Acce­le­ra­tes data cen­ter soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment for ARM-based servers

Cam­bridge, UK — 29 Janu­ary 2014 — ARM® today announ­ced the col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve deve­lo­p­ment and imme­dia­te avai­la­bi­li­ty of a plat­form stan­dard for ARMv8‑A based (64-bit) ser­vers, known as the ARM ‘Ser­ver Base Sys­tem Archi­tec­tu­re’ (SBSA) spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on. This effort included input and sup­port from soft­ware com­pa­nies such as Cano­ni­cal, Citrix, Lin­a­ro, Micro­soft, Red Hat and SUSE, and ori­gi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEMs) inclu­ding Dell and HP along with a broad set of sili­con part­ners. This spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on pro­vi­des a frame­work for the deploy­ment of inno­va­ti­ve ARM archi­tec­tu­re-based solu­ti­ons in data cen­ter appli­ca­ti­ons, and it will help acce­le­ra­te soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment and enable por­ta­bi­li­ty bet­ween ARM-based plat­forms. This spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on is focu­sed on alig­ning the ARM part­ner­ship around key sys­tem ele­ments; empowe­ring the eco­sys­tem to build dif­fe­ren­tia­ted, value-added solu­ti­ons that acce­le­ra­te inno­va­ti­on and choice in the marketplace.

Data cen­ters demand stan­dards-based soft­ware and hard­ware offe­rings to ensu­re ease of deploy­ment and mana­gea­bi­li­ty. Releasing the SBSA spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on marks the begin­ning of a broa­der stan­dar­diza­ti­on acti­vi­ty that will sim­pli­fy the deve­lo­p­ment and deploy­ment pro­cess for the enti­re deve­lo­per eco­sys­tem — from sili­con to soft­ware, and all the way through to end-users. This initia­ti­ve will acce­le­ra­te the soft­ware eco­sys­tem for ARM-based ser­vers by pro­vi­ding ope­ra­ting sys­tem ven­dors (OSVs) and inde­pen­dent soft­ware ven­dors (ISVs) the abili­ty to deli­ver tech­no­lo­gy that addres­ses the enti­re­ty of the ARM ser­ver com­mu­ni­ty, fea­turing a rich, broad set of devices and plat­forms in a com­mon way.

“As ARM’s data cen­ter eco­sys­tem con­ti­nues its rapid growth, this mile­stone enables part­ners to focus on their inno­va­ti­on while buil­ding on stan­dards that help sim­pli­fy their deve­lo­p­ment and acce­le­ra­te their time-to-mar­ket,” said Mike Mull­er, chief tech­no­lo­gy offi­cer, ARM. “As owners and ste­wards of the ARM archi­tec­tu­re, we are plea­sed to col­la­bo­ra­te with other indus­try lea­ders to dri­ve stan­dards that enable OS, firm­ware and soft­ware deve­lo­pers to rapidly deve­lop and deploy on ARM-based servers.”

“We are extre­me­ly plea­sed to see ARM take the­se steps, which we belie­ve are very much in line with the prin­ci­ples of the Open Com­pu­te Pro­ject,” said Frank Fran­kovs­ky, pre­si­dent and chair­man, Open Com­pu­te Pro­ject Foun­da­ti­on. “The­se stan­dar­diza­ti­on efforts will help speed adop­ti­on of ARM in the dat­a­cen­ter by pro­vi­ding con­su­mers and soft­ware deve­lo­pers with the con­sis­ten­cy and pre­dic­ta­bi­li­ty they requi­re, and by hel­ping increase the pace of inno­va­ti­on in ARM tech­no­lo­gies by eli­mi­na­ting gra­tui­tous dif­fe­ren­tia­ti­on in are­as like device enu­me­ra­ti­on and boot pro­cess.” Mobi­li­ty and the Inter­net of Things (IoT) are dri­ving the rapid adop­ti­on of cloud-based ser­vices, and data cen­ter ope­ra­tors have to adapt to the shif­ting cha­rac­te­ristics of the­se new workloads. In order to effi­ci­ent­ly meet the­se demands, the indus­try is see­king a richer choice of tar­ge­ted solu­ti­ons whe­re soft­ware por­ta­bi­li­ty and stan­dar­diza­ti­on are key deploy­ment considerations.

