New program embraces key open standards and practices; enables partner collaboration around datacenter innovations based on 64-bit ARM® architecture

RALEIGH, N.C. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — July 30, 2014 — Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the launch of the Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program to enhance partner collaboration and facilitate partner-initiated system designs based on the 64-bit capable ARMv8-A architecture that include Red Hat software. The program will be aimed at silicon vendors, independent hardware vendors (IHVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and original design manufacturers (ODMs), and launches with participation and support from several ARM ecosystem leaders, including AMD, American Megatrends, Inc., AppliedMicro, ARM, Broadcom, Cavium, Dell, HP and Linaro.

During the evolution of the 64-bit ARM ecosystem, Red Hat has consistently worked to establish open source and industry standards as integral components of the emerging architecture. Through founding participation in the Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG), Red Hat has driven the development of open source software for ARM architectures in a collaborative and transparent environment. More recently, Red Hat participated in the creation of the Server Base System Architecture (SBSA) specification released by ARM to help accelerate software development and enable support across multiple 64-bit ARM platforms.

Today’s ARM Partner Early Access Program announcement enables Red Hat and its partners to better address the evolving ARM ecosystem by:

• Supplying participants with early stage development software, documentation and tools.
• Collaborating with partners to create a singular 64-bit ARM server software platform that relies on common standards.
• Enabling faster innovation within ecosystem organizations, such as LEG, by providing a common development platform to enable deployment ready future 64-bit ARM software.
• Gathering requirements around partner needs within the ARM ecosystem and using this information to create a unified common software platform capable of supporting multiple hardware designs.

Red Hat expects the participants in its ARM Partner Early Access Program to contribute to more streamlined and applicable implementations of 64-bit ARM standards and practices. Additionally, through collaboration with program participants, Red Hat will be able to evaluate technical features across various market segments, develop feedback-based targeted use cases, and perform market demand assessments that could influence future product decisions.

Supporting Quotes

Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit, Red Hat

“The Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program continues Red Hat’s efforts to drive open standards and best practices within the 64-bit ARM ecosystem, enabling tighter collaboration with leading innovators in the ARM ecosystem. By providing our participating partners with the tools, resources and support needed to build a common development platform, we can help facilitate partner-driven 64-bit ARM solutions that are based upon Red Hat technologies.”

Suresh Gopalakrishnan, general manager and corporate vice president, Server Business Unit, AMD

"The Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program is an excellent vehicle to help accelerate a robust ecosystem for ARM-based servers. In addition to our participation in the Red Hat ARM PEAP, AMD is pleased to support this growing community with standard ARM Cortex-A57 ARMv8 based hardware alongside the newly announced AMD Opteron A1100-Series processor development platform."

Subramonian Shankar, president and CEO, American Megatrends, Inc.

“AMI is fully committed to its role as a leading provider of BIOS and UEFI solutions for 64-bit ARM platforms, by being the first independent BIOS vendor to offer a complete early stage solution for the 64-bit ARM ecosystem. Working closely with industry stalwarts such as Red Hat enables AMI to deliver more compelling and engaging solutions for the 64-bit ARM ecosystem including debug and diagnostic tools as well as a complete integrated development environment for UEFI. The end result of our collaboration is a deeper, more efficient platform design and development experience, which in turn enables the creation of the next generation of 64-bit ARM platforms to meet the demands of tomorrow's high efficiency, high performance server platforms.”

Gaurav Singh, vice president, Technical Strategy, AppliedMicro

"For more than three years, Red Hat and AppliedMicro have collaborated on support for the 64-bit ARMv8 Architecture within the Linux community, demonstrating open source technologies running on AppliedMicro's X-Gene^TM Server-on-a-Chip^TM at every major step along the road. As the only silicon provider with a 64-bit ARM-based server solution in production today, we appreciate the importance of creating a common development platform based upon Red Hat technologies. We look forward to continuing our collaboration as part of the Red Hat ARM PEAP program to provide additional solutions and tools to our customers as they enter the ARM enterprise server space."