Zoho continues to innovate and extend the breadth of its capabilities across the technology stack. The latest innovation is the launch of Nathu La. This server will provide an innovative hardware stack to underpin Zoho’s software applications. The name comes from Nathu La Pass, a historic, high-altitude mountain pass in the Himalayas. In Tibetan, Nathu means listening, and La means pass
Zoho has developed Nathu La to provide it with hardware that is specific to its requirements. It gives it an enhanced performance at a lower cost compared to buying the technology. With a greater understanding and therefore tuning of its hardware, it can drive efficiency into its cloud services.
Lower Power and Lower TCO
Using the new servers, Zoho is seeing 12-18% lower power consumption and between 20%-30% lower total cost of ownership. It means that not only is it environmentally better, but it also means lower costs that can be passed on to customers. This improved sustainability angle is critically important as more jurisdictions are passing laws around CO2e.
Zoho claims these results, but independent verification remains absent. What Zoho has not explained is how it arrived at these figures, and what servers it is comparing them against. Is it comparing like for like in terms of replacement servers or its existing infrastructure, which is likely a previous generation of Intel chips?
Zoho plans to host its applications, including AI, on the new servers. It will give Zoho better control over the infrastructure from hardware through to the software technology stack. It will also be able to configure them for different workloads.
Shailesh Davey, CEO of Zoho Corporation, commented, “Zoho Corporation has invested in building its own technology stack from the ground up over the last three decades. The Nathu La server launch is in line with that goal.
“With Zoho’s strategy of using contextual, right-sized models, running on our own platform, now on our own servers, accelerated by our own GPU database, we are compounding the benefits accrued from owning and operating our entire technology stack.
“These long-term R&D investments we are making at every layer of the stack are aimed at delivering customer value and ensuring that our solutions are more sustainable and accessible for businesses than the competition.”
Nathu La servers platform design and performance
The new servers were developed in partnership with Intel. Zoho leveraged the technical expertise that Intel provided and other enablement capabilities, which Zoho did not elaborate on.
The Nathu La server motherboard and chassis platform is the result of five years of research and development across hardware, firmware and systems management. Built on Intel Xeon 6 processors, it is designed to optimise performance for virtualisation, high-performance computing, AI inference and storage workloads, improving the performance of Zoho applications for end users.
Zoho has also customised the server for operational flexibility. Key design elements include:
- Customised power delivery subsystems
- An in-house DC-SCM (data centre secure control module) design
- Modular chassis options that support different deployment environments
- Patented thermal management and cost-optimised server architecture designs.
Zoho designed the modular components in-house, including the DC-SCM and NIC (Network Interface Card). Indian Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) partners assemble the components, supporting end-to-end domestic value addition.
Zoho has not shared many further details around this, but what kinds of deployments can it support? What are the modular chassis options? How are these servers better than alternatives?
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
For Zoho customers, this may seem irrelevant. However, with even more of the technology stack under its direct control, it is able to design the systems specific to its needs. It means that they can govern layers. Increase efficiency and ensure the servers are optimised for Zoho’s specific use, rather than the generic application loads that other servers are built for.
Customers are unlikely to see immediate bill reductions. The value lies in sustained pricing power and faster AI inference speeds. This prevents the ‘AI tax’ that many vendors will impose to cover generic infrastructure costs.
As AI is increasingly adopted worldwide, the monetary and sustainability costs will increasingly come under the spotlight, especially where alternative servers are less efficient. By taking ownership of its server design and building, Zoho has stayed ahead of rivals.
Oracle is one of the few other vendors that has its own technology stack. However, hyperscalers like AWS and Google also design custom silicon. Zoho’s strategy differs because it can focus on delivering hardware configurations specific to Zia AI and workloads for different needs across SME’s and Enterprises if it needs to.
As Zoho rolls out the new servers across its data centre operations, this is unlikely to result in a reduction of costs for customers. Still, it should help Zoho maintain costs for longer as it drives efficiency across its operations.
