Microsoft Unveils Their Own (Data Center) CPU and NPU Chips - Cobalt 100 and Maia 100

[LAwLz]

Summary

As part of Microsoft Ignite, their yearly dev and IT-professional conference, Microsoft announced that they have developed and deployed two custom-made silicon pieces in their Azure data centers.

 

The first chip shown was the Maia 100.

This chip seems to be aimed at AMD's MI300X and Nvidia's H100/H200, as well as Google's TPUv5 and Amazon's Trainium.

 

We don't know much about Maia 100, other than it being built on "a 5nm process", it having 105 billion transistors, and it requiring a special rack design to accommodate the cooling required.

The Maia 100 racks also communicate with each other over a modified Ethernet-based protocol, and speeds go up to 4.8 terabits per second.

 

Microsoft to some extent collaborated with OpenAI to make sure their design would work great for workloads like ChatGPT. OpenAI provided feedback on the design to optimize it further.

Microsoft did however say that the deployment of Maia 100 will bring "huge gains in performance and efficiency". 

 

 

The Cobalt 100 is their more general-purpose CPU, also designed for data centers.

It is a 128-core CPU based on ARM's Neoverse CSS design, but Microsoft has customized it for their purposes.

It seems like the CPU cores are Neoverse N2 based, with 12-channel DDR5 memory.

 

Microsoft is apparently already using the Cobalt 100 CPUs to run services like Azure SQL and Microsoft Teams (the server side). 

These new CPUs are up to 40% faster than the previous ARM cores Microsoft used in their data centers, but since they seem to be Neoverse N2 based they probably won't be faster than Xeon and EPYC processors. However, some speculate that those chips may be faster, but because of very high single-core performance and higher power draw still might not be appealing to some cloud vendors like Microsoft who would prefer slow but more power efficient cores for certain workloads.

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

We’ve put a lot of thought into not just getting it to be highly performant, but also making sure we’re mindful of power management.

 

We made some very intentional design choices, including the ability to control performance and power consumption per core and on every single virtual machine.”

 

My thoughts

It is quite mind-blowing how massive Microsoft's expansion of Azure is.

They plan on spending over 50 billion dollars annually on building out Azure. For comparison, Microsoft is planning on spending more on data centers in 2024 alone than the Manhattan Project (22.8 billion adjusted for inflation), the National Ignition Facility that tested nuclear fusion (1 billion), the James Webb Space Telescope (8.8 billion) and the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt cost combined!

 

 

 

Sources

https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/ai/in-house-chips-silicon-to-service-to-meet-ai-demand/

https://www.servethehome.com/microsoft-azure-cobalt-100-128-core-arm-neoverse-n2-cpu-launched/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/15/23960345/microsoft-cpu-gpu-ai-chips-azure-maia-cobalt-specifications-cloud-infrastructure

[Arika]

more competition = more good. even if it is only in the extremely highest end data-centre hardware

[porina]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

It is quite mind-blowing how massive Microsoft's expansion of Azure is.

They plan on spending over 50 billion dollars annually on building out Azure. For comparison, Microsoft is planning on spending more on data centers in 2024 alone than the Manhattan Project (22.8 billion adjusted for inflation), the National Ignition Facility that tested nuclear fusion (1 billion), the James Webb Space Telescope (8.8 billion) and the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt cost combined!

Having had a think about this part, the spending isn't exactly the same. Those projects are kinda one time deals. You do it because you want the end goal, but you don't really scale beyond that. What Microsoft is doing is scalable as long as: there are customers to fund it, there is sufficient hardware supply, there is sufficient capital to do it. Basically it is a bit like the last crypto boom. If you had the money, and could find a GPU, you could pretty much guarantee a return.

 

I have to wonder about an implication. Either there isn't enough capacity availability today, or they expect significant growth in the near future. Edit: I suppose I should follow up, just how much "cloud" is out there at the moment? How significant is +50B/y on top of that?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Microsoft is apparently already using the Cobalt 100 CPUs to run services like Azure SQL

Not that I know of, not publicly anyway. MS SQL Server doesn't have an ARM build and is only x86-64, even the Linux version. All the Azure SQL instances are based on Intel as well, not even AMD.

