From PC World: Intel’s $740 million investment in software company Cloudera will help sell more x86 chips in Hadoop installations, but it could also be a defensive move to maintain its server lead from the emerging threat posed by 64-bit ARM servers.
Cloudera makes applications based on Apache Hadoop, open-source distributed computing software through which large data sets can be broken down into small pieces and spread across multiple processing units. Intel has its own Hadoop distribution through which customers can funnel software packages, but that will be ultimately replaced with software from Cloudera, which claims to hold a majority of the Hadoop market.
While enterprise adoption of Hadoop is growing, the Cloudera investment will help Intel sell more chips, analysts said. Intel is dominant in server processors with a market share of more than 90 percent and the investment could temporarily take attention away from ARM architecture, with 64-bit ARM servers due to ship late this year or early next. Server makers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell have been drawn to ARM in recent years.
“Intel is trying to keep [servers] ... from slipping into ARM’s hands, and having Cloudera is a bulwark against that possibility,” said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates.
Cloudera will develop Hadoop for Intel architecture—primarily x86 chips—as its “preferred platform,” Intel said in a statement. Cloudera last year announced development plans for ARM’s 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, but declined Monday to comment on whether it would continue with its plans for ARM, which designs and licenses processors to chip makers.
“Our alliance with Intel is great for our customers and our prospects—and great for the entire Hadoop community. Innovation will only accelerate as a result. Thus, more and better choices for consumers of our software. That is our focus and the focus of our alliance,” said Charles Zedlewski, vice president of products for Cloudera, in an email statement sent via the company’s public relations agency.
ARM-based server chips have been announced by Advanced Micro Devices, Cavium, AppliedMicro and others, and will appear in servers late this year or early next year. Server software development today revolves around x86 processors, but a growing list of companies, including Oracle and Citrix, are writing code for ARM servers.
View: Article @ Source Site
