Intel buys cloud optimization startup Granulate
(2022/03/31)
- Reference: 1648737013
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/31/intel_buys_cloud_optimization_software/
- Source link:
Intel hopes to gain an extra edge in the cloud and datacenter markets with the acquisition of Granulate, a developer of software that optimizes complex and old workloads for modern CPUs.
The semiconductor giant said today it has reached a deal to buy the Israel-based startup, which has around 120 employees, for an undisclosed sum. Rumors of the deal emerged last week with a report from Israeli newspaper [1]Haaretz , which said Intel would be handing over $650 million in the deal.
The Tel Aviv-based software company has raised a total of [2]$45.6 million since its 2018 launch.
[3]
The acquisition runs in line with the desire of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to use software as a competitive differentiator as the chipmaker works to catch up with rival foundries and chip designers on making leading-edge silicon after years of manufacturing setbacks.
[4]
[5]
Granulate provides "autonomous" software focused on cloud and datacenter users as they increase workload performance, cut down on infrastructure sprawl and lower costs by reducing CPU utilization and application latencies. The secret sauce is in how Granulate's software can learn how an application works and then apply customized optimizations that continue to run in the background all without changes to the underlying code.
"Granulate's cutting-edge autonomous optimization software can be applied to production workloads without requiring the customer to make changes to its code, driving optimized hardware and software value for every cloud and datacenter customer," said Sandra Rivera, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Datacenter and AI Group.
[6]Public, private, hybrid cloud? Take a dip in our GreenLake HPE urges
[7]IBM Java CTO: Devs shouldn't have to learn Docker, K8s, 30 other things to deploy an app
[8]BT berries Juniper's SDN kit in network architecture refresh
[9]Why cloud costs get out of control: Too much lift and shift, and pricing that is 'screwy and broken'
The Datacenter and AI Group will absorb Granulate once the deal closes, which Intel expects to happen in the second quarter.
Intel said this software is important for tackling complex performance issues in emerging modern datacenter architectures that can't be easily tamed by traditional operating systems and runtimes.
[10]
The chipmaker is also keen on using Granulate's software to wrangle older Linux distributions and application libraries "that are not up to date with the latest advancements in today's high-performance CPUs."
What isn't immediately clear is if Intel will charge organizations for Granulate's software, but we did recently report that Intel is looking to make acquisitions to [11]grow the chipmaker's fledgling software business to $150 million in revenue this year.
"We are building our portfolio of software optimization tools that offer flexible and scalable capabilities that allow us to meet the growing demand of the ubiquitous compute era," said Greg Lavender, Intel's CTO and head of the Software and Advanced Technology Group.
[12]
What's also not clear is whether Granulate's software will only work with Intel's Xeon CPUs moving forward or if it will play nice with competing processors from AMD and elsewhere. For instance, another software startup that Intel acquired in 2020, [13]the AI-focused cnvrg.io , works with systems using AMD's CPUs in addition to those running on Intel's.
When the chips are down, Intel's biggest gamble isn't what to do – it's whom to do it with [14]READ MORE
One thing that is certain is that Intel sees acquisitions like Granulate as growth opportunities for its Datacenter and AI Group, whose business is much larger but growing much slower than the datacenter businesses of chip design rivals AMD and Nvidia.
We're also sure that the [15]growing trend of cloud service providers using homegrown chips is top of mind for Intel.
"Granulate's innovative approach to real-time optimization software complements Intel's existing capabilities by helping customers realize performance gains, cloud cost reductions and continual workload learning," said Lavender, who was Gelsinger's former CTO at VMware.
As such, Intel said it plans to "rapidly scale" Granulate's software across its entire datacenter portfolio, and it's not starting from scratch either. The chipmaker has been working with the startup since late 2019, when Granulate was among the first startups to graduate from the Intel Ignite startup accelerator program. In the past year, the two companies have been working under a commercial agreement to optimize applications on servers running Intel Xeon processors. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/.premium-exclusive-intel-to-buy-israeli-startup-granulate-for-650m-1.10693038
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/granulate-cloud-solutions
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/19/hpe_greenlake_managed_service/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/22/ibm_java_cto_john_duimovich_interview/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/03/bt_juniper_sdn_network_architecture_refresh/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/03/cloud_control_costs/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/11/intel_software_expansion/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/components-peripherals/inside-intel-cnvrg-io-wants-to-be-switzerland-for-ai-computing-
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/17/intels_chip/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/29/aws_arm_servers_datacenters/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The semiconductor giant said today it has reached a deal to buy the Israel-based startup, which has around 120 employees, for an undisclosed sum. Rumors of the deal emerged last week with a report from Israeli newspaper [1]Haaretz , which said Intel would be handing over $650 million in the deal.