ARM Part­ner Quotes 

AMD:
“Adop­ting indus­try stan­dards and defi­ning base plat­forms are essen­ti­al for crea­ting a healt­hy ARM-based 64-bit ser­ver eco­sys­tem,” said Dr. Leen­dert van Doorn, cor­po­ra­te fel­low and cor­po­ra­te vice pre­si­dent, AMD. “AMD is exci­ted to have work­ed with ARM on the Ser­ver Base Sys­tem Archi­tec­tu­re requi­re­ments, and the public release of this spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on will acce­le­ra­te the adop­ti­on of ARM-based 64-bit servers.”

Appli­ed­Mi­cro:
“With X‑Gene as the first pro­duct in the indus­try to be SBSA com­pli­ant, Appli­ed­Mi­cro is in full sup­port of the ARM ser­ver stan­dar­diza­ti­on efforts,” said Dr. Paramesh Gopi, pre­si­dent and chief exe­cu­ti­ve offi­cer, Appli­ed­Mi­cro. “Brin­ging tog­e­ther OS ven­dors, ser­ver OEMs and sili­con pro­vi­ders to work cohe­si­ve­ly is pro­vi­ding a ful­ly inter-ope­ra­ble stan­dard plat­form at the same time fos­te­ring inno­va­ti­on resul­ting in com­pel­ling ser­ver solutions.”

Broad­com:
“Broad­com stron­gly belie­ves in the value of stan­dar­diza­ti­on and ensu­ring soft­ware inter­ope­ra­bi­li­ty for the long-term suc­cess of the 64-bit ARM archi­tec­tu­re,” said Ron Jan­kov, seni­or vice pre­si­dent and gene­ral mana­ger, Pro­ces­sors and Wire­less Infra­struc­tu­re, Broad­com. “With the ARM 64-bit archi­tec­tu­re, Broad­com is uni­que­ly posi­tio­ned to pro­vi­de lea­der­ship in the 64-bit ARM eco­sys­tem with ser­ver-class CPUs, best-in-class hard­ware acce­le­ra­ti­on, and data-cen­ter net­wor­king expertise.”

Cano­ni­cal:
“ARM-based ser­vers have the poten­ti­al to trans­form the dat­a­cen­ter eco­sys­tem back into a dyna­mic, inno­va­ti­ve mar­ket,” said Chris­ti­an Reis, vice pre­si­dent, Hypers­ca­le Com­pu­ting, Cano­ni­cal. “We see the SBSA effort remo­ving bar­riers to adop­ti­on by pro­vi­ding a frame­work for sys­tem imple­men­ta­ti­on that any tech­no­lo­gy sup­pli­er can easi­ly under­stand and fol­low. Cano­ni­cal ful­ly sup­ports this effort and is com­mit­ted to SBSA com­pli­ance for our Ubun­tu Ser­ver pro­duct family.”

Cavi­um:
“Cavium’s Pro­ject Thun­der will pro­vi­de a fami­ly of mul­ti­co­re ARMv8 64-bit ser­ver-class pro­ces­sors for the cloud and data cen­ters,” said Gopal Heg­de, vice pre­si­dent and gene­ral mana­ger, Data Cen­ter Pro­ces­sor Group, Cavi­um. “Working clo­se­ly with ARM and the eco­sys­tem, the Thun­der pro­duct offe­ring will pro­vi­de a com­pre­hen­si­ve workload opti­mi­zed port­fo­lio solu­ti­on that will be inter­ope­ra­ble across mul­ti­ple manage­ment and orchestra­ti­on stan­dards. We applaud ARM’s lea­der­ship in spear­hea­ding the Ser­ver Plat­form Stan­dard that will acce­le­ra­te the adop­ti­on of the ARM archi­tec­tu­re in the data cen­ter and cloud environment.”

