ARM Community: Software momentum around ARM based high-end computing & infrastructure - ARM Community

At recent industry events, along with recent product announcements, you have been hearing a great deal of buzz around what one industry analyst characterized as “a Shift to ARM”, in higher end computing sectors such as mobile computing, enterprise servers, advanced mobile and enterprise networking infrastructure. To reiterate a few examples, we saw the case made at the Linley Gwenapp’s keynote address at the Linley Semiconductor Conference, noting that several leading silicon vendors had announced plans for high end SoCs targeted for advanced networking and data center server applications, the Microsoft launch of their new Surface Tablet, as well as the Samsung launch of the world’s first ARM based notebook computer, the Chromebook.

Of particular significance is the momentum emerging in the software ecosystem for these emerging hardware platforms. Microsoft launched Window RT for its ARM based Surface tablet, giving a peek into the move by Microsoft to unify the user experience across computing platforms. The Samsung Chromebook features a Chrome OS build optimized using ARM DS-5^TM software development tools. Also, the Linaro open source community organization for ARM platforms announced the formation of the Linaro Enterprise Group, with leading enterprise computing stakeholders banding together to deliver enhanced server platform software for the sector.

In networking infrastructure, widely recognized software platforms and RTOS have supported the ARM architecture for quite some time, I should mention one of the leading vendors in a more specialized arena of optimized data plane processing software, 6WIND, whom we have been watching build a solid customer list and reputation in mobile infrastructure, and more recently in cloud infrastructure and security appliance applications. 6WIND has been providing solutions to networking OEMS that solve critical networking challenges in packet processing bandwidth, scalability and Quality-of-Service areas, demonstrating 7-10x performance improvements over standard networking software layer commonly available.

6WIND recently announced that they have joined the ARM Connected Community, read the full press release here. Charlie Ashton, VP of Marketing at 6WIND, also commented, on the Multicore Packet Processing Forum, on their support for emerging high-end ARM based platforms and the shift he and others are seeing in mobile and enterprise infrastructure applications where these platforms will be increasingly adopted. This is precisely the sort of leading-edge, software solutions we see emerging from the ecosystem to help drive adoption and accelerate deployment of new infrastructure that will undoubtedly benefit immensely from the rich choice of innovative processing platforms that also will deliver compelling OPEX value propositions based on ARM technology.

For more information check out the rest of the content on the Multicore Packet Processing Forum site, as well as www.6wind.com for more details on their innovation software solutions that are making a difference in the industry. I will be watching them and the rest of the ecosystem and commenting from time to time on interesting developments. Happy Computing!

Bob Monkman, Enterprise Segment Marketing, ARM, is based in Silicon Valley. Bob areas of focus include systems software and market strategy in networking-related applications and he has a passion for collaborating within the ecosystem to solve big problems and move the industry forward. Bob joined ARM with a strong systems software background working in roles spanning from product management and segment marketing, to business development and alliances, to applications engineering and hardware/software development, at the outset of his career, and holds a BSEE from the University of Illinois-Chicago.