 

I know Microsoft said it but that could be in reference to the backend storage or networking, rather than the SQL binaries and actual application workload running on it.

 

Could also be some closed private testing of it or something, I get the feeling Microsoft is making it sound better than it actually is and it's more likely the backend service support like the storage or networking I mentioned.

[Taf the Ghost]

33 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Not that I know of, not publicly anyway. MS SQL Server doesn't have an ARM build and is only x86-64, even the Linux version. All the Azure SQL instances are based on Intel as well, not even AMD.

 

I know Microsoft said it but that could be in reference to the backend storage or networking, rather than the SQL binaries and actual application workload running on it.

 

Could also be some closed private testing of it or something, I get the feeling Microsoft is making it sound better than it actually is and it's more likely the backend service support like the storage or networking I mentioned.

Given the way these first gen custom silicon normally go, I'm guessing it's either performant but a power hog/furnace or perfectly power efficient but very slow for everything but 1-3 tasks they originally set at their benchmarks.  The first go-around misses the mark in one direction, which is normally why round 2 goes better.

[LAwLz]

47 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Not that I know of, not publicly anyway. MS SQL Server doesn't have an ARM build and is only x86-64, even the Linux version. All the Azure SQL instances are based on Intel as well, not even AMD.

 

I know Microsoft said it but that could be in reference to the backend storage or networking, rather than the SQL binaries and actual application workload running on it.

 

Could also be some closed private testing of it or something, I get the feeling Microsoft is making it sound better than it actually is and it's more likely the backend service support like the storage or networking I mentioned.

It's specifically Azure SQL, although I do believe that runs on the same engine as SQL Server. But please keep in mind that the stuff that runs their Azure services is oftentimes not the exact same stuff they deliver to on-prem customers.

 

They also said that they are currently powering those services using these chips. Not just some small testing.

 

 

One example of many sources:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-azure-delivers-purpose-built-cloud-infrastructure-in-the-era-of-ai/

Quote

Cobalt 100, the first generation in the series, is a 64-bit 128-core chip that delivers up to 40 percent performance improvement over current generations of Azure Arm chips and is powering services such as Microsoft Teams and Azure SQL. 

 

 

  

11 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Given the way these first gen custom silicon normally go, I'm guessing it's either performant but a power hog/furnace or perfectly power efficient but very slow for everything but 1-3 tasks they originally set at their benchmarks.  The first go-around misses the mark in one direction, which is normally why round 2 goes better.

Please note that this is their second gen, at least for the CPU stuff.

[leadeater]

26 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It's specifically Azure SQL

I know, that's what I said. Azure SQL only runs on Intel, not even AMD. The technical point is there is no build of MS SQL Server for ARM and it is actually the same thing, Azure SQL is just managed instances with Resource Governor based on what you paid for, DTU's or vCores.

 

All the Azure SQL hardware instance options are public information, the current offering is Gen 5 which is based on Intel Ice Lake but you can buy older instances or lower tier Gen 5 that uses older CPUs. It can be a little obtuse and confusing but that main point really is Azure SQL only runs on Intel CPU publicly. 

 

It's also not "wrong" to say Azure SQL is powered by XYZ CPU even if it's the backend storage since that is critically important for SQL performance. Devil is in the detail here, Microsoft has not specifically said MSSQL Engine is running on these CPUs, only "powering services such as" which can as I pointed out mean anything.

 

 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/azure-sql-managed-instance/single/

 

Quote

Standard-series (Gen 5)

Standard-series (Gen 5) logical CPUs are based on Intel E5-2673 v4 (Broadwell) 2.3 GHz, Intel SP8160 (Skylake), Intel Xeon Platinum 8272CL 2.5 GHz (Cascade Lake) and Intel(R) Xeon Scalable 2.8 GHz processor (Ice Lake) processors. In the standard-series (Gen 5), 1 vCore = 1 hyper thread. The standard-series (Gen 5) logical CPU is great for most relational database servers.

