Google Preps for IBM, ARM Shift

Search giant could pivot on ISAs

Rick Merritt, EETimes
4/7/2016 09:43 AM EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Google is preparing for the possibility it may shift its massive data centers from Intel x86 to IBM Power servers. It also is preparing for the possibility it may shift to ARM servers, but it’s not quite as far along on that path.

The search giant gave a peak at just how prepared it is to move to IBM Power servers at the annual Open Power Summit here. It has now ported to the Power8 server it developed two years ago many Google apps and most of Google’s infrastructure software.

“For good software developers enabling Power is just modifying a flag in a config file and off they go,” said Maire Mahony, an engineering manager in Google’s platform group that is responsible for its data center hardware and a director of the Open Power Foundation.

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