In a sign that things wont be what they were in the past, HP said it has announced two servers based on ARM architecture, rather than the old fashioned Intel stuff.
The two enterprise class servers use 64-bit ARM microprocessors which it said “offer value choice in their compute strategy”. Translated out of marketing speak, this means ARM based chips are much cheaper than Intel X86 chips.
HP is also offering a production platform letting software developers create, test and port applications to the ARM server.
The servers belong to HP’s Proliant Moonshot family – the company claims that they will let companies scale to any workload, and are specifically aimed at datacentres.
The HP Proliant m400 server is part of a strategy the company has developed over some years to fit high engineering standards.
“ARM technology will change the dynamics of how enterprises build IT solutions to quickly address customer challenges,” said Antonio Neri, senior vice president and general manager, Servers and Networking, HP. “HP’s history, culture of innovation and proven leadership in server technology position us as the most qualified player to empower customers with greater choice in the server marketplace.”
The servers will support Ubuntu, Metal as a Service (MAAS) software preinstalled, and also offers IBM Informix.
HP customers already include Sandia National Labs, the University of Utah and Paypal. The servers are available today.