 

 

Quote

Premium-series

Premium-series logical CPUs are based on the latest Intel(R) Xeon Scalable 2.8 GHz processor (Ice Lake), 1 vCore = 1 hyper thread. The premium-series logical CPU is a great fit for database workloads that require faster compute and memory performance as well as improved IO and network experience over the standard-series hardware offering.

 

Quote

Premium-series, memory-optimized

Premium-series logical CPUs are based on the latest Intel(R) Xeon Scalable 2.8 GHz processor (Ice Lake), 1 vCore = 1 hyper thread. This memory-optimized version provides nearly twice the memory per vCore and is great for database workloads that require even better memory performance than the standard next generation offering.

 

[LAwLz]

28 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I know, that's what I said.

Well, you said "MS SQL Server" which usually refers to something like MS SQL Server 2022, which is a separate product from Azure SQL. That's why I wanted to clarify. 

 

36 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The technical point is there is no build of MS SQL Server for ARM and it is actually the same thing, Azure SQL is just managed instances with Resource Governor based on what you paid for, DTU's or vCores.

Not sure where you got that idea from, but that's not true. There are SQL servers from Microsoft that supports ARM64.

Azure SQL Edge for example used to have a public listing for ARM64 deployment, but it has since a few months ago gone private. 

 

 

 

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Microsoft has not specifically said MSSQL Engine is running on these CPUs, only "powering services such as" which can as I pointed out mean anything.

I guess you could read it like that, but I don't see why you would since there exists at least one version of their SQL Engine that does support ARM natively.

[StDragon]

50 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Well, you said "MS SQL Server" which usually refers to something like MS SQL Server 2022, which is a separate product from Azure SQL. That's why I wanted to clarify. 

 

Not sure where you got that idea from, but that's not true. There are SQL servers from Microsoft that supports ARM64.

Azure SQL Edge for example used to have a public listing for ARM64 deployment, but it has since a few months ago gone private. 

 

 

 

I guess you could read it like that, but I don't see why you would since there exists at least one version of their SQL Engine that does support ARM natively.

Would be real interesting if Intel had an all E-Core CPU specifically for cloud providers. So if MS is designing their own CPUs, why ARM and not RISC-V while they're starting out fresh on this front? If they're going to recode their apps, why not something that's royalty free?

[porina]

16 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Would be real interesting if Intel had an all E-Core CPU specifically for cloud providers.

Sierra Forest has been known for some time. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-announces-288-core-processor-5th-gen-xeon-arrives-december-14

 

16 minutes ago, StDragon said:

So if MS is designing their own CPUs, why ARM and not RISC-V while they're starting out fresh on this front? If they're going to recode their apps, why not something that's royalty free?

RISC-V is probably still too "new" for this level of application. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Well, you said "MS SQL Server" which usually refers to something like MS SQL Server 2022, which is a separate product from Azure SQL. That's why I wanted to clarify. 

Because as per Microsoft's own documentation on Azure SQL it is an evergreen service always running the latest build of the SQL Server Engine and new features are released there before on-prem version builds. They are the same builds with the same features and you can connect on-prem instances to Azure SQL instances with features like SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups. They need to actually be the same to do this.

 

Azure SQL has it's own SQL server version numbers if you query @@version but it's not any different to what you install on-prem, other than how the software is package and presented to you and how updates are applied.

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Not sure where you got that idea from, but that's not true. There are SQL servers from Microsoft that supports ARM64.

Azure SQL Edge for example used to have a public listing for ARM64 deployment, but it has since a few months ago gone private. 

Hmm true, but still Azure SQL Edge is not Azure SQL as they are literally different services and not compatible with each other. Azure SQL Edge is a heavily cut down SQL Server Engine with lots of features removed and limitations placed on it.

 

The problem is as per you own link and the documentation on it as it stands right now there is no ARM64 build anymore of Azure SQL Edge either, they just discontinued it. So while I'm right that's more out of luck from timing.

