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Why would a datacenter want a (weird, tiny, embedded) M1 when they can get an 80-core, 8-channel, 128-lane Ampere Altra – which is actually designed to be stand

Why would a datacenter want a (weird, tiny, embedded) M1 when they can get an 80-core, 8-channel, 128-lane Ampere Altra – which is actually designed to be standards compliant and even has an open source firmware option? (Even a future "large" Apple SoC is unlikely to be datacenter large…)

Cullinet 5y ago
try as I have, I can't imagine how Apple wouldn't sell more servers if they bought Ampere than the entire generic ARM server OEM industry can collectively. By generic, I mean to exclude custom silicon per AWS, Azure, et.al., but I'm tempted to think that the only reason why there's been nothing from Apple in the server category, simply because they're quietly waiting for a good candidate for acquisition to emerge. Ampere looks very interesting at the moment, but combine the Ampere chips with proven track record of optimisation and integration with the OS, and fast forward a few years to a time when we're more accommodating of vendor OS control in exchange for getting back some independence from the cloud hegemony players, oh, why not sprinkle over it all some fairy dust from a reincarnated Web Objects offering, and checkout process management provided by Apple, and I can just about see the next two decades of extraordinary growth that's presently challenged by the sheer scale of Apple's business, coming to fruition in ways that we'll be mostly very happy with for giving us all jobs back that are dying out in the white heat of today's oligopolist clouds now gathering and blocking the sun.
- dannyw 5y ago
  Apple isn't really into the server business.
  - EricE 5y ago
    And the many times they have tried it either flopped outright or fizzled with little notice. The xServe and xRAID were very cool looking and actually quite functional, but never did integrate well into overall datacenter operations and ultimately that's what did them in. Unless Apple wanted to take it on to eliminate reliance on AWS, Azure and others I don't see them as having much incentive to care about the server space. Indeed, if you ever see rumblings of them bringing more datacenter operations to be entirely in house then at some future point I could see them leveraging that to sell externally. Unless they got really ambitious and planned on supplanting AWS entirely and thus their hardware gives them a significant edge. But Apple has been so bad at software in general for so long, especially on the server side of things, I'm not holding my breath for that. They certainly have the resources to do it if they had the right person to drive it though, so never say never.
KirillPanov 5y ago
Please provide a link for this supposed Ampere open source firmware option. So far all they've provided is an aspirational press release about how they are "working" to produce firmware with "freely redistributable binaries". https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ampere-OSS-FW-Progress-2021 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ampere-O... Ampere claims this future firmware will be "OSF certified", which doesn't mean much because "OSF does not require vendors to deliver firmware in open source form." https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware
- wmf 5y ago
  https://github.com/AmpereComputing/edk2-platforms https://github.com/AmpereComputing/edk2-platforms ? Not sure how usable it is.

Cullinet 5y ago

try as I have, I can't imagine how Apple wouldn't sell more servers if they bought Ampere than the entire generic ARM server OEM industry can collectively. By generic, I mean to exclude custom silicon per AWS, Azure, et.al., but I'm tempted to think that the only reason why there's been nothing from Apple in the server category, simply because they're quietly waiting for a good candidate for acquisition to emerge. Ampere looks very interesting at the moment, but combine the Ampere chips with proven track record of optimisation and integration with the OS, and fast forward a few years to a time when we're more accommodating of vendor OS control in exchange for getting back some independence from the cloud hegemony players, oh, why not sprinkle over it all some fairy dust from a reincarnated Web Objects offering, and checkout process management provided by Apple, and I can just about see the next two decades of extraordinary growth that's presently challenged by the sheer scale of Apple's business, coming to fruition in ways that we'll be mostly very happy with for giving us all jobs back that are dying out in the white heat of today's oligopolist clouds now gathering and blocking the sun.

dannyw 5y ago
Apple isn't really into the server business.
- EricE 5y ago
  And the many times they have tried it either flopped outright or fizzled with little notice. The xServe and xRAID were very cool looking and actually quite functional, but never did integrate well into overall datacenter operations and ultimately that's what did them in. Unless Apple wanted to take it on to eliminate reliance on AWS, Azure and others I don't see them as having much incentive to care about the server space. Indeed, if you ever see rumblings of them bringing more datacenter operations to be entirely in house then at some future point I could see them leveraging that to sell externally. Unless they got really ambitious and planned on supplanting AWS entirely and thus their hardware gives them a significant edge. But Apple has been so bad at software in general for so long, especially on the server side of things, I'm not holding my breath for that. They certainly have the resources to do it if they had the right person to drive it though, so never say never.

KirillPanov 5y ago

Please provide a link for this supposed Ampere open source firmware option. So far all they've provided is an aspirational press release about how they are "working" to produce firmware with "freely redistributable binaries". https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ampere-OSS-FW-Progress-2021 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ampere-O... Ampere claims this future firmware will be "OSF certified", which doesn't mean much because "OSF does not require vendors to deliver firmware in open source form." https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware

wmf 5y ago
https://github.com/AmpereComputing/edk2-platforms https://github.com/AmpereComputing/edk2-platforms ? Not sure how usable it is.