Ampere donates Arm64 server hardware to Debian to fortify the Arm ecosystem

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Jun 16, 2020, 09:00 ET

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Debian today announced that Ampere^® partnered with Debian to support Debian's hardware infrastructure through the donation of three of Ampere's high-performance Arm64 servers. These Lenovo ThinkSystem HR330A servers contain Ampere's eMAG CPU with an Arm^®v8 64-bit processor specifically designed for cloud servers, equipped with 256GB RAM, dual 960GB SSDs, and a 25GbE dual port NIC.

The donated servers have been deployed at the University of British Columbia, Debian's hosting partner in Vancouver, Canada. The Debian System Administrators (DSA) have configured them to run Arm64/armhf/armel build daemons, replacing the build daemons running on less powerful development-grade boards. On virtual machines with half as many allocated vCPUs, the result has been that the time to build Arm* packages has been halved with Ampere's eMAG system. Another benefit from this generous gift will allow DSA to migrate some general Debian services currently operating in its present infrastructure, and will provision virtual machines for other Debian teams (e.g.: Continuous Integration, Quality Assurance, etc.) who require access to Arm64 architecture.

"Our partnership with Debian supports our developer strategy to expand the open source communities which run on Ampere servers to further build out the Arm64 ecosystem and enable the creation of new applications," said Mauri Whalen, vice president of software engineering at Ampere. "Debian is a well-run and respected community, and we are proud to work with them."

"The Debian System Administrators are grateful to Ampere for the donation of carrier-grade ARM64 servers. Having servers with integrated standard management interfaces such as Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), and with Lenovo's hardware warranties and support organization behind them, is precisely what DSA has been wanting for the ARM64 architecture. These servers are very powerful and very well equipped: we anticipate using them for general services in addition to ARM64 build daemons. I think they'll prove to be very appealing to cloud operators and I'm thrilled that Ampere Computing has partnered with Debian." - Luca Filipozzi, Debian System Administrator.

It is only through the donation of volunteer effort, in-kind equipment and services, and funding that Debian is able to deliver on our commitment of a free operating system. We are very appreciative of Ampere's generosity.

About Ampere Computing

Ampere is designing the future of hyperscale cloud and edge computing with the world's first cloud native processor. Built for the cloud with a modern 64-bit Arm server-based architecture, Ampere gives customers the freedom to accelerate the delivery of all cloud computing applications. With industry-leading cloud performance, power efficiency and scalability, Ampere processors are tailored for the continued growth of cloud and edge computing.

About Debian

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free community project. Since then, the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the "universal operating system".

Contact Information

For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at https://www.debian.org/ or send mail to [email protected].

Ampere Press Contact
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