By Deni Connor, Network World -- Intel next week will release the second generation of its 64-bit Itanium processor, a device that will let Intel-based boxes rival the performance of RISC-based servers, some experts say. Hewlett-Packard, which invented Itanium with Intel, also will unveil two servers based on the up-grade: a two-processor RX2600 and a four-processor RX5670. IBM and Dell have yet to announce release dates for their Itanium 2 products.
Opinions from analysts and customers differ widely on whether Itanium 2 will increase server sales over its predecessor. The first Itanium processor, released last year, has been used primarily for deployment testing, design and analysis, high-performance technical computing, and simulation applications. "We expect much the same market for Itanium 2 as we've seen for Itanium," says Andrew Butler, a vice president at Gartner. "The vast majority of the Itanium 2 market is going to be HP RX [servers] that are going to again be primarily [deployed for] software development, testing, porting and proof of concept. We may even see some technical computing." Intel would be among the first to agree that Itanium 2 is not for everyone. The processor will be best used for hosting back-end and mid-tier database, CRM and business intelligence applications that are I/O-intensive and re-quire high performance, says Lisa Hambrick, director of enterprise processor marketing at Intel. She says servers using Intel's 32-bit Xeon or Xeon MP processors are still fine for running 32-bit applications that won't benefit from the 64-bit characteristics of Itanium. "The Xeon processor has legs, and it is going to be capable for quite a while," says Randall Kennedy, director of research for Competitive Systems Analysis. "From a performance standpoint, unless you have an application that absolutely needs 64-bit [operation] or more memory, Xeon or Xeon MP with hyperthreading will do just fine." Hyperthreading, or simultaneous multithreading, is a technology Intel has integrated into the Itanium and Xeon processors in which each processor can in-crease performance by as much as 30% by running two tasks simultaneously, while sharing the resources of a single processor. Some users say they need the extra performance, large cache and memory boost that Itanium 2 offers.
 |
| Intel's first 64-bit processor |
"We have several data ware-house applications that would benefit from a 64-bit platform assuming the operating system, and database could take advantage of the additional power," says Terry Roedecker, a network manager for a financial institution in the Southwest. "Our main data warehouse is growing exponentially, and the customer requirements for that database are growing even faster. The reports, which are what-if scenarios of different stratifications of our loan portfolio, take roughly three hours to complete on a [four-processor] Pentium III 700-MHz-based Xeon server." In the year the processor has been shipping, the Itanium market has grown slowly, analysts say. In 2001, Gartner says that just more than 2,700 Itanium servers shipped. Micro Design Resources, a re-search firm specializing in microprocessors, says Itanium shipments will ramp up quickly this year. The firm estimates that Intel will sell about 100,000 processors by the end of 2002. While Intel says it is gunning for the high-end server market dominated by RISC-based processors from Sun and IBM that cost up to $500,000, analysts are skeptical about Itanium’s ability to crack this market. "In the eight-processor and possibly up to the 16-processor space, you'll start seeing more deployments of Intel displacing the use of RISC architectures," Gartner's Butler says. "But, I wouldn't [expect to] see Intel designs replacing RISC designs at the very high end at any time during the [Intel] 32-bit lifetime. Intel needs Itanium to succeed if they're going to ultimately kill off the likes of [IBM’s] Power and Sun’s SPARC." Itanium also faces a perceived threat from the AMD 32/64-bit Opteron processor, which is expected to ship in the first half of next year. Formerly code-named Hammer, Opteron runs 32- and 64-bit applications in native mode, affording a migration path for users, AMD says. By contrast, Intel’s Itanium 2 runs 32-bit applications in emulation mode, which is slower than if they were to run on 32-bit servers, Intel says. Because Butler estimates that 80% of the existing applications are 32-bit, performance degradation should be a concern to users. Rocco Esposito, CTO for window-coverings manufacturer Hunter Douglas in Upper Saddle River, N.J., says he will stay with 32-bit servers, such as Xeon so that his 32-bit application performance won't suffer. "If there was performance degradation running [32-bit applications] on a 64-bit [Intel] machine, I'd opt for cheaper, 32-bit hardware," he says. Rex Meek, director of infrastructure support for AMD, says the biggest drag on adoption of Opteron lies not in the technology itself, but in user reluctance to buy servers from anyone except the largest of system vendors. IBM, Dell and HP have not announced plans to make servers that use AMD processors. However, Meek points to the success of the AMD Athlon processor in the desktop PC market and says that the company wants to bank on that success. AMD’s Opteron will likely be used in smaller one- to eight-processor servers, whereas several vendors, including Bull, Hitachi, NEC, Unisys, IBM and HP, have already announced their intentions to manufacture eight- to 64-processor Itanium-based servers. Esposito, however, says another factor complicates Opteron adoption: application support. "I wouldn't buy AMD for serious applications, unless Opteron’s market share was large enough to ensure proper software support," Esposito says. In contrast, Windows Advanced Server 1.1, HP-UX Version 1.5 and several versions of Linux run on Itanium 2. Sixty-four-bit versions of Oracle 9i, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP R/3, IBM’s DB2 and Release 9 of SAS also are available. Intel says that future releases of software from Veritas, BMC, Tivoli Systems and Computer Associates, among others, are in the works. HP is putting as much support behind Itanium as Intel. HP has committed to migrate its RISC, Alpha and MIPS-based servers to the platform and port its HP-UX, OpenVMS and the NonStop Kernel operating systems to work on the 64-bit processor. According to Intel, the price for an 1-GHz Itanium 2 four-processor server with 8G bytes of memory is about $50,000. It is expected that less-powerful Itaniums will start for much less. Network World Senior Writer Jennifer Mears contributed to this story. -----
Copyright 2002 Network World.
Supercomputing Online is a Network World Content Partner.
