Canonical joins Linaro Enterprise Group and commits Ubuntu hyperscale availability for ARM V8 in 2013

• Canonical continues its leadership of commercial deployment for ARM-based servers through membership of Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG)
• Ubuntu, the only commercially supported OS for ARM v7 today, commits to support ARM v8 server next year
• Ubuntu extends its position as the natural choice for hyperscale server computing with long term support

Canonical today announces it has joined the Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG), a cross industry organisation aiming to accelerate the ecosystem for ARM-based servers. Canonical also reveals its Ubuntu hyperscale roadmap, which includes support for ARM V8 ISA, delivering assurance that silicon vendors, OEMs and end users can confidently deploy trusted hyperscale solutions to the enterprise.

Canonical has joined LEG as part of its shared software engineering team and will work with members to continue the drive for commercial success of hyperscale and ARM-based platforms. Canonical’s membership of LEG builds on four years’ commitment in hyperscale, ARM technologies and the ARM partner ecosystem including OEMs and silicon vendors, which are building commercial offerings on Ubuntu.

“Canonical has been supporting our work optimising and consolidating the Linux kernel since our founding in June 2010”, said George Grey, CEO of Linaro. “We’re very happy to welcome them as a member of the Linaro Enterprise Group, building on our relationship to help accelerate development of the ARM server software ecosystem.”

Ian Thornton, vice president of marketing at ARM commented, “The ARM server ecosystem has gathered momentum over the last few years and Canonical has led the software industry by pioneering activity in that community. The extension of this commitment to support 64-bit ARM technology and participate in the Linaro Enterprise Group broadens the reach of ARM powered servers.” With the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu has been the only commercially supported OS platform that enables deployment of ARM v7 server technology. IT admins and DevOps using Ubuntu have already started to build, test and deploy on ARM-based servers. Canonical works with industry leading silicon companies and OEMs such as Calxeda, Marvel, HP, and others to bring products to market.

“Calxeda has been thrilled with Canonical’s leadership in developing the ARM ecosystem”, said Karl Freund, VP marketing at Calxeda. “These guys get it. They are driving hard and fast, already delivering enterprise-class code and support for Calxeda’s 32-bit product today to our mutual clients. Working together in LEG will enable us to continue to build on the momentum we have already created.”

In addition to joining LEG, Canonical reveals its roadmap to deliver tomorrow’s hyperscale environments. Adding to the v7 support in 12.04 LTS, Canonical will deliver support for ARM v8 during 2013. This enables silicon vendors, OEM’s and end-users to deploy ARM-based hyperscale systems with confidence knowing that there is a long-term road-map.

Christian Reis, VP hyperscale computing at Canonical comments; “The growth of hyperscale computing will drive massive changes in the data center. Ubuntu Server is ready for this shift to low power, high density servers. Ubuntu Server, with support for ARM technology, is the leading platform and innovator for hyperscale computing with a four year track-record and strong roadmap for the future.”

Ubuntu currently supports the most power efficient and high density servers on the market from the world’s most popular brands. Full list at hardware.canonical.com.