 

Quote

• Azure SQL Edge based on ARM64 architecture is retired

 

as well as

Quote

Azure SQL Edge no longer supports the ARM64 platform.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql-edge/features#unsupported-features

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I guess you could read it like that, but I don't see why you would since there exists at least one version of their SQL Engine that does support ARM natively.

Not anymore. And it was NEVER supported on actual SQL Server or Azure SQL. Also one super edge case version isn't the best thing to extrapolate from, that's more wishful thinking than anything else. Even worse when the thing you are wishful about just got axed 2 months ago.

 

When Microsoft announces new hardware platforms for Azure SQL, even preview ones they announce it like this.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sql-blog/announcing-the-new-premium-series-hardware-for-sql-managed/ba-p/2913496

 

So if it were or was going to be running on ARM they would explicitly state so like this rather than a generic statement that can be true while not being what some might think. Storage performance is absolutely critical for SQL performance so the fact that ARM will or already is running that backend storage for it is a big win in itself, since most enterprise storage appliances run Intel. It could also be running in their network appliances. There's lots of places this can be used that is allowing Azure SQL to run while not actually executing the SQL binaries and those other things are super important too.

 

SQL Server running on ARM is super big news, like huge so it's not going to be announced like this. That's why I checked and did a good look around first, since something like that is very much applicable and important to me so if it were actually true I'd like to know.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Would be real interesting if Intel had an all E-Core CPU specifically for cloud providers. So if MS is designing their own CPUs, why ARM and not RISC-V while they're starting out fresh on this front? If they're going to recode their apps, why not something that's royalty free?

Supportability, also ease of migration from ARM to RISC-V down the road. Adoption of ARM actually makes the path to RISC-V easier.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Because as per Microsoft's own documentation on Azure SQL it is an evergreen service always running the latest build of the SQL Server Engine and new features are released there before on-prem version builds. They are the same builds with the same features and you can connect on-prem instances to Azure SQL instances with features like SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups. They need to actually be the same to do this.

Azure SQL and MS SQL Server are still two different products. I just wanted to clarify what you meant because as you said, Azure SQL gets new features before the on-prem version.

MS SQL Server to me means the on-prem version. I wasn't trying to tell you that you were wrong, I just wanted to clarify what you I meant so that we didn't speak past one another.

 

We are strictly talking about Azure SQL here, the version which is ahead of MS SQL Server, get new features and builds before the on-prem version, and so on.

 

But just because Azure SQL to customers is said to be evergreen does not mean it is running the latest version Microsoft has. There may or may not be special versions of Azure SQL that we do not have access to for example. Microsoft does have special services that the general public does not have access to. Just because you can't find it on their website does not mean it doesn't exist.

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Hmm true, but still Azure SQL Edge is not Azure SQL as they are literally different services and not compatible with each other. Azure SQL Edge is a heavily cut down SQL Server Engine with lots of features removed and limitations placed on it.

Now I feel like you're just arguing semantics...

 

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft has developed an SQL engine that is running in Azure that supports ARM processors.

They are not accepting new customers and not developing that specific version anymore, but you can still deploy it if you want.

 

What builds and software they have internally that isn't exposed to the general public is just speculation, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

If Microsoft says that they have Azure SQL running on ARM processors then I will assume that they do. I find it a bit weird to call them liars who are trying to misguide people for some reason.

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Even worse when the thing you are wishful about just got axed 2 months ago.

What am I wishful about?

Every time ARM gets brought up I feel like you become hostile and tribalistic. I don't know why.

Microsoft said that they got Azure SQL running on ARM processors and you call them liars and are now saying I am just having wishful thoughts about it. 

[leadeater]

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Now I feel like you're just arguing semantics...

It's really not semantics at all. One of the traits of Public Cloud offerings is things with very similar names that are based on totally different technologies. While this is less of that the fact is Azure SQL Edge is not compatible with anything else at all and it's own distinct thing.

