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ARM-Based OpenStack Cloud Rigged for Testing

It’s believed to be the first ARM-based cloud or at least the first OpenStack cloud on ARM

An OpenStack contingent has set up an ARM-based cloud as a zone in TryStack.org, the free five-month-old sandbox, for trying and testing the OpenStack IaaS platform that's been limited to just an x86 zone running industry-standard hardware up until now.

It's believed to be the first ARM-based cloud or at least the first OpenStack cloud on ARM. It's not meant for production use.

The widgetry consists of HP Redstone servers fitted with Calxeda's ECX-1000 ARM chips running Essex, the latest version of OpenStack, and Canonical's Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS hosted by Texas service provider Core NAP.

The ECX-1000 processors squeeze four 32-bit ARM cores running at a maximum 1.4GHz into a chip.

TryStack's reportedly got 24 server nodes with 24 disks currently available. Users can run the LAMP stack, Hadoop and the Cassandra NoSQL database although Hadoop may be problematical.

The servers use Linux containers, or LXC, a form of virtualization that allows only one operating system instance per processor core for the sake of server efficiency. That makes TryStack unsuitable for benchmarking and power measurements, but one can still imagine run-offs been the ARM zone and the x86 zone.

TryStack instances are typically deleted in 24 hours to let the next guy have a turn.

Calxeda poses the question, "What user experience can you expect?" and answers it by saying: "Well, most people will find it a bit boring; it looks and acts just like any Linux server instance. But that's exactly the point. For most code it's just compile and go. Or for interpretive workloads like Java, PHP, LAMP stack and node.js, it's just load and go. Just a little slower. And much less power. Each quad-core server consumes only 5 watts under load; and 1/2 watt at idle."

The TryStack adventure is expected to accelerate the development of the ARM server ecosystem. Calxeda marketing VP Karl Freund said in a statement that "There is massive demand from end users, ISVs and members of the open source community to access this new technology, and TryStack will enable access to both the Calxeda-based servers, and the OpenStack APIs on ARM."

ARM's energy efficiency and low cost are touted as a threat to Intel. Calxeda is expected to start shipping early to customers next month.

According to Calxeda product manager John Mao writing on the OpenStack blog, the idea is to eventually have one big pool of x86 and ARM servers spanned by an agnostic OpenStack.

"While we are currently standing up a separate OpenStack cluster for this new ARM zone," he said, "we have every intention of working with the TryStack volunteers to merge these into a single large heterogeneous cluster. We want to use OpenStack as the first example of what a multi-architecture cloud could look like and the opportunities it presents to both service providers (different pricing models) and enterprises (workload-targeted job scheduling) alike."

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

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