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AMD Unveils Server Strategy and Roadmap, while server market goes down
At a time when global server industry is going through a tough phase, AMD has disclosed its strategy and roadmap to recapture market share in enterprise and data center servers by unveiling innovative products that address key technologies and meet the requirements of the fastest-growing data center and cloud computing workloads.
Additionally, AMD revealed details of its 2014 server portfolio including best-in-class Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), two- and four-socket CPUs and details on what it expects to be the industry’s premier ARM server processor. This is on the heels of announcing the general availability of the AMD OpteronX-Series processor, code named “Kyoto,” which dominates the small-core server market on every performance benchmark. These forthcoming AMD Opteron processors bring important innovations to the rapidly changing compute market, including integrated CPU and GPU compute (APU); high core-count ARM servers for high-density compute in the data center and substantial improvements in compute per-watt per-dollar and total cost of ownership.
“Our strategy is to differentiate ourselves by using our unique IP to build server processors that are particularly well matched to a target workload and thereby drive down the total cost of owning servers. This strategy unfolds across both the enterprise and data centers and includes leveraging our graphics processing capabilities and embracing both x86 and ARM instruction sets,” informs Andrew Feldman, General Manager of the Server Business Unit, AMD. “AMD led the world in the transition to multicore processors and 64-bit computing and we intend to do it again with our next-generation AMD Opteron families,” he adds.
In 2014, AMD will set the bar in power-efficient server compute with the industry’s premier ARM server CPU. The 64-bit CPU, code named “Seattle,” is based on ARM CortexA57 cores and is expected to provide category-leading throughput as well as setting the bar in performance-per-watt. AMD will also deliver a best-in-class APU, code named “Berlin.” “Berlin” is an x86 CPU and APU, based on a new generation of cores named “Steamroller.” Designed to double the performance of the recently available “Kyoto” part, “Berlin” will offer extraordinary compute-per-watt that will enable massive rack density. The third processor announced today is code named “Warsaw,” AMD’s next-generation 2P/4P offering. It is optimized to handle the heavily virtualized workloads found in enterprise environments including the more complex compute needs of data analytics, xSQL and traditional databases. “Warsaw” will provide significantly improved performance-per-watt over today’s AMD Opteron6300 family.
It is important to note that the year 2013 did not start on a positive note for the global server industry. According to IDC and Gartner server reports, the global server shipments and revenues both declined in the first quarter of 2013.
IDC reported global first quarter 2013 server revenue to be $10.9 billion, which is a 7.7 percent year-over-year decline. On the other hand, Gartner reported the revenue decline to be only 5.0 percent, coming in at $11.8 billion.
In terms of server shipments, IDC reported that 1.9 million units were shipped in 1Q13, which is a 3.1 percent year-over-year decline. In contrast, Gartner reported only a 0.7 percent decline in server shipments, with 2.3 million units.
Linux, Unix and Windows
Even though the overall global server revenues were down, on the other hand, Linux server revenues grew. According to IDC, Linux server revenue grew by 3.4 percent year over year and now represents 23.1 percent of the total server market. Experts owe this to the resiliency of the Linux based server systems.
In contrast, Microsoft Windows server revenue declined by 4.2 percent, though Windows does still represent 52.2 percent of overall quarterly factory revenue.
At present, according to Gartner, IBM is the top server vendor in the world by revenue. Gartner puts IBM’s 1Q13 server revenue at $3.02 billion and HP’s $2.96 billion. However, HP is the top server vendor, in terms of server shipments, with 580,563 units shipped and Dell comes in second with 516,355 units shipped.
