ARM Partner Early Access Program launched by Red Hat

Red Hat announces the launch of ARM Partner Early Access Program to enhance partner collaboration. The program intends to facilitate partner-initiated system designs based on the 64-bit capable ARMv8-A architecture that include Red Hat software. Program is aimed at silicon vendors, independent hardware vendors (IHVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and original design manufacturers (ODMs), and launches with participation and support from several ARM ecosystem leaders, including AMD, American Megatrends, AppliedMicro, ARM, Broadcom, Cavium, Dell, HP and Linaro.

Jim Totton, VP and GM, Platform Business Unit, Red Hat said, "The Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program continues Red Hat's efforts to drive open standards and best practices within the 64-bit ARM ecosystem, enabling tighter collaboration with leading innovators in the ARM ecosystem. By providing our participating partners with the tools, resources and support needed to build a common development platform, we can help facilitate partner-driven 64-bit ARM solutions that are based upon Red Hat technologies."

During thee evolution it consistently worked to establish open source and industry standards as integral components of the emerging architecture. In participation with Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG), Red Hat drove the development of open source software for ARM architectures in a collaborative and transparent environment. More recently, it participated in the creation of the Server Base System Architecture (SBSA) specification released by ARM to help accelerate software development and enable support across multiple 64-bit ARM platforms.

ARM Partner Early Access Program announcement enables Red Hat and its partners to better address the evolving ARM ecosystem by supplying participants with early stage development software, documentation and tools, collaborating with partners to create a singular 64-bit ARM server software platform that relies on common standards, enabling faster innovation within ecosystem organizations, such as LEG, by providing a common development platform to enable deployment ready future 64-bit ARM software and gathering requirements around partner needs within the ARM ecosystem and using this information to create a unified common software platform capable of supporting multiple hardware designs.

Red Hat expects the participants to contribute to more streamlined and applicable implementations of 64-bit ARM standards and practices. Additionally, through collaboration with program participants, Red Hat will be able to evaluate technical features across various market segments, develop feedback-based targeted use cases, and perform market demand assessments that could influence future product decisions.