HP's Moonshot Pushes ARM Aside, Goes With Intel

HP said it will introduce Moonshot low-power servers with Intel's Centerton processors and not as previously announced with Calxeda's ARM-based CPUs.

The company justified the switch in strategy with the fact that Intel's processors offer data-center-class features, including 64-bit support, as well as "hardware virtualization (VTx), error correcting code (ECC) memory, lower power requirements, increased performance and [a] broad software ecosystem." As a result, Intel's Centerton is "ideal" for the company's "Gemini" server cartridges.

HP said that Gemini supports "thousands" of server cartridges per server rack, which enables "a lot more compute power into a smaller footprint, while significantly driving down complexity, energy use and costs"and that the new architecture will target web serving, offline analytics and hosting markets. Gemini will "soon" be available for customer testing.

As to whether ARM has a future with Moonshot is unclear.  There was no information if and when HP will be offering an ARM-based version of the server. However, we are not hopeful that this is coming in the foreseeable future, as Calxeda has removed all Moonshot-related pages from its website.