[Abstract] Microsoft supports ARM processor in Project Olympus server design, which greatly increases the chance of ARM's success in the server market, and also makes Intel's dominant position in the server market face challenges.
Tencent Digital (Wen Xin) According to Bloomberg's website, Microsoft stated that it plans to use ARM processors in cloud service data center servers, which may jeopardize Intel’s long-term dominance in the data center processor market.
Microsoft collaborated with Qualcomm and Cavium to jointly develop a Windows operating system running on servers equipped with ARM processors. Jason Zander, Microsoft’s vice president of Azure cloud services, said that Microsoft is testing ARM processors for tasks such as search, storage, machine learning, and big data. Microsoft has not yet used ARM processors in any customer-facing network, nor has it disclosed the final application scope of such processors. ARM processors are known for their energy savings and can provide manufacturers with more options.
In an interview, Zander said that "ARM processors have not been formally used to provide services to customers, but it will be used to provide services to customers. This is a major commitment from Microsoft."
Ars Technica said that Microsoft's porting of Windows Server to ARM is not surprising. Although Microsoft stopped selling Windows devices equipped with ARM processors in 2015, it did not abandon the ARM version of Windows, but continued to develop it and use it for IoT devices. Given that Microsoft is integrating Windows into a single common platform, developing an ARM version of Windows Server should be relatively straightforward.
Given ARM's involvement in the server space, industry observers have been expecting Microsoft to develop an ARM version of Windows Server to ensure that they do not miss this trend.
Ars Technica said, however, that Windows has never been successful on non-x86 platforms, so that "Wintel" is synonymous with the PC platform. We have reason to believe that Windows Server can achieve greater success on the ARM platform than on Itanium, PowerPC, Alpha, and MIPS platforms, because unlike these non-x86 platforms, ARM has gained extensive industry support and is running many There are certain competitive advantages in terms of load, but there are still uncertainties about its success and widespread adoption.
Microsoft is developing new cloud server designs and plans to use ARM processors. Microsoft announced that partners and components for the new cloud server design will move closer to the goal of deploying new servers in its data center later this year. Microsoft announced its new cloud server design for the first time last year. The new design uses open source licensing, meaning it can be freely used and customized by other vendors.
Bloomberg said that the new server design called Project Olympus and Microsoft's use of ARM processors all reflect Microsoft's efforts to use hardware innovation to reduce costs, increase flexibility, and maintain competitiveness compared to Amazon, the company's Google. Although large cloud service providers have been making more use of non-branded servers, storage, and networking equipment, Intel processors have been one of the most widely used big-brand products. Microsoft's adoption of ARM processors may make Intel face real challenges. Intel’s share of the server processor market is over 99%.
Although Intel is one of the companies that produce Project Olympus parts, ARM processor manufacturers such as Qualcomm and Cavium also provide components for Project Olympus design, increasing the possibility that other server vendors will start using ARM processors. ARM licenses its chip designs to chip companies. Its owner is Japan Softbank.
Qualcomm and Cavium designed the motherboard and ARM processor for Project Olympus. Qualcomm's Centriq 2400 is a 48-core processor with a 10-nm process. Cavium's ThunderX2 ARMv8-A can integrate up to 54 cores. In addition to integrating a large number of cores, these two chips also integrate PCIe, SATA and Ethernet.
As PC processor demand continues to shrink, any challenge to Intel’s dominance in the server processor space is a threat to its highest profitability. In 2016, Intel Data Center Group revenue was 17.2 billion U.S. dollars (about 118.9 billion yuan) and operating profit was 7.5 billion U.S. dollars (about 51.8 billion yuan). Intel said in its advertisement that "98% of cloud services are running on Intel processors."
Microsoft's server spending decisions may affect vendor performance. Azure, the second-largest cloud service infrastructure after Amazon, is one of the largest server buyers. Last month, computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co., Ltd. released a disappointing earnings report, saying that the reason is that a large customer's "demand is drastically reduced." Informed sources said that this customer is Microsoft.
Bloomberg said that this is not the first time ARM chip makers have tried to plot the server market. Other chip makers have said they want to release ARM server processors in an attempt to break Intel’s dominant position in the server processor market, but no one company has actually launched products in the market. As Qualcomm began offering its first server processor and other chip vendors to finally launch competitive ARM processors, this situation will change this year. Qualcomm is one of the few companies that can match R&D spending with Intel.
Former Intel executive Anand Chandrasekher, who is in charge of Qualcomm's server chip unit, said: "This is a marathon rather than a sprint. I don't care about financial performance in the short term."
In a statement, Intel expressed its confidence that Xeon’s server chips can continue to maintain its advantages. “We are in a highly competitive market and we will value all our competitors. We firmly believe that Xeon processors will continue to be able to continue to our cloud. The computing customers provide the highest performance and lowest total cost of ownership. However, we understand the customer's mood to evaluate other products."
Kushagra Vaid, general manager of Microsoft's Azure hardware architecture division, said that partners including Qualcomm, Intel, Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AMD and Samsung will produce chips, servers and components for Project Olympus.
Microsoft also has other options. It has been working with AMD and plans to adopt the latter's upcoming Naples processor. Naples is a 32-core processor that supports 64 threads.
Source: Bloomberg, Ars Technica
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