Citrix:
“Citrix is the cloud com­pa­ny that enables mobi­le work­styl­es. Citrix is com­mit­ted to open stan­dards and has been recent­ly enga­ged in the Ser­ver Base Sys­tem Archi­tec­tu­re dis­cus­sion. We see the publi­ca­ti­on of the docu­ment as a posi­ti­ve move for the indus­try,” said Ahmed Sal­lam, vice pre­si­dent and chief tech­no­lo­gy offi­cer, Hard­ware, Secu­ri­ty, Emer­ging Solu­ti­ons and IP, Citrix Sys­tems. “The SBSA will fos­ter the ARM-based ser­ver eco­sys­tem and will act as a foun­da­ti­on for the coming years. Citrix will remain enga­ged in SBSA dis­cus­sions and we will con­ti­nue to pro­vi­de our input based on what bene­fits our indus­try, part­ners and customers.”

DELL:
“Open and stan­dards-based tech­no­lo­gies have been a cor­ner­stone of Dell’s phi­lo­so­phy for 30 years,” said Bri­an Pay­ne, exe­cu­ti­ve direc­tor of ser­ver solu­ti­ons for Dell. “As mul­ti­ple ARMv8 ser­ver sys­tem-on-chips beco­me available, it’s important that we can effec­tively deli­ver new inno­va­tions and free­dom of choice to our cus­to­mers. A well-defi­ned, stan­dards-based plat­form is instru­men­tal in pro­vi­ding OS por­ta­bi­li­ty and a fami­li­ar user expe­ri­ence to our cus­to­mers see­king to deploy the­se new clas­ses of ser­ver offe­rings. We are plea­sed with the pro­gress the ARM eco­sys­tem has made towards achie­ving this signi­fi­cant goal.”

HP:
“HP has sup­port­ed ARM’s stan­dar­diza­ti­on effort sin­ce its incep­ti­on, reco­gni­zing the bene­fits of an exten­si­ble plat­form with value-added fea­tures,” said Dong Wei, HP fel­low. “With the new SBSA spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on, we are able to estab­lish a sim­pli­fied base­line for deploy­ing ARM-based solu­ti­ons and look for­ward to future HP pro­ducts based on the ARM architecture.”

Lin­a­ro:
“The ARM archi­tec­tu­re and busi­ness model is uni­que in enab­ling rapid inno­va­ti­on from mul­ti­ple ARM licen­sees. Many com­pa­nies are now buil­ding inno­va­ti­ve and dif­fe­ren­tia­ted solu­ti­ons for the next gene­ra­ti­on low-power data cen­ter,” said David Rus­ling, chief tech­ni­cal offi­cer, Lin­a­ro. “ARM’s SBSA is a cri­ti­cal com­po­nent of enab­ling tech­no­lo­gy to stan­dar­di­ze the com­mon part of the­se solu­ti­ons, and we look for­ward to working with ARM and ARM’s licen­sees on uti­li­zing this tech­no­lo­gy to acce­le­ra­te the deploy­ment of a broad ran­ge of ARM­v8-based ser­ver products.”

Red Hat:
“Stan­dar­diza­ti­on is essen­ti­al to the suc­cessful adop­ti­on and deploy­ment of modern com­pu­ter archi­tec­tures, such as ARMv8. At Red Hat, we are proud of our ongo­ing col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with ARM on ser­ver stan­dards, such as the ARM Ser­ver Base Sys­tem Archi­tec­tu­re,” said Jon Mas­ters, chief ARM archi­tect, Red Hat. “Today’s announce­ment marks the begin­ning of a series of exci­ting and important deve­lo­p­ments in terms of plat­form stan­dards for the ARM archi­tec­tu­re. We look for­ward to con­ti­nuing to bring our uni­que insight as the world’s lea­ding sup­pli­er of Open Source ser­ver tech­no­lo­gies, working with ARM, and the ARM part­ner­ship, to dri­ve the adop­ti­on of a uni­fied com­mon plat­form approach that will faci­li­ta­te the deploy­ment of ARM at Hyperscale.”

SUSE:
“SUSE has work­ed on and sup­port­ed deve­lo­p­ment around ARM pro­ces­sors for seve­ral years, and we anti­ci­pa­te ARM pro­ces­sor adop­ti­on in cloud, big data and high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting appli­ca­ti­ons,” said Ralf Fla­xa, vice pre­si­dent of engi­nee­ring, SUSE. “SUSE wel­co­mes the SBSA stan­dar­diza­ti­on efforts and is proud to con­tri­bu­te to the ser­ver plat­form standard’s deve­lo­p­ment. As the mar­ket emer­ges, this stan­dard will beco­me a key fac­tor deter­mi­ning suc­cess in the enter­pri­se eco­sys­tem, and we look for­ward to working with plat­forms that imple­ment it.”

