AMD had a busy week last week. It introduced the third generation of its Zen microarchitecture, which has been propelling the company’s comeback since 2017, and is the subject of reports it is looking to buy field-programmagle gate array (FPGA) maker Xilinx.Five years ago, AMD was a non-entity in the CPU market and only kept afloat by its GPU business. Intel had written the company off and considered Qualcomm its biggest competitor. Then the company came out with Zen, a whole new design. “We started with Zen from scratch, starting from a clean sheet of paper,” said CEO Lisa Su in a video announcement.The result is a nice comeback for a company that had been written off five years ago. It has 5.8% of the server market share as of Q2, 19.2% of desktop and 19.9% of mobile, according to Mercury Research, which specializes in semiconductor market share. The server share may seem low, but two years ago it was at zero and server turnover is slower than desktop.To read this article in full, please click here
AMD had a busy week last week. It introduced the third generation of its Zen microarchitecture, which has been propelling the company’s comeback since 2017, and is the subject of reports it is looking to buy field-programmagle gate array (FPGA) maker Xilinx.Five years ago, AMD was a non-entity in the CPU market and only kept afloat by its GPU business. Intel had written the company off and considered Qualcomm its biggest competitor. Then the company came out with Zen, a whole new design. “We started with Zen from scratch, starting from a clean sheet of paper,” said CEO Lisa Su in a video announcement.The result is a nice comeback for a company that had been written off five years ago. It has 5.8% of the server market share as of Q2, 19.2% of desktop and 19.9% of mobile, according to Mercury Research, which specializes in semiconductor market share. The server share may seem low, but two years ago it was at zero and server turnover is slower than desktop.To read this article in full, please click here
In recent days Intel and Nvidia have introduced or announced new networking products with a common goal of offloading networking traffic to the network processor, thus freeing up the CPU for computational work.Intel announced a new networking initiative to capitalize on what it calls “a perfect storm of 5G, edge buildout and pervasive artificial intelligence” with an expanded lineup of hardware, software and solutions for network infrastructure.This includes enhancements to Intel’s software reference architecture, FlexRAN; Intel virtualized radio access network (vRAN) dedicated accelerator; network-optimized next-generation Intel Xeon Scalable and D processors (codenamed “Ice Lake”); and upgraded Intel Select Solutions for Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI).To read this article in full, please click here
In recent days Intel and Nvidia have introduced or announced new networking products with a common goal of offloading networking traffic to the network processor, thus freeing up the CPU for computational work.Intel announced a new networking initiative to capitalize on what it calls “a perfect storm of 5G, edge buildout and pervasive artificial intelligence” with an expanded lineup of hardware, software and solutions for network infrastructure.This includes enhancements to Intel’s software reference architecture, FlexRAN; Intel virtualized radio access network (vRAN) dedicated accelerator; network-optimized next-generation Intel Xeon Scalable and D processors (codenamed “Ice Lake”); and upgraded Intel Select Solutions for Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI).To read this article in full, please click here
If there was any doubt Nvidia has arrived as an enterprise player, its deal with VMware should erase all doubt.The GPU developer and VMware announced at the recent VMworld 2020 conference that they plan to integrate their respective core technologies through a series of development and networking partnerships.As part of the collaboration, Nvidia’s set of AI software-research tools on the Nvidia NGC hub will be integrated into VMware’s vSphere, Cloud Foundation, and Tanzu platforms. This will help accelerate AI adoption, enabling enterprises to extend existing infrastructure for AI, manage all applications with a single set of operations, and deploy AI-ready infrastructure where the data resides, across the data center, cloud and edge.To read this article in full, please click here
If there was any doubt Nvidia has arrived as an enterprise player, its deal with VMware should erase all doubt.The GPU developer and VMware announced at the recent VMworld 2020 conference that they plan to integrate their respective core technologies through a series of development and networking partnerships.As part of the collaboration, Nvidia’s set of AI software-research tools on the Nvidia NGC hub will be integrated into VMware’s vSphere, Cloud Foundation, and Tanzu platforms. This will help accelerate AI adoption, enabling enterprises to extend existing infrastructure for AI, manage all applications with a single set of operations, and deploy AI-ready infrastructure where the data resides, across the data center, cloud and edge.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel has partnered with Lightbits Labs, as well as taken a financial stake in the startup, to improve the performance of storage systems in data centers. The two companies plan to develop disaggregated storage solutions designed to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) in storage systems due to extraneous hardware and "stranded disk capacity."Stranded disk capacity refers to storage that has been allocated but is unused or unavailable for use by applications for any number of reasons, including problems with a connection. The result is that storage systems are burning electricity but not being used.
