Thursday, October 25, 2012

Dell Supports ARM Open Source Efforts

Round Rock-based computer maker Dell is putting more weight behind the development of open source software for ARM-based servers--and fellow Austin firm, Calxeda--saying this week that it is donating its ARM-based server resources to further application development and testing by the Apache Software Foundation. Dell said it is providing an ARM-based server concept running Calxeda EnergyCore to Apache projects, to help them in software development and native porting of applications. Dell and Calxeda are working together on ARM-based server development, using Calxeda's low power chips to enable far more efficient server deployment. Calxeda is hoping that its low powered chips will be adopted by server manufacturers as an alternative to more traditional--but power hungry--servers in data centers. Dell said it has been working on two ARM servers--the Dell "Copper" and Dell "Zinc"--however, those products have not shipped and aren't readily available. The new arrangement helps developers port their software to those environments, before that hardware is ready.