Power consumption is the biggest challenge for datacentres and thus, companies are looking for solar power alternative to reduce costs and carbon pollution. However, a simpler solution can be efficient chips that can be used to power server farms. In today’s IT domain, power efficiency is greatly required because of the growing importance of battery-driven devices connected to cloud-based services powered by servers of datacentres. Now, with the launch of 64-bit ARM architecture, low-power ARM chips are ruling the server space and even tech industry is looking to adopt it.
In order to make its mark in the server market that was greatly ruled by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, ARM introduced 64-bit processor. Several companies are showing interest in ARM servers, as it is an energy-efficient way to handle good numbers of web request in social networks or search. Hewlett-Packard and Dell have offered prototype ARM servers for testing to clients who wish to deploy this server for cutting their energy bills. Last year PayPal has deployed this 64-bit processor and is serving as the model for several big companies to follow.
Some of the other big names that have taken license for this chip include Samsung, AMD, Calxeda, STMicroelectronics and Broadcom. ARM introduced new processor designs will offer 64-bit computing power to phones and will throw a stiff competition to Intel while challenging its dominance in the server space. The other interesting difference between ARM and Intel is that users of ARM architecture can add their own IP to the silicon and they will not miss any features offered by Intel. ARM processor is known to offer same performance for half the price and these processors provide a scalable technology platform the can be configured to meet business and application needs such as web-scale workloads and rapid cloud build out in the datacentre.
ARM 64-bit processor is not impossible because the needed applications and requirements already exist and several applications have been written for 64-bit addressing. The makers of servers are already convinced to replace their existing Intel based servers with power efficient ARM processors because it offers freedom in chip design architecture compared to Intel processor. ARM has pitched its recently launched processor to green datacentres and many server makers have started experimenting with ARM Cortex-A9 processor.
