On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 05:47:12PM +0800, James Salsman wrote:
Can someone more familiar with the Foundation's server infrastructure needs than I please create a page somewhere with a checklist of packages, modules, tools, etc., which need to be on arm but aren't yet?
Before we do that, we need to find a use case for ARM servers and we need to find quality ARM hardware (= not first generation) in reasonable prices for their performance.
We've thought a bit about it in the past, but couldn't come up with a use case that made technical or financial sense. We have dozens of x86 servers e.g. just for MediaWiki; having thousands of ARM servers for the same purpose instead doesn't sound very appealing. It'll increase our problems (e.g. scalability), it will slow down individual requests and it's unlikely to provide a technical or financial benefit. Other uses cases are similar: even our storage servers are too busy CPU-wise for ARM to make sense.
Maybe if ARM gets sufficiently fast (e.g. with arm64) and they've been proven in the field by the early adopters, it might sense for us in the long run. But I don't foresee us becoming one of these early adopters anytime soon. I'd love to be convinced otherwise, though :)
Regards, Faidon