The Tel Aviv-based software company has raised a total of [2]$45.6 million since its 2018 launch.
[3]
The acquisition runs in line with the desire of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to use software as a competitive differentiator as the chipmaker works to catch up with rival foundries and chip designers on making leading-edge silicon after years of manufacturing setbacks.
[4]
[5]
Granulate provides "autonomous" software focused on cloud and datacenter users as they increase workload performance, cut down on infrastructure sprawl and lower costs by reducing CPU utilization and application latencies. The secret sauce is in how Granulate's software can learn how an application works and then apply customized optimizations that continue to run in the background all without changes to the underlying code.
"Granulate's cutting-edge autonomous optimization software can be applied to production workloads without requiring the customer to make changes to its code, driving optimized hardware and software value for every cloud and datacenter customer," said Sandra Rivera, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Datacenter and AI Group.
[6]Public, private, hybrid cloud? Take a dip in our GreenLake HPE urges
[7]IBM Java CTO: Devs shouldn't have to learn Docker, K8s, 30 other things to deploy an app
[8]BT berries Juniper's SDN kit in network architecture refresh
[9]Why cloud costs get out of control: Too much lift and shift, and pricing that is 'screwy and broken'
The Datacenter and AI Group will absorb Granulate once the deal closes, which Intel expects to happen in the second quarter.
Intel said this software is important for tackling complex performance issues in emerging modern datacenter architectures that can't be easily tamed by traditional operating systems and runtimes.
[10]
The chipmaker is also keen on using Granulate's software to wrangle older Linux distributions and application libraries "that are not up to date with the latest advancements in today's high-performance CPUs."
What isn't immediately clear is if Intel will charge organizations for Granulate's software, but we did recently report that Intel is looking to make acquisitions to [11]grow the chipmaker's fledgling software business to $150 million in revenue this year.
"We are building our portfolio of software optimization tools that offer flexible and scalable capabilities that allow us to meet the growing demand of the ubiquitous compute era," said Greg Lavender, Intel's CTO and head of the Software and Advanced Technology Group.
[12]
What's also not clear is whether Granulate's software will only work with Intel's Xeon CPUs moving forward or if it will play nice with competing processors from AMD and elsewhere. For instance, another software startup that Intel acquired in 2020, [13]the AI-focused cnvrg.io , works with systems using AMD's CPUs in addition to those running on Intel's.
When the chips are down, Intel's biggest gamble isn't what to do – it's whom to do it with [14]READ MORE
One thing that is certain is that Intel sees acquisitions like Granulate as growth opportunities for its Datacenter and AI Group, whose business is much larger but growing much slower than the datacenter businesses of chip design rivals AMD and Nvidia.
We're also sure that the [15]growing trend of cloud service providers using homegrown chips is top of mind for Intel.
"Granulate's innovative approach to real-time optimization software complements Intel's existing capabilities by helping customers realize performance gains, cloud cost reductions and continual workload learning," said Lavender, who was Gelsinger's former CTO at VMware.
As such, Intel said it plans to "rapidly scale" Granulate's software across its entire datacenter portfolio, and it's not starting from scratch either. The chipmaker has been working with the startup since late 2019, when Granulate was among the first startups to graduate from the Intel Ignite startup accelerator program. In the past year, the two companies have been working under a commercial agreement to optimize applications on servers running Intel Xeon processors. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/.premium-exclusive-intel-to-buy-israeli-startup-granulate-for-650m-1.10693038
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/granulate-cloud-solutions
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/19/hpe_greenlake_managed_service/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/22/ibm_java_cto_john_duimovich_interview/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/03/bt_juniper_sdn_network_architecture_refresh/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/03/cloud_control_costs/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/11/intel_software_expansion/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkXQN8vhrCF-J7nx-h-rYwAAAFU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/components-peripherals/inside-intel-cnvrg-io-wants-to-be-switzerland-for-ai-computing-
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/17/intels_chip/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/29/aws_arm_servers_datacenters/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
GPUs?
The question was raised in the article whether Intel would optimize for ARM as well as Intel architectures. But if the focus is on HPC, they would also have to take GPUs (especially Nvidia CUDA) into account. This strikes me as a much tougher problem.
But presumably, even in its absence, there' are a lot of of non-HPC workflows (and HPC applications that cannot or have not been CUDAfied) that would benefit.