The News: Google Cloud recently announced it would use Arm-based processors in an expansion of its Tau VMs. Tau T2A, powered by Ampere Altra Arm-based processors will be a cost-effective option for scale-out workloads such as web servers, containerized microservices, data-logging processing, media transcoding, and Java applications. Read the full announcement on the Google Cloud blog.
Google Cloud to Use Arm-based Processors in Tau T2A VM Expansion
Analyst take: The Tau T2A expansion based on Arm architecture makes a lot of sense for Google Cloud customers. Arm-based processors are a common option in mobile devices, but in recent years organizations like AWS and Microsoft have started building their own Arm-based processors for cloud applications and workloads. For Google, this latest expansion will help customers looking to improve performance without redesigning their Arm architecture.
Google Cloud announced that the Tau T2A VMs will come in several predefined VM shapes with up to 48 vCPUs per VM and 4GB of memory per vCPU making these ideal for cloud-native workloads. These chips have been in beta testing for the last few months showing great success. Tau T2As is expected to have General Availability (GA) later this year.
Furthermore, Google Cloud is continuing to develop and build applications that work with T2A VMs. Currently available offerings include Google Kubernetes Engine, Batch service, and Dataflow. Google Cloud is clearly trying to help customers get value from their applications rapidly and efficiently. This will be important for the growth of Tau, as broadening the native software running on this silicon will add to its appeal.
Good Move for Google Cloud
As I see it, the value proposition for the expansion of the Tau family of VMs is simple: a cost-effective option for potentially better performance for certain workloads. This announcement comes at a time when many organizations are looking to optimize their spend — something that should bode well for adoption.
Overall, we think this is a good move for Google Cloud’s strategy. Amazon has been building Arm-based processors for their respective cloud offerings for some time now, and recently we have seen Microsoft follow suit. In the cloud wars, companies have to keep up or potentially lose market share.
Google Cloud continues to focus on differentiating as well as matching its competition in the space. This strategic move for performance improvement with the T2A VM expansion should serve as an on ramp to growth as well as improving customer retention among those seeking greater price performance as well as those making sizable investments in migrating certain workloads to Arm.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.
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Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
