VSHN.timer #135: Raise Your ARMs

Welcome to another VSHN.timer! Every Monday, 5 links related to Kubernetes, OpenShift, CI / CD, and DevOps; all stuff coming out of our own chat system, making us think, laugh, or simply work better.

This week we’re going to talk about the ARM CPU architecture, and its newfound popularity in cloud computing circles.

1. Having conquered the smartphone, the ARM CPU architecture is steadily making great inroads in the realm of the cloud. Red Hat has just enabled OpenShift users to operate their clusters in ARM-powered hardware.

https://cloud.redhat.com/blog/introducing-openshift-on-arm

2. Apple Silicon-powered laptops and desktop users can install the alpha release of Asahi Linux. Still a lot of work ahead (Bluetooth, camera, GPU acceleration, just to name a few things) but an impressive achievement nevertheless.

https://asahilinux.org/2022/03/asahi-linux-alpha-release/

3. We cannot have a VSHN.timer edition about hardware without mentioning yet another (but this time official) guide to create a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers, with even instructions on how to build your own cooling mechanism.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/tutorials/cluster-raspberry-pi-tutorial/

4. Since Docker for Mac added support for Apple Silicon, it keeps on adding new cool features; this time, experimental virtiofs support allowing for impressive performance breakthroughs.

https://www.docker.com/blog/speed-boost-achievement-unlocked-on-docker-desktop-4-6-for-mac/

5. The PDP-11 was built decades before the ARM architecture, but its historical importance cannot be denied; this is the computer that helped birth UNIX and the C programming language. Quite a resumé.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/a-brief-tour-of-the-pdp-11-the-most-influential-minicomputer-of-all-time/

Are you running OpenShift on ARM servers? Are you using Docker for Mac on Apple Silicon? Have you built your own Raspberry Pi cluster yet? Get in touch with us, and see you on Monday, May 2nd for another edition of VSHN.timer.

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PS³: check out our previous VSHN.timer editions about Hardware: #80 and #113.