DEVOPSdigest

Packet announced a new ARMv8-A based on-demand server configuration, available to deploy in less than ten minutes from its data centers in Parsippany (NJ), Sunnyvale (CA), Amsterdam (NL) and Tokyo (JP).

The ARMv8-A option - powered by a pair of 48-core Cavium (NASDAQ: CAVM) ThunderX chips - offers a 64-bit ARM server with the same elastic benefits of Intel-powered solutions. The 2A server is available in minutes via API, portal or widely used DevOps tools such as Terraform and Ansible.

“Making a powerful, low-cost ARM compute node available to developers has been a dream of mine for years,” said Zachary Smith, CEO at Packet. “With the support of the Cavium and SoftBank teams, as well as our hardware and ecosystem partners, we’re thrilled that users can take advantage of ARMv8-A powered bare metal at this incredible price point with the same experience as our x86 solutions.”

Unlike lower-end ARMv7-A variants, the ARMv8-A architecture powering Packet’s bare metal Type 2A is designed for high density data center workloads and thrives on tasks like container-based applications, data processing, threaded application workloads and network heavy functions such as load balancing. To encourage rapid adoption, Packet also announced full 64-bit ARM support for Ubuntu 16.04, as well as a pipeline that includes CoreOS, FreeBSD and CentOS.

Cloud native (Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are natural workloads for ARMv8-A as they are highly portable and do not require the same tie-in with Intel processors. Packet’s offering follows a recent investment by SoftBank, who acquired ARM Holdings for $32 billion in September.