Shift to multicore processors inevitable, but enterprises face challenges

Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and other chip makers have moved from single- to dual- to quad-core processors over the past decade, and there are plans to pack as many as 80 cores into a single chip. But lingering issues related to software licensing and application architectures that don’t fully utilize the advantages of multicore processing may be impeding adoption of the latest multicore systems.

Quad-core servers have been on the market for more than a year, for example, but customer adoption isn’t as widespread as expected, according to a Sun official.

"The shift in the market from dual core to quad core is taking some time. We're still seeing about a 70/30 ratio of dual core to quad core," says David Simmons, Sun's senior director of x64 volume server and workstations.

Deployment rates would be higher if typical software applications were able to take advantage of every core in a quad-core server, according to Simmons. "The application development industry has to embrace quad core availability. That takes time. People don’t just rewrite their code overnight."

Little progress has been made on the software licensing front, either.

Click to see: Chart of the rise of multicore sales

Software vendors are accustomed to charging customers a license fee for each server or processor an application is installed on. (Compare server products.) This model was upset when chip makers started creating processors with multiple cores, and vendors still have not settled on a good solution, analysts say.

"It's still a serious pain in the butt for just about everybody," says Forrester analyst James Staten. "There's been no consensus among the [independent software vendors]. There have been attempts by vendors to find ways to evaluate these platforms. Nothing has stuck."

IBM started charging on the basis of "processor value units" in 2006, a measurement of processor performance. Microsoft has been more vocal than any vendor, Staten says, insisting on a per-socket pricing model because it's easy to calculate and the number of sockets in a system won't change as dramatically as the number of cores.

"A lot of ISVs don't like this model because they believe it leaves a lot of money on the table," Staten says. "Making things more complicated is virtualization," he adds, noting that this technology allows users to create multiple virtual servers on a single core.

AMD urges software vendors to license applications by socket, rather than core, but company officials say they don't think the pricing confusion is so severe that customers will delay multicore purchases. "Software vendors should license by socket; not core and we see the vast majority of vendors following this methodology," says Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions and software strategy, AMD. "There remain a few who use alternative methodologies, but we don't see this as impacting adoption of multi-core computing in any way."

Staten hopes such vendors as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle join to create a standards body that can implement a uniform pricing model. Until then, customers should not be shy of telling vendors what they want.