 

They are so not the same thing you cannot restore between these products.

 

Quote

Databases created in Azure SQL Edge can't be restored on an instance of Microsoft SQL Server or Azure SQL

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql-edge/backup-restore

 

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Every time ARM gets brought up I feel like you become hostile and tribalistic. I don't know why.

No, it's just sometimes you just want to stretch things and get overly hopeful like here. We argue about things that don't matter at all and you ignore information that is actually correct a lot of time or if it's even slightly wrong argue it to death even if it never mattered at all.

 

Can we agree there has never been a version of actual SQL Server that supported ARM on-prem or in Azure? Since that actually is the truth.

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Microsoft said that they got Azure SQL running on ARM processors

No they specifically did not.

 

Quote

Azure Arm chips and is powering services such as Microsoft Teams and Azure SQL.

Is the actual statement and this does not actually say SQL Engine itself is running on the ARM CPU. I've already said how it could be "powering Azure SQL" while not doing this actual specific thing. This isn't a bad thing either, but this is #marketing and what something appears to be and actually is aren't always the same thing. If SQL Server is actually running on ARM I'd like to know, not infer off a non specific statement. SQL Server is a Microsoft premier product that historically has been highly optimized for Intel architectures and it's a cut throat competitive market between all the database engine vendors so SQL Server in Azure or not actually running on ARM is a major announcement rather than a minor comment.

 

That's my point, it's so important and big I would expect a lot more than this in terms of marketing announcement.

 

Azure SQL has to be compatible with SQL on-prem and that has actual real implications. When you're deploying things like SQL CLRs you can't just change the CPU ISA, it'll literally break so any introduction of ARM in to that service would have to be carefully planned and communicated. Even today SQL Server on Linux doesn't quite have feature/support parity to Windows but it's close enough that you can pair them with SQL AlwaysOn.

 

Things that don't work on Linux

Spoiler

 

We can’t use the server name more than 15 characters.
Tex file lines should be ended with CR-LF (Windows-style line formatting).
You can install only one SQL server instances on a server.
CREATE ASSEMBLY will not work when trying to use a file. Use the FROM method instead for now.
You can’t change temp DB and system DB’s location.
You can’t restore windows SQL backup to Linux (Use Tsql with move option).
In-Memory OLTP databases can only be created in the /var/opt/mssql directory.
No SSMS and configuration manager.
No SQL server Agent.
No SQL server Browser.
Errors log via SSMS is also throws some errors.

 

All I'm saying as a Azure SQL customer and SQL Server customer is I've heard nothing at all about these running on ARM and this story is the first indication of it however the provided Microsoft statement to me seems crafted in a way that warns me "Isn't actually this" but actually "this over here" while remaining true.

 

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I find it a bit weird to call them liars who are trying to misguide people for some reason.

Did I say they were liars? Nope.

 

Careful, don't assume != saying liars.

[Forbidden Wafer]

2 hours ago, StDragon said:

Would be real interesting if Intel had an all E-Core CPU specifically for cloud providers.

Yikes. Those cores are garbage. I was profiling a simulation and for some reason it ended up running on an E-core for a while. Half the performance of a P-core in memory bound scenarios.

[leadeater]

Just now, Forbidden Wafer said:

Yikes. Those cores are garbage. I was profiling a simulation and for some reason it ended up running on an E-core for a while. Half the performance of a P-core in memory bound scenarios.

Memory bound how? If you are memory bound then it should perform the same between both cores...? Do the E cores have lower throughput access to memory or higher latency?

[Forbidden Wafer]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Memory bound how?

Loading+multiply+store over reasonably big vectors (2k elements of std::complex<double> (16 bytes) for each frequency band * 16 ray clusters per band * number of Tx-Rx antenna pairs). Don't ask me why we are doing this on a CPU...

 

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

If you are memory bound then it should perform the same between both cores...?

I assumed that would be the case.

 

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Do the E cores have lower throughput access to memory or higher latency?

