TryStack ARM Zone, One Week Later…

July 30, 2012 By 11 Comments

It’s been one week since the announcement of the new TryStack ARM zone and the response has been overwhelming. For those of you that missed the news, last Wednesday, a few of us from the OpenStack community came together to stand up a new ARM-based server cluster, with the intent of providing access to real ARM server hardware for software developers and others interested in finding out more about this new class of machines. Since it’s opening, the ARM zone now has:

  • 251 registered users
  • 139 active users
  • 454 instances created to date

Not too shabby. And those numbers continue to grow every day. (The TryStack community at large is now at over 3500+ members in the Facebook group.) It’s not too late to participate. You can still sign up for free access to these OpenStack environments. Details on how to get started can be found here.

So what’s next?

We will soon begin to actively solicit feedback from the community, especially those who have taken these ARM servers for a test spin. If you’ve been actively using the ARM TryStack zone recently, leave us a comment below and let us know what you’re doing on the system and you overall experiences with the system. Maybe you’re porting applications, or just trying to understand how ARM servers are similar/different from your traditional servers – whatever it may be, we’d love to find out more!

To make it interesting, we’ll send the first 10 commenters (with legitimate usage/experiences) this “Early Adopter” t-shirt for free! (US-based residents only, please.)

Update: Some folks have expressed needs for access longer than 24-hours, or the use of multiple nodes simultaneously.  If this applies to you, leave us a comment and a way to contact you (or send us a note on Facebook) and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!

Filed Under: General

Calxeda in the Cloud, TryStack Announces New ARM Zone

July 18, 2012 By 4 Comments

Want to test some cloudy code on an ARM server?

Now you can! For Free!

Calxeda, OpenStack, HP, Canonical, and Core NAP  hosting have now donated the hardware, software, and facilities to provide FREE access to HP’s Calxeda-based Redstone servers using  the TryStack sandbox. This is so cool;  you can provision a free server instance and play to your hearts content.  Upload code or images. Develop and test your software. Use the OpenStack API’s on ARM and realize “Its just Linux!”.  And pay nothing.  For more information on how to access this, see the OpenStack Blog

Obviously, there has been a lot of interest about this new class of servers that can dramatically reduce power and space requirements for scale-out workloads. Thats why you came to this site! Some call these “micro-servers” (Intel). Some call them “Extreme Low Power Servers” (Gartner’s analysts). And yes, some have affectionately called them “Wimpy Nodes” (See Carnegie Mellon University’s “FAWN” paper.)

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud, General, Hardware, Industry Analysts Tagged With: , , , ,

Calxeda EnergyCore-Based Servers Now Available

July 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

We spent a lot of time at various tradeshows around the world in June and the #1 question we were asked was “when can I get my hands on a Calxeda-based server?” I am happy to tell you the wait is over.

We have been working with Boston Limited in the UK, a highly respected  solution provider, for about a year to bring an excellent Proof of Concept (POC) platform to market called “Viridis”.  Boston currently has about 20 customers lined up for beta testing and a pipeline of hundreds of others interested in evaluating the platform.  Boston is taking orders now from users in Europe, Asia and the US with shipments beginning later this month.

The Register published a great article today highlighting the features of the Boston Viridis platform:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/09/boston_viridis_arm_server/

Boston Viridis is a perfect option for those users who want to port their code, run benchmarks, and optimize their workloads for ARM.  This highly configurable solution allows users to create their ideal initial testing environments with options ranging from 4 to 48 Calxeda EnergyCore server nodes in a 2U form factor.

We look forward to working with Boston and other systems providers to enable the market with Calxeda-based POCs.  Stay tuned as we learn about success stories users experience with Calxeda EnergyCore-based solutions over the coming months.

Filed Under: Clusters, General, Hardware, Servers, Solutions Tagged With: , , ,
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