Top Microsoft bod: ARM servers right now smell like Intel's (doomed) Itanic Microsoft is unlikely to use ARM-compatible processors in a meaningful way in its data centers – unless there is a huge change in the software ecosystem around the non-x86 chips, a top Redmond bod told The Reg. Though Microsoft is closely watching developments in the ARM world, it's unlikely that the Windows giant will be one …
In the server area, most people really don't really care about anything but Windows. Serious business users run Windows on x86 just fine already.
There, fixed it for you by adding a bit more Worldly perspective and a lot less geekboi invective. You may choose to believe otherwise, but maybe you should try reading a few IDC or Gartner reports before you pretend "real server users" are not using Windows. Or you could just peruse a few El Reg articles on the market, such as TPM's review of the analysts figures, which show how M$ is still the business platform of choice and growing in share. Enjoy!
>" "It's a new technology"
> Whut? Has this dimwit been living under a rock for about the last 25 years?
ARM servers are a "new" technology - not the chip itself.
SecureBoot is a good technology. Look at the ATMs hacked booting them from a rogue USB stick. If they could boot only signed code, it could not have happened. If you want a secure machine, you need a trust chain from the boot process onwards.
No, because if you can reboot the machine you can be able to turn it on again. Even BIOS passwords may be reset. In many situations when security has paramount importance, being able to ensure that no matter how only allowed code is executed, is of paramount importance.
I understand that for someone who wants to boot whatever he likes and try different OSes it is something very bad (and they should be able to buy devices allowing it), but in many environment when this is not allowed anyway, and it's a real danger, being able to enforce what code is allowed to run is a basic needed feature.
Frankly if in my company I can buy devices users can't tamper with since boot, I'll buy them. Then with your home PC you should be able to do whatever you like, but with the company one you can't, and I'll do my best to ensure you really can't.
Then this kind of technology can be used to lock-in customers, true, but that should be a matter of anti-trust rules - because the technology itself is both good and bad - can be used to enhance security or to lock you out, otherwise it's like saying the Internet is bad because there is pedophiles.
I would have been happier with something a lot more 'old school'. ie: a special slot (eg: SD card, USB stick) which when populated will boot from it no matter what - overriding whatever the boot order is in the BIOS. You can secure that with a glue gun and be done with it without introducing a relatively *complex* patent encrusted layer that will most likely defy independent audit.
ARM is a new technology in the server space, there have up until very recently been no ARM servers. ARM64 is also very new indeed. ARM SOCs are all very different from each other making OS code for one ARM not always run on another.
So, as an ARM fan (I've used it since the Archimedies) I'm only going to be specifying ARM servers for a datacentre when an equivalent of the Proliant is running ARM. This is not looking like it's going to be too soon, what with the only dedicated ARM server startup that I know of just folding.
""It's a new technology, but where is it going to be disruptive? A big challenge ARM has is what workloads are you going to run on it," Neil told us."
Microsoft has such a great track-record of jumping on what will be popular and giving what the customer wants. WP, Surface, Windows 8.x, etc. are all examples of where they missed the mark. There are plenty of others. Maybe Microsoft should be disruptive and while they are looking for a new CEO, find new CxO's and upper management across the board.
"We don't have a Microsoft server product for ARM and it would be a huge deal trying to build one. Anyone running ARM servers is going to run *nix anyway. When this catches on we're screwed. So let's just do what we always do: throw FUD around and hope some sticks."
If MS product developers were half as good as their FUDders, MS would still be a great company.
Yeah, the only reason all the datacenters in the World haven't kicked their old Wintel kit to the curb is because there are no Linux ports for ARM or commercial ARM server manufacturers, right? Oh, hold on a sec - there are both! They just don't offer as good options for applications, performance or functionality as the current Wintel (or Lintel) offerings. Having quite comfortably survived the onslaught of Linux (haven't the prophets of doom been saying Linux was supposed to have killed Windoze every year for like the last ten years?), M$ are probably quite comfortable in the server market right now. I suspect their main worry regarding ARM is more the client/desktop market.
A top MS guy once said he couldn't see why anyone would need more that 1Mb (one megaf*ck*ngbyte!) of RAM. Also, MS didn't think this new Internet thing would take off so let's copy AOL & Compuserve and have our own connected service - that went well. Idiots.
"A top MS guy once said he couldn't see why anyone would need more that 1Mb (one megaf*ck*ngbyte!) of RAM."
Times change.
ARM itself - the original ARM had the PC and PSR combined, which gave a maximum addressing range of 64MB and the MEMCs were each able to address a maximum of 4MB (more would require multiple MEMCs - quite a rare setup). Why? Because 4MB was a luxury back then, and a price to match.
Shame - I thought LDMFD R13!, {Rx-Ry, PC}^ was a beautiful instruction.
Linux killing Wintel? I think you have that backwards. It was NT that was supposed to kill Unix in the server room. People were saying that back in the 90s. So how did that go for you?
