Verizon cloud to design servers in partnership with AMD.

[SiliconWars]

http://finance.yahoo.com/video/verizons-cloud-push-142700674.html

Finally some good news for their beleaguered server division.

 

[NTMBK]

Ugh, video. Does it say whether the servers will use AMD processors? They could be SeaMicro machines using Intel parts.

 

[SiliconWars]

No details except that they are going to be building their own and going down a software route. Could theoretically be Berlin based but I'm also thinking Seamicro, but with Jaguar.

http://stockticktock.com/finance-news/verizon-to-partner-with-amd-for-custom-servers-nyse-amd/12753/

Details still thin on the ground and AMD being quiet about it.

 

[Rakehellion]

Verizon cloud to design servers in partnership with AMD

Why?

 

[SiliconWars]

Hard to tell exactly why but one guess would be AMD's ability to offer semi-custom silicon.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Why?

Mantle for x86 the next big announcement, where a Jaguar core is faster than an Haswell one :biggrin:

 

[Cerb]

Hard to tell exactly why but one guess would be AMD's ability to offer semi-custom silicon.

Also, Intel has no reason to cut anyone a deal.

Good for AMD, if true (as already stated: ugh, video), but otherwise, not much to see here. Verizon is maturing to the point where they realize that putting together a set of products based on others' software and licensing layers is holding back their ability to both offer a good service, and profit from it. If AMD can use the guaranteed sales, and Verizon can use their hardware, it seems like a good deal, so long as AMD didn't give them too good of a deal.

While AMD's CPUs are lackluster, generally, most "cloud" workloads can scale down or up well enough that, as long as the perf/W doesn't make them too expensive, there shouldn't be any problems, I wouldn't think, regardless of how they do it (future ARM SoCs, Jaguar Opterons, BD-based Opterons, or whatever).

 

[Ibra]

Another desperate AMD success dream is over. This is Intel success. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/...ro_SM15000_for_Enterprise_Class_Services.html I wonder when AMD will star selling Nvidia GPUs under their name? :sneaky:

 

[ShintaiDK]

Seamicro with Intel CPUs. At least its revenue for AMD and some income.

 

[wlee15]

Seamicro with Intel CPUs. At least its revenue for AMD and some income.

Some articles indicate that it's all Opteron, while others seem to suggest that it's a mix of Xeons and Opteron. Opteron's main advantage would be it's higher memory capacity over 1p Xeons.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/07/verizon-builds-its-cloud-with-amd-micro-servers/

Even if they're using Xeons it's still a situation where 2 $300 chips have replaced 1 $1100 chip so that's quite a bit of producer surplus that AMD and it's consumers are taking from Intel.

 

[Khato]

The primary argument against these servers using AMD CPUs is simple - AMD didn't proclaim such in their press release. Then again, AMD's PR department is rather incompetent, so there's still a possibility.

 

[eyeofcore]

It is Opteron, that is this video suggesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5XiI59HOv8

edit; AMD hit the mother load/gold mine...!

 

[Khato]

It is Opteron, that is this video suggesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5XiI59HOv8

edit; AMD hit the mother load/gold mine...!

By that you mean the fact that they show one of the blade motherboards with an Opteron in it while talking about something completely different? Because just like all of the other AMD press material, there's nothing actually stating that it's using Opteron. Whereas this 'case study' - http://web.amd.com/assets/CustomerReferenceProgramPackage2012/Oct 2013 Verizon Case Study 54052A.pdf - specifically states that the 'solution' is "• SeaMicro SM15000 server (AMD Opteron™, Intel Xeon® CPUs)". Which sounds a lot like "we'll give you an extra server using Opteron processors for free so that we can say you're using them."

 

[bullzz]

this article says the servers have intel chips

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...rver-win-was-actually-a-massive-win-for-intel

 

[jpiniero]

this article says the servers have intel chips

I don't see why that's a bad thing for AMD. AMD badly needs money, and if that means reselling Intel, that means reselling Intel.

 

[eyeofcore]

Just because that and that article states that it uses an Intel chip does not mean that they are correct, do they have the contract right in front of their eyes or do they just guess that is Intel since they don't expect AMD's inside those servers and also in the video mentioned to make the service cheaper so they are probably using AMD's Opterons that are way way cheaper than Intel's Xeon's... I can understand why you think there are Xeon's inside rather than Opteron's since you can not expect a change, right?

 

[mrmt]

Just because that and that article states that it uses an Intel chip does not mean that they are correct, do they have the contract right in front of their eyes or do they just guess that is Intel since they don't expect AMD's inside those servers and also in the video mentioned to make the service cheaper so they are probably using AMD's Opterons that are way way cheaper than Intel's Xeon's

Bulldozer/Piledriver TCO is atrocious once you factor in the extra power consumption and/or cooling requirements, that's why AMD has been bleeding market share on servers no matter how cheap they price Opteron chips.

That said, I'm betting that most if not all the server chips will be Intel's, because Seamicro unit isn't AMD locked. They can fit on their servers whatever the customer asks. Seamicro business is to build and sell servers, not build AMD-only servers, and if the best business is Intel, then Intel it should be.

Btw, the Seamicro business unit is lead by Andrew Feldman, the same person that called Bulldozer an unmitigated failure on record. I don't think he goes around touring his clients asking something like "Would you like to buy a couple of servers powered by our pet unmitigated failure?".

 

[wlee15]

Bulldozer/Piledriver TCO is atrocious once you factor in the extra power consumption and/or cooling requirements, that's why AMD has been bleeding market share on servers no matter how cheap they price Opteron chips.

That said, I'm betting that most if not all the server chips will be Intel's, because Seamicro unit isn't AMD locked. They can fit on their servers whatever the customer asks. Seamicro business is to build and sell servers, not build AMD-only servers, and if the best business is Intel, then Intel it should be.

Btw, the Seamicro business unit is lead by Andrew Feldman, the same person that called Bulldozer an unmitigated failure on record. I don't think he goes around touring his clients asking something like "Would you like to buy a couple of servers powered by our pet unmitigated failure?".

If the Verizon is using Opteron then it's probably because for things like Memcached since the Opterons used by Seamicro have a capacity of 64GB while the Xeons have a capacity of 32GB. I also suspect that the ARM A57 will replace the Piledriver core for this purpose as well as the now outdated Atoms.

 

[CHADBOGA]

I also suspect that the ARM A57 will replace the Piledriver core for this purpose as well as the now outdated Atoms.

LOL how are the Atoms outdated.

 

[USER8000]

http://www.moorinsightsstrategy.com/whos-processors-are-used-in-the-giant-verizon-cloud/

The answer is both, we are using the Intel Xeon class processors and a bunch of our infrastructure is using the Intel. Recently we switched to AMD Opterons, and as you wonder why, one of the things we are looking for is increasing the memory per host and the Opterons allow us in a single socket configuration to address more memory, and so all of the new deployments we are putting out there are carrying 64GB per host and the 8-core Opteron processors.

 

[Cerb]

And, if DIMMs per CPU was a prior limiting factor, the added power of each Opteron might be balanced out by only needing half of them. Kind of a Pyrrhic victory, but AMD needs to take whatever wins they can get, so good for them .

 

[NTMBK]

LOL how are the Atoms outdated.

Because they're the old 2-core 32nm parts, not the 22nm 8 core chips.

 

[eyeofcore]

http://www.moorinsightsstrategy.com/whos-processors-are-used-in-the-giant-verizon-cloud/

...and numerous sites said that Intel Xeon is used and now this says otherwise so they must feel like complete jack***es right now, specially the people on this forum that said otherwise. :sneaky: