
DataCentred has today announced the integration of servers running ARM AArch64 processors into their OpenStack public cloud platform.
This integration will enable providers to give customers access to 64 bit ARM hardware via a virtualised architecture that can be adapted.
Customers will be able to develop applications on an opex model, avoiding expensive and complex setup and entry costs spinning up both AArch64 instances and x86 instances within the same OpenStack project.
Dr Mike Kelly, CEO and founder of DataCentred, said: "We are thrilled to be the first OpenStack public cloud operator to feature 64-bit ARM instances.
"This is probably the first example of Moonshot AArch64 running in Europe outside of HP’s development labs, and certainly the first example of generally available Moonshot backed AArch64 instances in an OpenStack public cloud anywhere in the world."
The emergence of 64-bit ARM processors on servers has had huge promise for massive reduction in overall power usage in the data centre.
The innovation will eventually drive down the cost of data centre operation and, ultimately, of the cost of virtualised instances within a customer’s service framework.
Mr Kelly said: "We know that ARM themselves are pleased to hear of this development, as a real world deployment. OpenStack is one of the big success stories for Open Source software, and is likely to be the environment through which enterprise migrates, in a vendor neutral way, to take advantage of elastic cloud compute."
The development has come as a result of DataCentred’s partnership with Codethink, the system level software infrastructure enterprise.
Paul Sherwood, CEO of Codethink, said: "ARM has always been a key target for our embedded systems development chain and the ability to provide a cloud based, ARM native developer environment for our projects is a critical part of achieving Codethink’s goals.
Running OpenStack on HP Moonshot servers running ARM AArch64 processors is the first step of this partnership.
Mr Sherwood added: "Since 2014 we have been working with DataCentred to provide an environment for distributing Baserock, our embedded systems and dedicated enterprise appliance Linux tool set; and to provide an execution environment for developers using Baserock to build, run and test on novel architectures, notably ARM."
Virtualised little endian ARM AArch64 instances using the KVM hypervisor will run on top of HP Moonshot M400 ARM hardware, and will be fully integrated into DataCentred’s OpenStack public cloud platform.
Bare metal instances within OpenStack for customers who require big endian support are also under development.