Chef cooks up IT automation in the data center

Web giants like Google and Amazon have long used software that automatically configures the vast collection of machines driving their online services. But these tools were never available to the outside world. In 2005, Luke Kanies set out to provide Google-like IT automation for the rest of us, founding an open source project he called Puppet.

“Google does [things] differently, and in many cases, they do it better. Amazon is the same way. But what’s really frustrating is that no one else can use their software,” says Kanies. “I wanted to build a t...

HP may raise the ire of Intel by using ARM chips in its servers.

A tiny Austin, Texas, startup is about to get some backup from Hewlett Packard in its David-and-Goliath fight against Intel.

According to Bloomberg, HP is set to start shipping servers with low-power processors built by the 14-month-old startup, Calxeda.

Calxeda (pronounced Cal-zay-dah) has cooked up a brand new server chip design by building its own variation of the low-power ARM microprocessor. ARM chips are already very popular in consumer devices, powering things like phones, modems, and DVD-players. But until now, they haven’t ...