Qualcomm has its first customer for the 48-core ARM server processor currently under development. Packet, a bare-metal cloud provider for developers, said it plans to offer customers access to Qualcomm’s Centriq 2400 later this year.
Packet offers a bare-metal cloud platform for developers running Cavium’s 48-core ARMv8-A ThunderX processors. A bare-metal solution means it offers no OS or any operating platform. Customers have to provide all of the software, meaning it is not a popular option; only IBM’s SoftLayer offers bare-metal in any significant way.
But it is ideal for a developer. They can load their entire development or operating environment onto Packet’s systems and have a realistic development and testing environment that matches their future deployment platform.
Packet cloud platform
Packet plans to hit up upcoming developer conferences to show off its new cloud platform, providing access to “a series of demonstrations leveraging open-source tools such as Ansible, Terraform, Docker and Kubernetes, all running on Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies’ ARM architecture-based servers,” according to a statement from the company.
The appearances include Red Hat’s AnsibleFest conference in London; Hashiconf in Austin, Texas; the Open Source Summit North America in Los Angeles; and AnsibleFest in San Francisco.
“We believe that innovative hardware will be a major contributor to improving application performance over the next few years. Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies is at the bleeding edge of this innovation with the world’s first 10nm server processor,” said Nathan Goulding, Packet’s senior vice president of engineering in a statement. “With blazing-fast innovation occurring at all levels of software, the simple act of giving developers direct access to hardware is a massive, and very timely, opportunity.”
Packet’s proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks to provide on-demand compute and connectivity, without the use of virtualization or multi-tenancy. The company supports both x86 and ARMv8 architectures and has four data centres worldwide: in New York, Silicon Valley, Amsterdam and Tokyo.
IDG News Service
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