I assumed the E-cores have smaller caches, but Intel Processor Identification Utility reports the cache sizes are all the same for all cores. So I guess its one of the two you mentioned. I know it was Intel VTune that pointed it out, and I later confirmed by pinning the process to a P-core and compared to one pinned to an E-core. 
 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

Loading+multiply+store over reasonably big vectors (2k elements of std::complex<double> (16 bytes) for each frequency band * 16 ray clusters per band * number of Tx-Rx antenna pairs).

P cores have an extra load port so can do 3 loads per cycle while E cores can only do 2. Maybe that could be why 

 

P cores also have independent scheduler for loads and stores

[Forbidden Wafer]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

P cores have an extra load port so can do 3 loads per cycle while E cores can only do 2. Maybe that could be why 

Yup. It is right there and I missed it.

Spoiler

 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Can we agree there has never been a version of actual SQL Server that supported ARM on-prem or in Azure? Since that actually is the truth.

No, we can not.

We can agree that the specific version of an SQL server you are thinking of has never had a publicly available version that runs on ARM processors. That's not the same as "an ARM version of SQL server doesn't exist".

 

 

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Is the actual statement and this does not actually say SQL Engine itself is running on the ARM CPU. I've already said how it could be "powering Azure SQL" while not doing this actual specific thing. This isn't a bad thing either, but this is #marketing and what something appears to be and actually is aren't always the same thing.

You are basically calling them liars and your justification for it is "they said powered by and not run".

The whole distinction between "powered by" and "running on" seems to be something you came up with that most people would not reflect over. If they meant what you said they meant, then they are in my eyes lying because they are being deceitful and deliberately misleading by using terms that will cause people to jump to the wrong conclusions.

 

 

 

So either:

1) Microsoft is lying to the public, for some reason.

2) Microsoft has a version of its software that is not yet available to the public.

 

 

Personally, I think number 2 seems the most plausible. It is entirely possible that it could be number 1 as well, but you sound very confident that it is number 1 and I don't see why you dismiss number 2 so easily.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Did I say they were liars? Nope.

 

Careful, don't assume != saying liars.

You are saying that they are deliberately crafting their statements in a way to mislead the public to assume things that are not true.

That is to me is essentially lying. It's at the very least equally bad as lying and done for the same purpose.

 

 

 

 

Edit:

I have now seen several news outlets say things such as:

Quote

Microsoft is currently rigorously testing the Cobalt CPU on workloads such as Microsoft Teams and SQL Server. Plans are in place to offer virtual machines to customers next year, catering to diverse workloads.

Satya also said a similar thing at the Ignite keynote. That they are testing it today on their own services and will release it to the public in the next year.

 

Could you consider the possibility that they have a version of Azure SQL that runs on ARM processors, but just that they are testing it themselves first before releasing it to the general public? Just like they are doing with their Cobalt 100 CPU. I mean, you can't rent a server from Microsoft with a Cobalt CPU today either, but we do know those exist. It is possible that something can exist even though you and the rest of the general public not being able to order it today.

I am not saying that it is that way for sure, but that seems like a very possible scenario to me. I'd even go as far as to say it seems like the most plausible scenario in my eyes right now, based on the information we got.

[Fasterthannothing]

I thought the cooling system they built for it was freaking awesome. I was watching the unveiling live it was amazing seeing what happens when Microsoft gives the engineers a blank check with no bounds to build something.

[Arika]

8 hours ago, StDragon said:

why ARM and not RISC-V

i dont think i will ever understand the tech-boner people have for RISC-V.

[Forbidden Wafer]

23 minutes ago, Arika said:

i dont think i will ever understand the tech-boner people have for RISC-V.

Because it is license free. Which could mean it would have lower prices... But actually doesn't because they just increase their margins... Which we actually want, because they can keep funding R&D to make better products... But saving money during inflation is also a thing. Very conflicting if you think about it.

[williamcll]

As long as they keep the prices low I won't complain.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No, we can not.

