Intel Officially Introduces Pay-As-You-Go Chip Licensing
Intel officially announced Intel On Demand Program (opens in new tab) This will activate some accelerators and features on the company’s upcoming Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids processors. A new pay-as-you-go program will allow Intel to ship fewer of his SKUs while leveraging the technology it offers. Additionally, clients can upgrade their machines without replacing the actual hardware or providing additional services to the client.
Intel’s upcoming 4th Generation Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids processors from Intel will feature a variety of dedicated accelerators and security technologies that not all customers will always need. To provide such end-users with additional investment flexibility, Intel offers to purchase CPUs with those features disabled, but enabled if at some point the need arises. increase. Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) technology also allows Intel to sell fewer CPU models and allow clients and partners to activate specific features as needed (either for on-premise use or as a service). can be used).
The list of technologies Intel would like to offer on demand include Software Guard Extensions, Dynamic Load Balancer (DLB), Intel Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator (IAA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator and Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) for accelerating certain workloads.
Intel’s on-demand technologies target very different workloads, so few customers need them all at once. But as you expand your data center, you may need some of them. That’s when the on-demand feature comes into play. On the other hand, some of Intel’s customers offer these capabilities as a service (eg, for cloud or co-hosting machines). Others, by contrast, contribute to activating them on servers installed on-premises.
The formal rollout of the Intel On Demand program leaves us with more questions than answers. I’m not sure how much Intel plans to charge for enabling certain features, or if that client wants to start them “as a service”. We know companies like H3C, HPE, Inspur, Lenovo, Supermicro, PhoenixNAP, and Variscale are joining the OnDemand program.
For now, Intel’s on-demand programs are reserved for servers and are expected to remain a prerogative of the Xeon platform.Meanwhile, Intel once Provides software upgrades for desktop processors (opens in new tab) Make them run faster. Unfortunately, that program faced criticism because Intel essentially crippled a perfectly good processor. As a result, one might think that the on-demand program mimics the ill-fated Intel Upgrade Service. Still, bearing in mind that the server world operates differently than the client PC world, and that I don’t know Intel’s on-demand terms, I won’t draw any parallels here until I know all the details. .