Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Written by: Andrew Martin, Group Publisher, AOPG.

If you are not in the System Builder or Data Centre business, then most likely processor launches come and go and though interesting, probably don’t garner more than a quick acknowledgement of more cores or a larger integer score.

So, what’s different this time? Why are AMD so excited about this launch and why should it matter to anyone anywhere who works in technology?

In order to help me answer the question, AMD kindly flew DTA over to San Francisco to hear from and chat with their product team directly at their Launch event “Together We Advance Datacentres.”

If you check the official headline on their press release, AMD tell us the following  “Offering Unmatched Performance, Leadership Energy Efficiency and Next-Generation Architecture, AMD Brings 4th Gen AMD EPYC ™ Processors to The Modern Datacentre”

As I listened to the presenters at the pre-event press briefing, what became clear is that it’s the sheer scale of the improvements in performance and efficiency that are somewhat breath-taking but more than that, it’s the OUTCOMES of these improvements which is why we all should care and take note. More on that shortly.

If you want to understand at a granular level how and why this new generation performs so well, check out the details below. Suffice it to say that compared to current processors from AMD or competitors like Intel, these 4^th gen EPYCs are increasing performance and efficiency by numbers around 2x across every major metric worth measuring.

Let’s look at outcomes because it’s the outcomes that matter to those of us running the IT that runs our business.

Keeping it as simple as possible, the performance and energy efficiencies announced here mean that a cloud or hosting provider, can deliver the same performance with fewer servers but not just slightly less, an order of magnitude less, arguably never seen between generations of processors.  Painting the picture further for your hosting provider, this could mean delaying buying more racks or real estate for months or years and at the same time spending less on power consumption by significant amounts. So if AMD is redefining the economics of the data centre shouldn’t we see some “trickle-down economics” hit corporate It budgets? That’s a conversation that’s worth having between IT Directors and and their cloud providers for sure.

Outside of the cloud, hosting and SaaS, the performance levels AMD have announced mean that you can start recalibrating how you spec computers for the critical apps that are driving modernisation. From Analytics through to VDI, whether through a provider or hosted on-prem, you can start to benefit from the same performance and efficiency crammed into the 4^th Gen EPYC ™.

I spoke to AMD’s Dylan Larson, Director, EPYC product management about this launch to get a better understanding of how AMD themselves are viewing it.

Dylan Larson – Director EPYC Product Management -AMD

Dylan was keen to point out that AMD is making increasingly more effort to expand the reach of its announcements. He feels it’s important that everyone involved in the business of delivering IT has an understanding of developments with processor technology, he explains that given the cloud, SaaS and hosting options, IT managers may not always make decisions about processors but he feels they should be part of the discussion, and that starts with being kept well informed about the landscape.

Dylan confirmed that in his three years at AMD, this is the most significant announcement they have made regarding EPYC. Whilst every announcement is substantive, Dylan feels this one really does make a mark and ups the game in terms of the leap forward AMD has made against the rest of the playing field.

According to Dylan, it’s not just about the performance, this time round the major advances made in energy efficiency are massive and, in his view, makes the launch even more significant.  We know this translates to cost savings but at a time when ecological imperatives are steering corporate direction, IT teams are questioning their IaaS providers more deeply about their own green credentials, so this topic is indeed taking on more significance.

Interestingly in Dylan’s opinion, he feels like it’s a pivotal moment in his industry. He can’t remember a time when any company had such a large technical lead over the competition as AMD has today with the announcement of the 4^th gen processors.

For Dylan, this comes back to outcomes, faster time to market for manufacturers, more capability to spot fraud at scale in real-time for FSIs, and HPC tasks hammered out increasingly more quickly.

Dylan’s colleague Ram Peddibhotla, VP of Product Marketing at AMD, probably nailed it when he briefed us earlier in the day and stated that companies that do not adopt this next level of processor performance and efficiency are simply going to be left behind.

You can read the full press announcement below

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