UK SoftIron Launches Beaconworks Built on AMD Opteron A1100

Storage and server company SoftIron Ltd. launched Beaconworks, an early adopter program focusing on its new portfolio of software-defined storage (SDS) products built on the 64-bit ARM-based AMD Opteron A1100.

With interest from leading ISPs, elite academic institutions and disruptive media customers, Beaconworks is set to become a community of innovators across enterprises and HPC organisations. This group will drive the evolution of the architectures that will dominate the software-defined future.

These early partners will not only have advance access to SoftIron products, but also direct influence into R&D, enhanced marketing opportunities and preferred pricing.

“The SDS market is one of the most challenging and promising areas of enterprise technology today,” said Norman Fraser, CEO, SoftIron. “Storage requirements are increasing by up to 40% each year, while budgets are seeing only single digit growth. Only SDS can meet this challenge and we expect to see it displace expensive traditional enterprise storage as the dominant architecture, creating a £74 billion market over the next three years.

“AMD has a proven track record in developing enterprise silicon and a strong heritage in data center innovation. SoftIron has been at the forefront of developing 64-bit  ARM-based server platforms, and has highly ambitious plans to field purpose-built, performance optimized appliances for the SDS market during 2016. We are proud to work as a development partner with AMD to bring revolutionary new products to market based on their enterprise grade Opteron A1100 platform. As part of our commitment to this market, Beaconworks will provide vital end user feedback and enable us to ensure that our storage portfolio delivers game-changing value in 2016.”

Dan Bounds, senior director of datacenter products, AMD, added: “The AMD Opteron A1100 is all about accelerating innovation and offering choice in the data center. As our longest standing A1100 partner, SoftIron is helping us support disruptive, game-changing capabilities and we look forward to seeing what the Beaconworks community delivers.”

About SoftIron
SoftIron designs and manufactures secure, high-performance servers and open SDS technology. Founded in 2012 and based in Southampton, England and Newark, CA, it builds next-generation enterprise computing products based on 64-bit ARM SoCs and combines them with software to deliver optimized, scalable and reliable
systems to customers across a range of industries.