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Oracle Expands Database to Ampere Chips, Dealing a Blow to Intel
(Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp. said its industry-leading database software can be used with a new type of processor for the first time in decades, another challenge to the dominance of Intel Corp.’s technology in the lucrative data center market.
The latest version of the database software can now be used on servers with chips from Ampere Computing, Oracle said Wednesday in a blog post. Customers can run the database on Oracle’s cloud service or on-premises servers with Ampere’s processors that use technology from UK-based Arm Ltd.
“We get more performance for dramatically less cost,” Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said of Ampere’s processors, speaking via video at an event in Menlo Park, California, hosted by the chipmaker. “We have much better economics.”
“It’s a major commitment to move to a new supplier,” Ellison said. “We’ve moved to a new architecture. We think this is the future.”
In another blow to the once Intel monopoly, Oracle has made its database software able to run on Non Intel processors. Gelsinger has little time left if he is to keep market share from falling off a cliff.
How is making your software available on non intel hardware "dumping intel". If that was their intention they would "optimize" it for x platform. In my opinion this is Orcale diversifying their vendors to allow for greater flexibility and the ability to leverage the unique value props of every firm's chips. Back when the monopoly existed AMD's server CPUs were like 1/5th as good as intel's (had poor ram support and poor software support), and ARM server parts were not viable even if your wiling to put in the software legwork.
Now that these companies all make products that can be used, why wouldn't they make their software hardware agnostic regardless of intel being ahead or behind. Maybe I don't get their business, but if I worked at Oracle, I would still make this decisions even if intel CPUs had competitive throughput and best in class accelerators/PPW. I do agree that the intel server situation is at a critical tipping point though. Between only competing/winning in a few metrics, and the rising MSS of competitors intel's protective moat of everyone's software being optimized for intel is rapidly shrinking. If an intel swing back happens in DC it will have to be off of objectively better products now that software is becoming hardware agnostic.
I also think there will be a fight among everybody to get their own accelerators supported in this generic software to tip the scales. Some degree of MSS loss is also inevitable no matter how good merchant chip makers do on their designs as customers make in house designs that do exactly what they want with none of the fat that goes with a general purpose design.
Diversifying is a better word than dump for sure but this is not good news for Intel. Remember, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems so they could build custom processors for their software which was a colossal failure. Supporting Ampere will be leveraged by the Oracle sales force and may result in other companies jumping over as well. It could be the start of an avalanche or it may just be a snowball throw, we shall see. But I'm sure it is not a coincidence that Ampere founder and CEO is Renee James a long time Intel employee who started under Andy Grove so I would not take this news too lightly.
Oracle has long been involved with Ampere, good news to see it go live. We will see if they are singing the same tune with Sapphire Rapids when Intel gets to DDR5 with more channels, and database is very memory intensive. Plus SPR has a new generation of accelerators for compression, encryption, scanning - things which Oracle pioneered on their last generations of processors and for sure know how to leverage.
But for now, Ampere are shiny. Genoa and Bergamo will be very interesting comparisons, with pretty much identical memory channels and no accelerators, but a choice of core styles. The benchmarks we see in 2024 will be illuminating on some long standing topics for comparative CPU architectures.
Oracle Corp is spending "billions" of dollars on chips from Nvidia Corp as it expands a cloud computing service targeting a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Oracle founder and Chairman Larry Ellison said on Wednesday.
www.reuters.com
“We will buy GPUs from Nvidia, and we’re buying billions of dollars of those. We will spend three times that on CPUs from Ampere and AMD. We still spend more money on conventional compute.”
Oracle Corp is spending "billions" of dollars on chips from Nvidia Corp as it expands a cloud computing service targeting a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) companies, Oracle founder and Chairman Larry Ellison said on Wednesday.
www.reuters.com
“We will buy GPUs from Nvidia, and we’re buying billions of dollars of those. We will spend three times that on CPUs from Ampere and AMD. We still spend more money on conventional compute.”
In other words, they were not buying Intel chips to begin with. Not much of "dumping". If anything, as far as Oracle is concerned, Ampere is competing with AMD.
In other words, they were not buying Intel chips to begin with. Not much of "dumping". If anything, as far as Oracle is concerned, Ampere is competing with AMD.
This sure reads like dumping Intel to me. And I suspect Intel's Optane fiasco figured prominently in Ellison's decision, because Oracle invested a lot in supporting it in Exadata. And Intel is counting on proprietary accelerators in Xeons to compete with AMD, which I doubt Oracle has much enthusiasm for designing into their code after the Optane loss. If Optane was a winner I suspect Oracle would have stuck with Intel.
Oracle keeps their R&D down and their compute options open with just a lot of general purpose cores, which is what Ampere has.
Oracle is investing significant amounts of money in CPUs from AMD and chip startup Ampere Computing as Larry Ellison says the 'Intel x86 architecture' is 'reaching its limit.'
How is making your software available on non intel hardware "dumping intel". If that was their intention they would "optimize" it for x platform. In my opinion this is Orcale diversifying their vendors to allow for greater flexibility and the ability to leverage the unique value props of every firm's chips. Back when the monopoly existed AMD's server CPUs were like 1/5th as good as intel's (had poor ram support and poor software support), and ARM server parts were not viable even if your wiling to put in the software legwork.
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