We can agree that the specific version of an SQL server you are thinking of has never had a publicly available version that runs on ARM processors. That's not the same as "an ARM version of SQL server doesn't exist".

Then we are at in impasse because a product that is 100% not compatible with what we are talking about is not the same thing. You may as well say MySQL is the same as MSSQL or Azure SQL at the point.

 

Databases between these are 100% not compatible, at all in any way. This isn't like SQL Express where features and capabilities are restricted but is compatible with every edition and also Azure service.

 

Further to this I went digging to see how Azure SQL Edge is actually running on ARM and guess what, it's still x86-64

Quote

DevClass spoke to Microsoft’s Asad Khan, VP of SQL Products and Services and asked that given SQL Server only runs on x64 (including AMD) CPUs, are there any plans to support ARM64?

 

“With SQL Edge we support Arm,” he told us, “but we did [so] using the translation layer at the compiler level, because it is simple … we are investing in how we can not use the translation layer.” Microsoft sees Arm growing in the server business, he said, “and in anticipation of that we want to make sure that we support all three chipsets,” these being Intel, AMD and Arm. Not yet though: SQL Edge is a cut-down version as well as being compromised by use of the translation layer.

https://devclass.com/2022/11/16/microsoft-releases-sql-server-2022-preferring-hooks-to-azure-over-enhancing-the-on-premises-product/

 

You're just being naïve here which is rather concerning, you have no idea how complex it would be to actually get SQL running on ARM with the exact same performance and features as exists. This is why it's so important if SQL is actually running on ARM or not and this has not been done including Azure SQL Edge.

 

We are not talking about Azure SQL Edge and frankly it's irrelevant because it doesn't actually demonstrate the ability to actually run SQL Server on ARM which is what you are thinking. I have zero issue at all with the idea of it running on ARM but I am factoring in the importance of this if it could or were and because of the gravity of that I'm going to need more than the actually vague statement from Microsoft because these "Not what you think" realties are a mainstay situation unfortunately and it's not any different to saying Azure Files is powered by NetApp when it's not running on anything NetApp at all other than the NetApp ONTAP OS without all the features that rely on the hardware platform like NVMe read cache that are present in their controllers.

 

I have never once said what Microsoft said is untrue, there is just very real reasons why it may not be as it appears.

 

The optimistic view is Azure SQL Edge dropped ARM support because an actually native build is coming, there is a reason why I say optimistic.

 

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You are basically calling them liars and your justification for it is "they said powered by and not run".

Again not ever said they are lying and no it's not down to just powered by vs run. I took the effort to show you what Microsoft actually does when they introduce new hardware in to the Azure SQL platform, even preview hardware.

 

If it's happening and actually being done then they'll be presenting actual SQL performance metrics, while they are not doing this there is not a good reason to believe SQL Engine is running on ARM and these CPU are just involved in the holistic Azure SQL service which could be storage, networking or something else.

 

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Could you consider the possibility that they have a version of Azure SQL that runs on ARM processors, but just that they are testing it themselves first before releasing it to the general public?

I have actually and I've given you my reasoning multiple times now. You vastly underestimate the effort to get SQL running on ARM to the required degree in both performance and features and I have time again seen this type of wording used, by Microsoft and others, in the exact way I'm pointing out.

 

This does not have to mean it is running SQL Engine on ARM and it doesn't have to mean it's not. The simple statement Microsoft said doesn't actually commit them to anything other than these CPUs being part of the Azure SQL services which is more than just executing the SQL Engine binaries. Sometimes I wonder why I bother highlighting the importance of things like SQL storage to you, something responsible for a vast majority of SQL performance and it's why Microsoft has very clearly defined guidelines on storage latency for Data and Logs (which are different).

 

You are free to jump to whatever conclusions you want, just saying I have heard nothing at all about SQL running on ARM which is why I said:

17 hours ago, leadeater said:

Not that I know of, not publicly anyway

Which now seems to be a counter argument of yours.

 

SQL Server running in full on ARM would be the biggest and most important product announcement for SQL Server in a decade, and anything a decade after.