Texas Instru­ments:
“As an ear­ly inno­va­tor of uni­que ser­ver-gra­de Key­Stone SoCs that com­bi­ne digi­tal signal pro­ces­sors, ARM Cor­tex pro­ces­sors, packet pro­ces­sing, secu­ri­ty acce­le­ra­ti­on and Ether­net swit­ching, TI applauds the ARM eco­sys­tem for its col­la­bo­ra­ti­on on deli­ve­ring the SBSA spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on, ” said Bill Mills, chief tech­no­lo­gist for open source, Texas Instru­ments. “Stan­dar­diza­ti­ons, such as SBSA, enable soft­ware sim­pli­fi­ca­ti­on wit­hout impac­ting the inno­va­ti­on our hete­ro­ge­neous com­pu­te ele­ments bring to high-per­for­mance com­pu­te customers.”

To down­load a copy of the Ser­ver Base Sys­tem Archi­tec­tu­re spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on, go to: http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp. To learn more about ARM pro­ducts and the ser­ver plat­form stan­dard, cont­act your ARM sales representative.

About ARM

ARM designs the tech­no­lo­gy that is at the heart of advan­ced digi­tal pro­ducts, from wire­less, net­wor­king and con­su­mer enter­tain­ment solu­ti­ons to ima­ging, auto­mo­ti­ve, secu­ri­ty and sto­rage devices. ARM’s com­pre­hen­si­ve pro­duct offe­ring includes RISC micro­pro­ces­sors, gra­phics pro­ces­sors, video engi­nes, enab­ling soft­ware, cell libra­ri­es, embedded memo­ries, high-speed con­nec­ti­vi­ty pro­ducts, peri­pherals and deve­lo­p­ment tools. Com­bi­ned with com­pre­hen­si­ve design ser­vices, trai­ning, sup­port and main­ten­an­ce, and the company’s broad Part­ner com­mu­ni­ty, they pro­vi­de a total sys­tem solu­ti­on that offers a fast, relia­ble path to mar­ket for lea­ding elec­tro­nics com­pa­nies. Find out more about ARM by fol­lo­wing the­se links:

Down­load Shared Pur­po­se — 8 Lea­der­ship Les­sons for the Eco­sys­tem Age 
The secrets of suc­cess from the Con­nec­ted Com­mu­ni­ty sur­roun­ding ARM

Find out more about ARM by fol­lo­wing the­se links: 
ARM web­site: http://www.arm.com/
ARM Con­nec­ted Com­mu­ni­ty®: http://www.arm.com/community/
ARM Blogs: http://blogs.arm.com/
ARM­Flix on You­Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/armflix

 

ARM on Twitter:
• http://twitter.com/ARMPROffice
• http://twitter.com/ARMMultimedia
• http://twitter.com/ARMMobile
• http://twitter.com/ARMCommunity
• http://twitter.com/ARMEmbedded
• http://twitter.com/ARMSoC
• http://twitter.com/ARMTools
• http://twitter.com/SoftwareOnARM

 

ENDS

ARM, Arti­san and Cor­tex are regis­tered trade­marks of ARM Limi­t­ed. Mali and POP are trade­marks of ARM Limi­t­ed. All other brands or pro­duct names are the pro­per­ty of their respec­ti­ve hol­ders. “ARM” is used to repre­sent ARM Hol­dings plc; its ope­ra­ting com­pa­ny ARM Limi­t­ed; and the regio­nal sub­si­dia­ries: ARM Inc.; ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd.; ARM Tai­wan Limi­t­ed; ARM France SAS; ARM Con­sul­ting (Shang­hai) Co. Ltd.; ARM Bel­gi­um Ser­vices BVBA; ARM Ger­ma­ny GmbH; ARM Embedded Tech­no­lo­gies Pvt. Ltd.; ARM Nor­way AS and ARM Swe­den AB.