Guild Companies

Having a new processor and server architecture is a great thing, but it is only useful if the third party systems and application software that current customers use in production are available on that new platform. This is the quandary that Itanium, and indeed any new architecture, faces. Without the new iron shipping in volume, software developers won't commit to it and won't port their code to it. The problem is, you can't have volumes until the software is ready. Catch-22.

That's why Intel and Hewlett-Packard, which arguably has as much at stake with Itanium at this point as Intel does, have used the past 18 months to try to build up the ecosystem surrounding the 64-bit Itanium processor. And if the indications from HP are any sign, it looks like Itanium might be getting some traction, which will likely improve to the point where Itanium is back on the road after slipping off in the late 1990s. With the third generation "Madison" Itaniums due this summer and Microsoft finally shipping Windows Server 2003 on the machines starting next week, any sign of increasing momentum is a good one for Intel and HP. Sun Microsystems has openly ridiculed Itanium for not having applications, and IBM, while being initially as enthusiastic about Itanium as other players, has been laying low after pulling its AIX operating system off the chip because of self-impact issues with its Power line of RISC/Unix-Linux servers. HP is fully committed to getting its HP-UX Unix variant on a full-range Itanium platform this year. The "Pluto" entry machines and "Pinnacles" midrange and enterprise machines will not just run HP-UX; they will run Windows Server 2003 and Linux 2.4, too, and in 2004, they will run HP's proprietary OpenVMS environment. One platform, five operating systems. The health and expansion of the Itanium ecosystem is clearly more important to HP than it is to Sun and IBM. And that is why HP has been patient if somewhat frustrated about getting applications ported to Itanium.

Nigel Ball, vice president of enterprise solutions partners in the Enterprise Systems Group at HP, says there are about 300 applications that have been ported to the Itanium platform, and he says within the next six to nine months, that number will rise to over 1,000 if HP gets its way.

If you go to the official Itanium site from Intel, here's what you will find. Red Hat, the UnitedLinux partners (SuSE, Turbolinux, SCO Group, and Conectiva), and Mandrake have all ported their Linuxes to Itanium. The obvious environments that are missing are IBM's AIX and Sun's Solaris, but it will be a very cold day in hell when either vendor ships those platforms on Itanium.

The key databases--Oracle's Oracle9i (on Windows, Linux, and HP-UX), IBM's DB2 (Linux and Windows), and Microsoft's SQL Server (Windows), and the open source MySQL (Linux)--have all been ported to the Itanium chip. Applications from SAP, i2 Technologies, SAS Institute, and middleware from BEA Systems have been ported, too. With the exception of MySQL, however, all of these databases and applications are in beta still according to the official Intel site.

A lot of the infrastructure applications that have been ported to Linux are, as you might imagine, on the Linux platform, but there are some systems management and backup programs that run on Windows or HP-UX. Similarly, a couple of dozen HPC applications have been ported to Linux-on-Itanium, with some on Windows-on-Itanium. A large number of mechanical engineering and computer-aided design programs have been ported to Linux, Windows, and HP-UX on the Itanium chip.

Being generous with the counting--meaning you count an application each time it is on a different OS on Itanium, not just once and meaning you count all the different variations of code (such as Linux distributions or Windows versions) uniquely--I still only count about 150 applications from the Itanium site. HP is clearly using a much different list than Intel is showing. The Intel Itanium site does have a much longer list of application suppliers working on ports to Itanium, with about 200 unique vendors. Obviously, if HP is correct, Intel needs to update both of those sets of pages.

HP's Ball says most of the major application vendors are working on ports to the Itanium processor now, but adds that HP-UX, Windows, and Linux are at different points in the Itanium adoption curve. He says HP has targeted the independent software vendors who account for 80 percent of the current sales run rate for its PA-RISC HP 9000 Unix servers. "That's going to be the watershed point for HP-UX on IPF," he says, using the shorthand for Itanium Processor Family that HP and Intel use sometimes. "We will reach critical mass on HP-UX by the fall of this year." Linux has been available in beta for quite some time and in production for more than a year from many of the commercial distributors, and Ball says that it has seen some success on Itanium in the HPC and CAD markets, with some sales in hard-core commercial accounts (manufacturers, distributors, retail, and financial services). The "Whistler" Windows Server 2003 release next week will be what kicks off Itanium on Windows.

Itanium adoption would have undoubtedly come quicker if Windows Server 2003 had shipped a year ago, and having AIX and Solaris on it would not have hurt, either. But if hardware suppliers can deliver Windows-Itanium or Linux-Itanium solutions that are more attractive than RISC/Unix alternatives, IBM's lukewarm support for Itanium and Sun's outright disgust for it won't matter much. Microsoft and its partners need machines that can support larger main memories, and unless and until Advanced Micro Devices proves the mettle of its "SledgeHammer" Opteron 64-bit incompatible alternatives to the Itanium, the Itanium is the only game in town for 64-bit Windows.