By: David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com), January 29, 2013 11:33 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
carop (carop.delete@this.somewhere.net) on January 29, 2013 2:55 pm wrote:
> >
> > http://www.realworldtech.com/microservers
> >
> > Comments, questions and feedback welcome as always!
> >
>
> It seems Cade Metz has hit a raw nerve with his "Cellphone Chips Will Remake
> the Server World. Period." article at the WIRED:
>
> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/01/facebook-arm-chips/
> ARM server vendors appear to assume that the people who will use ARM first are using
> computers to manufacture profit not to do traditional IT. If you use computers to
> manufacture profit, you are always interested in improving the efficiency of your
> ability to manufacture profit.
Uh, that's the only reason why anyone buys a computer or server. If the server isn't going to somehow earn you money or enable you to earn more money, there's no reason to buy it...
Perhaps you didn't read my article, but there is no reason why ARM server CPUs will be substantially more efficient than Intel ones. As I pointed out, ISA isn't really relevant. Also, just because a chip with no cache is good for one workload (e.g. graphics) doesn't mean it will work for others (e.g. transaction processing).
> This is where price-per-compute-unit, compute-per-watt
> will move to the fore. It is obvious that traditional enterprise users are not going
> to look at ARM based servers first. They will move last, if at all.
What is a compute unit? And in case you didn't notice, perf/watt is already a pretty big deal for servers.
> There are some studies which show that the class of customers who use computers to
> manufacture profit is growing an order of magnitude faster than the other segments
> of the market.
Can you explain how you 'manufacture profits'?
Maybe you could also point to 'some studies'?
> J.P. Morgan is one of the top 10 buyers of CPUs.
Banks are ridiculously conservative. There's a reason they are still using mainframes, VMS and Nonstop.
Certain applications might be a bit more modern, but frankly a lot of their workloads are not moving anywhere. You sure aren't going to run ATMs off a pile of servers that have no RAS.
> Facebook in its fifth
> year of operation bought more CPUs than the total of the previous four years. It is
> at these type of companies where the battle is going to rage.
Facebook perhaps. But you should keep in mind that the so called 'cloud server' market is actually relatively small. Around 10% of the market, maybe less. It's projected to grow, but it is unlikely to exceed 25% of the market in the next decade.
> With one million servers, Google is believed to be the largest end user of
> Intel CPUs. The only component they are not building is the CPU.
Google designs their own systems. They buy: CPUs, DRAM, NAND, disks, switch/router chips, etc.
> Are they planning
> to build their own CPU?
No.
David
> >
> > http://www.realworldtech.com/microservers
> >
> > Comments, questions and feedback welcome as always!
> >
>
> It seems Cade Metz has hit a raw nerve with his "Cellphone Chips Will Remake
> the Server World. Period." article at the WIRED:
>
> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/01/facebook-arm-chips/
> ARM server vendors appear to assume that the people who will use ARM first are using
> computers to manufacture profit not to do traditional IT. If you use computers to
> manufacture profit, you are always interested in improving the efficiency of your
> ability to manufacture profit.
Uh, that's the only reason why anyone buys a computer or server. If the server isn't going to somehow earn you money or enable you to earn more money, there's no reason to buy it...
Perhaps you didn't read my article, but there is no reason why ARM server CPUs will be substantially more efficient than Intel ones. As I pointed out, ISA isn't really relevant. Also, just because a chip with no cache is good for one workload (e.g. graphics) doesn't mean it will work for others (e.g. transaction processing).
> This is where price-per-compute-unit, compute-per-watt
> will move to the fore. It is obvious that traditional enterprise users are not going
> to look at ARM based servers first. They will move last, if at all.
What is a compute unit? And in case you didn't notice, perf/watt is already a pretty big deal for servers.
> There are some studies which show that the class of customers who use computers to
> manufacture profit is growing an order of magnitude faster than the other segments
> of the market.
Can you explain how you 'manufacture profits'?
Maybe you could also point to 'some studies'?
> J.P. Morgan is one of the top 10 buyers of CPUs.
Banks are ridiculously conservative. There's a reason they are still using mainframes, VMS and Nonstop.
Certain applications might be a bit more modern, but frankly a lot of their workloads are not moving anywhere. You sure aren't going to run ATMs off a pile of servers that have no RAS.
> Facebook in its fifth
> year of operation bought more CPUs than the total of the previous four years. It is
> at these type of companies where the battle is going to rage.
Facebook perhaps. But you should keep in mind that the so called 'cloud server' market is actually relatively small. Around 10% of the market, maybe less. It's projected to grow, but it is unlikely to exceed 25% of the market in the next decade.
> With one million servers, Google is believed to be the largest end user of
> Intel CPUs. The only component they are not building is the CPU.
Google designs their own systems. They buy: CPUs, DRAM, NAND, disks, switch/router chips, etc.
> Are they planning
> to build their own CPU?
No.
David