Linux doesn't need world domination. The fact that Linux makes the world safe for other Unixen is an incredibly good thing. Those hacked ATMs are the perfect example why. The world needs ot be kept safe from totally crapulent monopolies.
"....It was NT that was supposed to kill Unix in the server room. People were saying that back in the 90s. So how did that go for you?...." So you slept through the bit where the UNIX market has been in continual decline over the past twenty years due to the inroads of Wintel/Lintel? I use to work in datacenters in the '90s with a strict policy of "no Windows in our UNIX datacenter" - they're all running majority Wintel/Lintel now.
"....The fact that Linux makes the world safe for other Unixen is an incredibly good thing....." Don't be silly, Linux was one of the prime killers of SPARC-Slowaris. When presented with the choice of having to learn new skills and go with Wintel, most UNIX sysadmins chose the more similar Lintel option if they could. It was self-preservation on their part.
@Jeddiah:
Windows did kill the strangle hold of big iron unix in the datacentre, from the early 90s onwards practically nobody ran flie and print from UNIX, it just wasn't worth it. Linux then came along and has continued to kill big iron UNIX, very few people run UNIX in new workloads now, if they can possibly avoid it, the bang for buck simply isn't there. There are a large amount of FTSE100 companies who's strategic platforms are virtualised Linux or virtualised Windows, anything else is tactical.
Also - those hacked ATMs are nothing to do with the software and everything to do with piss-poor hardware design and implementation. You fall into a classic trap if you think they only got hacked because they run Windows, I've seen many a Linux enthusiast not properly secure his or her machine because they believe it to be inherently secure.
I beg to differ. Windows is lacking in some forms of security which makes it an easy target in stories like this, however a few years back my previous web host was compromised an a little zero size iframe added to the bottom of every html file. The server? NetBSD and I guess it wasn't kept up to date. Anything can be pwned if there is incentive, to think otherwise is just dumb.
There isn't much availability of ARM in the server market, believe me i've been looking...
I can buy a proper 1U x86 box with a quad core cpu and lights out management for a few hundred, for ARM i have a choice between phones, dev boards and expensive boxes with lots of cpus from the likes of calxeda. Where are the sub £1000 1u ARM rackmount servers?
Still use an application called "Unique Filer" from 2000 (well the About info is 2000) and that has run happily on Win98, WinXP, Win7, Win8.1. The installer gets a bit unhappy but the core application still runs no problem.
That's from the binary of 2000, not an upgrade that is created to support a new OS release, and the Win98 was 32bit and the Win8.1 64bit. And the number of machines it's worked on during that time requires at least 3 hands worth of digits.
If the developers want me to pay them more money I'd be happy to because it seems to works better than the applications I try that might replace it.
I still use 'xv', which was written in 1994... Because it comes with sourcecode i've been able to compile it on everything from ARM or SPARC based linux to x86-64 based MacOS...
It does what its supposed to do, and is fast and stable. The only patches i have on it are patches to support newer image formats which didnt exist in 1994.
Coming from the software giant that has utterly failed at producing a single worthwhile software product that runs on ARM, it's hardly surprising as Windows Server RT would be even more of a turd than regular RT.
This news is really just an acceptance from Microsoft that ARM in data centres will be running Linux and Microsoft is unlikely to get a look in so why even bother. And nobody will shed a tear.
Actually, I can buy low to mid-range 32bit ARM servers off-the-shelf right now. Top-end are custom of course.
In fact, I just did and it's in my hands right now. Unfortunately the hard disks didn't arrive on the same shipment so I can't start it up until tomorrow.
That said, 64bit ARM is relatively new and there aren't many 64bit ARM SoCs yet.
For IO bound tasks many of the options are already ARM, and a lot of them go faster and use less power than the equivalent x86 - by going massively-parallel on a scale that is uneconomic in x86.
You can buy and run a 1024-core ARM server much cheaper than an 1024-core x86 cluster.
Which made me think - as Microsoft seem to like charging per-core, they've effectively ruled themselves out of the market before it even existed...
'A big challenge ARM has is what workloads are you going to run on it'
A bigger challenge for MS is probably the answer "well, I doubt that it'll be that bloated Windows Server 2013, Active Directory stuff you're peddling, maybe some proven Linux on ARM technologies optimised for specificly needed server tasks that will perform equal or better than your high temperature CISC Intel based stuff whilst requiring vastly less power for both running the chips and cooling which will reduce data centre costs significantly".
Should be food for thought rather than what sounds like an over the top and possibly scared blanket dismissal before the technology has had the chance to succeed or fail in the real world marketplace. Not a good image to be presenting right now for a "top Microsoft bod", indeed the arrogance may well be interpreted as a little desperate and only increase interest in the potential benefits of switching to ARM.
