Canonical
on 4 July 2014
IBM Systems Magazine caught up with us recently, for a discussion regarding Linux on Power – today, and heading into the future. As you may have seen from recent blogs and announcements, IBM and Canonical announced Ubuntu support for IBM’s POWER8 platform in April. This became available immediately upon POWER8 availability in June, making Ubuntu the first Linux distribution to support the new processors. Check out the IBM Systems Magazine article, Roundtable Reveals Linux is Flourishing on Power Systems, for some perspective regarding Ubuntu on Power, and the overall trends regarding Linux on Power, big data and analytics workloads, and OpenStack.
With POWER8, IBM has provided little endian mode for the first time on Power Systems. This enabled a fast and smooth port of Ubuntu, and helps enable Ubuntu’s vast ecosystem of cloud and scale-out solutions. It also brings Canonical’s cloud tooling with Juju for cloud orchestration, and MAAS (metal as a service) for provisioning of bare metal. To help understand the power which these tools bring to POWER8, see this video segment, live and on stage, at IBM Impact.
As we stated in the article, there is a movement towards more scale-out cloud workloads such as data analytics. With over 50% of production OpenStack environments on Ubuntu, and tools that help deploy clouds and scale-out solutions with velocity, it is now easy for clients to begin optimizing the latest cloud workloads with POWER8.
For more information regarding Ubuntu OpenStack, Juju and MAAS, go to www.ubuntu.com/cloud. Please be sure to contact us if you have any questions about Ubuntu on POWER8.
