Cavium announced today that they are teaming up with Microsoft on evaluating and enabling a variety of cloud workloads running on Cavium’s flagship ThunderX2 ARMv8-A Data Center processor for the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
The companies are also demonstrating web services on a version of Windows Server developed for Microsoft’s internal use running cloud services workloads on ThunderX2. The server platform is based on Microsoft’s Project Olympus – Microsoft’s next generation open source hyperscale cloud hardware design.
The demonstrations will be shown at the Open Compute Project (OCP) U.S. Summit in San Jose on March 8 and 9, 2017 and are the result of an extensive long term collaboration between the two companies.
The ThunderX2 product family is Cavium’s second generation 64-bit ARMv8-A server processor SoCs for Data Center, Cloud and High Performance Computing applications. The family integrates fully out-of-order high performance custom cores supporting single and dual socket configurations.
ThunderX2 is optimized to drive high computational performance delivering outstanding memory bandwidth and memory capacity. The new line of ThunderX2 processors includes multiple workload optimized SKUs for both scale up and scale out applications and is fully compliant with ARMv8-A architecture specifications as well as ARM’s SBSA and SBBR standards. It is also widely supported by industry leading OS, Hypervisor and SW tool and application vendors.
Cavium’s hardware platform is fully compliant with Microsoft’s Project Olympus which is one of the most modular and flexible cloud hardware designs in the data center industry. The platform integrates two ThunderX2 processors in a dual socket configuration.
ThunderX2 SoC integrates a large number of fully out-of-order custom ARMv8-A cores with rich IO connectivity for accommodating a variety of peripherals for Azure, delivering excellent throughput and latency for cloud applications. The platform has been designed in collaboration with a leading server ODM supplier for Microsoft.
“Cavium is excited to work with Microsoft on ThunderX2,” said Gopal Hegde, VP/GM, Data Center Processor Group at Cavium.
“ARM-based servers have come a long way with first generation ThunderX-based server platforms being deployed at multiple data centers, which enabled a critical mass of ecosystem partners for ARM. We see the second generation products helping to drive a tipping point for ARM server deployment across a mainstream set of volume applications. Microsoft’s support will help accelerate commercial deployment of ARMv8 server platforms for Data Centers and Cloud.”
Dr. Leendert van Doorn, Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp said,
“We’re impressed with the innovation and competitiveness of the latest generation of ARM server processors, like ThunderX2, and are excited about the roadmap. Microsoft has developed a version of Windows Server, for Microsoft’s internal use, that supports ARMv8. We have also been working closely with Cavium on ThunderX2 to support Microsoft’s Project Olympus design so they can be consumed in our data centers.”