In the data centre, you don't need the GUI and you don't need th AV (coz you wrote every last line of the code that runs on the server) so funnily enough the data centre is probably the best place for Microsoft to run Windows on ARM.
Public statements like this no withstanding, I'd be surprised if MS didn't actually have a team making sure that the latest builds of Windows run happily on a selection of ARM-based servers, even if they have to build the servers themselves. Then again, MS has been so badly run these last ten years, maybe nothing would surprise me anymore. (Upvote for the earlier comment suggesting that MS "disruptively" sack their entire top management.)
"They need all the horsepower in the CPU just to run the OS, GUI, anti-virus, etc before even putting on the application."
The very fact you don't know that latest Windows Server releases has a GUI-less mode, many administrative tasks happens remotely using applications utilities, and you don't usually install AV on servers (but maybe some file servers where user have write access to, or mail servers but just to check mails) tells a lot about your knowledge of how a datacenter is setup and run.
"the latest Windows Server releases has a GUI-less mode, many administrative tasks happens remotely using applications utilities, and you don't usually install AV on servers (but maybe some file servers where user have write access to, or mail servers but just to check mails) tells a lot about your knowledge of how a datacenter is setup and run."
Surely it would be equally possible to take that statement (and the arrival of PowerShell a little while ago) as an acknowledgement that a subset of MS products have finally got rid of two decades of unnecessary GUI-dependence?
Leaving incompetent admins stranded. Good admins were already working a lot with scripts and command line tools even before. When you have to administer a large number of servers in a complex environment, you have to automate tasks, and that often means scripts and consoles.
One of my tests to hire new sysadmins is to have them detect and repairs issues after booting into recovery mode with only the console available...
That what some people like you believe, but it was never sold this way. Windows Server is a fairly complex platform to run, with many advanced features Linux wholly lacks, which requires competent and knowledgeable admins to setup and run them.
Usually it's much.easier for a good Windows admin learn Linux than vice versa, because there is much less to learn.
What's wrong in it? Now we should complain that Microsoft did the right thing?
However, GUIs are not bad per se. But they may not be the right tool when you need to automate tasks or work on a large set of data. You could do a lot via the command line even before 2008 and the PowerShell - if you knew which tools to use and how. The fact that too many Windows users didn't know that is just their fault, not Microsoft's. If one doesn't want to learn continuosly, IT is not the right job for him.
No wonder they get broken into regularly.
All of the Windows servers I've had contact with have had anti-vrirus programs running on them. If they didn't, they weren't allowed a network connection.
And Windows has finally caught up to UNIX of 1990. No need for a GUI on a server... <sarcasm on>big advance.<sarcasm off>
No government/DoD Windows system is allowed to go without an ant-virus application. Too dangerous. That gets them into severe problems (like the drone control systems... infected.. even though they were a server - so now they use Linux instead).
LOL! You don't install AVs on many kind of servers because they may kill performance. For example a db server. Just you don't allow any network connection but the minimum required ones, and viruses can't use any port to propagate. And of course you run security devices in front of them. And you may have a wholly separated network for management. Ah, and you do that for Linux machines as well, because that is the proper way to do it.
Again, the lack of knowledge about how a modern, secure datacenter is designed and run is very intersting...
Anyway Windows implemented GUIless server... we're still waiting a Linux GUI that can match the Windows one...
I kinda doubt it. They thought they could do NT on Alpha, but that is long gone.
They just don't have a good track record of migrating to a "new-different" ecosystem. It isn't in their blood. Apple has done it a couple of times from 68k to Power, and now x86, so they understand the necessary tasks to get the job done.
Yes, ARM has "low power" going for it, and its acceptance is gaining, but for "really big" data center things, it is a bit behind.
Of course, someone could do a "back to the future" operating and get a 68k chip all zoomed up and we could end up using that. An interesting concept.
Reminds me of "metric" in the USA. Very slow and painful process if at all.
Not a relevant comment. NT on Alpha worked fine - we used to run a massive SAP system on that platform. They did get cold feet and pull the OS variant which more or less killed the hardware platform as far as we were concerned. NT was quite hardware agnostic for a while.
Phil.
We got fingers burnt with NT on Alpha, at the time it looked a great idea and we bought in to it for a big project as the Alpha CPU was, at that time, miles better than the x86 in speed (in particular for single precision floating point).
Then MS dropped support from NT, and HP took over DEC and canned it in favour of Itanium.
We also used SOLARIS but got a bit tired of Sun's will we/won't we support it fully on x86 dance, and now we are Oracle hostages are doing our best to migrate off it and free ourselves of Oracle "support".
So for now it is Linux & x86 but ARM is an option for a lot of our in-house stuff.
MS has been developing on ARM chips for a long time, Windows Mobile predates both iOS and Android and it run on ARM as well. MS had the compiler and the knowledge about ARM - but there's a lot beyong pure technology to make a platform viable for a given task.
And MS has a long experience in server operating systems and their applications, while, for example, Apple has none.
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