READ MORE: NVMe over Fabrics creates data-center storage disruptionTo read this article in full, please click here
Reports hit the Web last week that the Windows XP source code has been leaked and posted to 4chan, one of the seediest boards not on the dark web.A link to a 42.9GB file was posted but quickly scrolled off. 4chan does not archive its posts so once the message scrolled off it was gone, but the link is getting around in other ways. The code is being hosted by Mega, a file-sharing service with its own dubious past.Reports from other sites say the code is legitimate. Microsoft has only said “We are investigating the matter."[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
What is still unclear is whether the code is the whole codebase or just a portion. Those who have examined the code have said it covers Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003. The code has been circulating privately for years, according to the leaker. One theory is that the source of the code is an academic institution.To read this article in full, please click here
Reports hit the Web last week that the Windows XP source code has been leaked and posted to 4chan, one of the seediest boards not on the dark web.A link to a 42.9GB file was posted but quickly scrolled off. 4chan does not archive its posts so once the message scrolled off it was gone, but the link is getting around in other ways. The code is being hosted by Mega, a file-sharing service with its own dubious past.Reports from other sites say the code is legitimate. Microsoft has only said “We are investigating the matter."[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
What is still unclear is whether the code is the whole codebase or just a portion. Those who have examined the code have said it covers Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003. The code has been circulating privately for years, according to the leaker. One theory is that the source of the code is an academic institution.To read this article in full, please click here
The federal government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a rare emergency directive to federal government agencies to roll out a Windows Server patch within days, an indication of the severity of the exploit.The directive was issued on September 18, and agencies were given four days to apply the security update. It demands that executive agencies take "immediate and emergency action" to patch CVE-2020-1472, issued August 11.The vulnerability is in Microsoft Windows Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC), a core authentication component of Active Directory from Windows Server 2008 to Server 2019. It has been named "Zerologon" because of how it works.To read this article in full, please click here
The federal government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a rare emergency directive to federal government agencies to roll out a Windows Server patch within days, an indication of the severity of the exploit.The directive was issued on September 18, and agencies were given four days to apply the security update. It demands that executive agencies take "immediate and emergency action" to patch CVE-2020-1472, issued August 11.The vulnerability is in Microsoft Windows Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC), a core authentication component of Active Directory from Windows Server 2008 to Server 2019. It has been named "Zerologon" because of how it works.To read this article in full, please click here
Big Memory software startup MemVerge launched its Memory Machine software designed to turn DRAM and Intel Optane persistent memory into a software-defined memory pool, bringing DRAM performance to persistent memory (PMEM).For some use cases, SSDs just aren’t fast enough. “Despite all the great advances in storage, the latency difference between memory and storage remains at more than three orders of magnitude, making this data movement inefficient,” said Alper Ilkbahar, vice president and general manager of the memory and storage product group at Intel in a conference call with MemVerge.To read this article in full, please click here
Big Memory software startup MemVerge launched its Memory Machine software designed to turn DRAM and Intel Optane persistent memory into a software-defined memory pool, bringing DRAM performance to persistent memory (PMEM).For some use cases, SSDs just aren’t fast enough. “Despite all the great advances in storage, the latency difference between memory and storage remains at more than three orders of magnitude, making this data movement inefficient,” said Alper Ilkbahar, vice president and general manager of the memory and storage product group at Intel in a conference call with MemVerge.To read this article in full, please click here
Acquisitions and defections be damned, Arm Holdings is pushing forward with its Neoverse line of server processor designs with the launch of the Neoverse V1 and N2 processor architectures.The new chips are the successors to the Neoverse N1 and E1 designs, which are used in server processors like Ampere’s Altra, Amazon’s Graviton2, and Marvel’s ThunderX2. Arm claims these chips will deliver 40% to 50% better performance than the previous generation while consuming the same amount of power.To read this article in full, please click here
Acquisitions and defections be damned, Arm Holdings is pushing forward with its Neoverse line of server processor designs with the launch of the Neoverse V1 and N2 processor architectures.The new chips are the successors to the Neoverse N1 and E1 designs, which are used in server processors like Ampere’s Altra, Amazon’s Graviton2, and Marvel’s ThunderX2. Arm claims these chips will deliver 40% to 50% better performance than the previous generation while consuming the same amount of power.To read this article in full, please click here
IDC released two surveys last week with seemingly contradictory results, but there is an underlying pattern: For now, on-premises hardware sales are dipping, while cloud sales are booming.In its Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, vendor revenue in the global server market grew 19.8% year over year in the second calendar quarter of 2020 to $24.0 billion, while worldwide server shipments grew 18.4% to nearly 3.2 million units in the same time period.
READ MORE: IT employment takes a hit but overall remains healthyTo read this article in full, please click here
IDC released two surveys last week with seemingly contradictory results, but there is an underlying pattern: For now, on-premises hardware sales are dipping, while cloud sales are booming.In its Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, vendor revenue in the global server market grew 19.8% year over year in the second calendar quarter of 2020 to $24.0 billion, while worldwide server shipments grew 18.4% to nearly 3.2 million units in the same time period.
READ MORE: IT employment takes a hit but overall remains healthyTo read this article in full, please click here
Nvidia’s planned $40 billion takeover of chip-architecture firm Arm Holdings is not your typical merger. Oftentimes in a merger it’s one company taking over a weaker competitor that it has vanquished, something Nvidia knows all too well. Over its history, Nvidia has purchased several competitor GPU makers, most notably 3DFX in 2000.But here, the situation is different. First, the two companies don’t compete. Nvidia was a licensee of Arm chip design with its Tegra processor aimed at smartphones and tablets—and a rare failure for Nvidia as it never really caught on.To read this article in full, please click here
Nvidia’s planned $40 billion takeover of chip-architecture firm Arm Holdings is not your typical merger. Oftentimes in a merger it’s one company taking over a weaker competitor that it has vanquished, something Nvidia knows all too well. Over its history, Nvidia has purchased several competitor GPU makers, most notably 3DFX in 2000.But here, the situation is different. First, the two companies don’t compete. Nvidia was a licensee of Arm chip design with its Tegra processor aimed at smartphones and tablets—and a rare failure for Nvidia as it never really caught on.To read this article in full, please click here
After months of teasing and rumor, GPU and AI vendor Nvidia announced it would purchase Arm Holdings from its parent company SoftBank for $40 billion. The purchase includes $21.5 billion in Nvidia stock and $12 billion in cash, including $2 billion payable at signing. That will break the piggy bank because Nvidia had $10.9 billion in cash on hand as of the most recent quarter.Softbank acquired Arm in 2016 for $31.4 billion in 2016. At the time, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said it was an investment in the Internet of Things. But SoftBank, known for its profligate spending on acquisitions and investments, made some bad investments in WeWork and Uber, among others, and was saddled with $25 billion in debt.To read this article in full, please click here
Andy Patrizio