Commercialisation to reduce data centre power usage leading to cost savings and environmental benefit for users

DataCentred, the UK’s leading provider of open-source computer processing and storage solutions, announced General Availability of its OpenStack public cloud platform running on ARM AArch 64 processors. The commercialisation of this world first innovation is set to significantly reduce data centre power usage and drive down operational costs, passing on savings and environmental benefits to DataCentred’s customers.

DataCentred customers can access 64 bit ARM hardware via a virtualised architecture which can be spun up on demand. Customers are now able to purchase this platform to develop their own applications on these emerging platforms on an opex model thereby avoiding expensive and complex setup and entry costs.

The development has come about as a result of DataCentred’s collaboration with Manchester-based system level software infrastructure experts Codethink, to extend its OpenStack platform using HP Moonshot servers running ARM AArch64 processor cartridges – the first example of generally available Moonshot backed AArch 64 instances in an OpenStack public cloud in the world.

DataCentred’s innovative use of open source technologies already enables them to offer the cheapest UK-owned and operated cloud services. Commercialising its latest platform will serve to provide further cost efficiencies and environmental benefits to customers.

Matt Jarvis, Head of Cloud Computing at DataCentred, said:

“The flexibility of OpenStack’s architecture has allowed us to make the integration with ARM seamless. When users request an ARM based OS image, it gets scheduled onto an ARM node and aside from this the experience is identical to requesting x86 resources.  Our early adopters have provided invaluable testing and feedback helping us to get to point where we’re confident about stability and support.

The platform is attracting businesses who are interested in taking advantage of the cost savings the lower-power chips offer as well as developers who are targeting ARM platforms. Developers are particularly interested because virtualised ARM is an incredibly cost-effective alternative to deploying physical ARM hardware on every developer’s desk.”

Mike Kelly, founder and CEO of DataCentred, said:

“That DataCentred has successfully commercialised the world-first concept of running an OpenStack cloud on 64-bit ARM servers is testament to the expertise and dedication of our OpenStack cloud development team. The market currently lacks easy to use 64-bit ARM hardware and DataCentred’s innovation provides customers with large scale workloads across many cores. Open source software is the future of computing and the General Availability of DataCentred’s new development will make our services even more attractive to price-sensitive and environmentally-aware consumers.

The environmental benefits and cost savings that ARM64 promises offers great potential for early adopters of the technology to secure competitive advantage and DataCentred’s deployment will enable such forward-thinking organisations to develop applications for the platform with little commercial risk.  We’re offering the first step towards driving down the cost of data centre operation and, ultimately, of the cost of virtualised instances within a customer’s service framework.”