As much as i love ARM and want them to succeed. I dont think there are any advantage of using ARM in Server apart from Cost. And Since ARM is still vastly under power for many Web Server Operation its time just isn't here. May be two - three years later when 64Bit ARM with EightCore Chip costing less then $50 dollars. But even so Intel's Atom would have a similar performance with similar price. According to some new test on the Soon to be available 8 Core Atom for Server it is surprisingly performance / watt.<p>To simply put, the server market has longed for a low power part for certain type of usage scenario. And Intel will soon has that covered.
Maybe I'm not opened minded enough, but I just don't believe the future is ARM on the desktop/server. I believe the future is x86 on the phone. I feel like it's less time until Intel gets the power correct as opposed to ARM getting the speed.
I'm honestly not interested in all the reasons you won't use these servers.<p>I doubt Dell designed these speculatively. One or more Dell customers likely requested them.<p>Who are these customers, and what is their use case? That's what's likely interesting.
Not being an expert on servers, I can see a possible use-case for low-power servers like this: strongly disk-bound tasks (e.g. infrequently accessible storage area).<p>Although, a cost analysis might be required- I suspect that a more powerful CPU with a lot more disks may end up costing less (per unit of disk space vs total power consumption).
Are there any ARM servers currently available to Normal People?<p>I got excited when I first saw the headline because the last time I looked I didn't see anything available in the hobbyist/small business price range.
I couldn't find anything on pricing and availability, but, despite my enthusiasm for Windows-proof servers, I am not sure if having a lot of discrete servers in a 3U enclosure is better than having a lot of containers running on, say, 3 1U servers. Containers (or even VMs) are much more manageable than 48 physically distinct machines (to say nothing of having 4 on each board, meaning an upgrade or defect on one means needles downtime for three others).<p>If we could turn it into a NUMA machine with 48 CPUs, that would be a totally different story.
Given ARM reigns the mobile space, and if it gains traction in the server market, it will put tremendous pressure on the PC market which lies in between.
<p><pre><code> > What is ARM?
> An advanced RISC machine (ARM) server employs small,
> low-power ARM processors, typically deployed as
> systems on a chip (SoC) to reduce space, power consumption
> and cost.
</code></pre>
This looks like a perfect example of the kind of violation a trademark owner is required to pursue to protect the trademark: Dell uses "ARM server" here to mean "a server that is RISC-based and advanced" rather than "a server [based on tech] of the brand ARM from ARM Ltd."