Press Releases 2016

Packet Launches ARMv8-A Powered Bare Metal Cloud Server in Japan Company's new “Type 2A” configuration enables high density,
energy efficient compute at 1/10th the cost per core of existing services

December 16, 2016
Packet Host Inc.
SoftBank Corp.

Tokyo — December 16, 2016 — Packet Host Inc. (“Packet”), the leading bare metal cloud for developers, today launched a new ARM®v8-A based cloud service called “Type 2A” for the first time in the Japan market. With this service launch, Packet is opening a new data center location and office in Tokyo (JP), which will act as a base for business development in Asia. Packet investor SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”) will fully support Packet's business development in the Japan market.

Packet's bare metal cloud service corporate customers can use a server as much as they like at any time according to their needs, and can get a dedicated site up and running very quickly because a server can be built in less than 10 minutes, while traditional cloud services take about a week. The service is especially effective for when customers want to test Internet content on a high-performance server environment in a short time or when a platform needs to be built rapidly for a limited time campaign.

Packet's bare metal cloud service for Japan uses ARM®v8-A architecture under license from ARM Holdings plc. Powered by a pair of 48-core Cavium ThunderX processors, Packet is the first bare metal cloud provider to offer a 64-bit ARM server in Japan. The Type2A server is priced at 85 yen/hour, or less than 1 yen/core per hour, about 1/10th the cost per core of Packet's existing services. Furthermore, no initial costs are required to use the service.

In addition to providing the high-performance, stable and top-quality Type 2A server, Packet will begin expanding to Asian markets with the provision of instantly scalable bare metal cloud platforms running on IPv6 native networks. In the US, Packet already has a highly evaluated track record of over 400 client companies in the course of two weeks after launch. In particular, customer satisfaction is high with speed (5 to 10 minutes to implement bare metal services) and performance (large volumes of data traffic can be processed).

SoftBank is strengthening collaboration with business operators that provide innovative services such as Packet, so that it can provide optimal services for the diverse needs of corporate clients that arise in changing business environments.

“I'm honored to launch our ARM bare metal server as our first compute offering in Japan,” said Zachary Smith, CEO at Packet. “With incredible power efficiency and a low cost per core, we're excited to see how Japanese enterprises can start reaping the benefits offered by ARMv8-A powered bare metal.”

“Packet is enabling genuine choice in the Japanese market—as well as clear cost and power savings—with its instantly available ARMv8-A 64-bit server offering,” said Eric Gan, Director and EVP at SoftBank. “We're excited to support Packet as they enter the Japanese market and help bring the benefits of bare metal cloud computing to developers, enterprises and service providers.”

Cloud native (Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are natural workloads for ARMv8-A. To enhance convenience, Packet also announced that it will enable full 64-bit ARM support for RedHat, Ubuntu, CoreOS, and FreeBSD operating systems.
Learn more and signup at www.packet.co.jp (in Japanese).

About Packet

Founded in 2014, Packet's proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks without the use of virtualization or multi-tenancy to provide on-demand compute and connectivity. Customers can either build on Packet's public cloud service or leverage advanced automation software to enable their own private compute infrastructure. The company is headquartered in New York City and maintains an advanced global IP network between its data center locations in New York Metro (Parsippany, NJ), Sunnyvale (CA), Amsterdam (NL) and Tokyo (JP). Packet is a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and supports many open source projects, including Memcached.org, which uses Packet to perform automatic performance and burn-in testing of new features.

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