Most customers are waiting for 64-bit applications to arrive before moving beyond 32-bit computing.
AMD temporarily jumped ahead of Intel in 2003, when it introduced its 32- or 64-bit Opteron chip, but today both chip makers offer processors capable of supporting 32- and 64-bit applications.
In fact, 64-bit capabilities now come on x86 servers as a given. According to the most recent numbers from IDC, spending on x86-64 systems more than doubled in the fourth quarter of 2005, compared with the same quarter of 2004. Now 64-bit-capable servers account for nearly 80% of the total spending on x86 platforms.
However, while AMD has one clear product line, Intel’s situation is a bit murkier.
Intel’s original 64-bit path was Itanium, but it didn’t support 32-bit workloads without performance degradation. AMD’s Opteron provided a smoother transition to the 64-bit world, supporting 32- and 64-bit applications equally well. Intel responded by adding 64-bit extensions to its 32-bit Xeon processor in 2004.
With Xeon dual-core processors, analysts say the performance of Xeon systems will continue to put Itanium at a disadvantage. In a recent report, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2007 Intel will be working on a new 64-bit processor that will follow up Xeon and Itanium.
“The server market is moving toward processor architectures that use 64-bit computing, but Intel’s current processor strategy does not properly line up,” the analysts write, noting that Intel provides 64-bit extensions to Xeon, but so-called EM64T is not a 64-bit processor architecture.
“We expect Intel to be actively developing a new 64-bit processor product . . . [that] will directly replace Pentium and Xeon, and it will have the effect of further limiting Itanium’s future market share,” the report says.
At the same time, Gartner analysts say enterprise buyers should feel confident investing in current Xeon systems, because they believe “Intel will not repeat the mistake it made with Itanium by offering a new processor architecture with poor appeal to legacy software.”
As for Itanium purchases, the analysts recommend IT organizations limit their deployments to the high-end and midrange.
64-bit capabilities in search of an application
Regardless of Itanium’s future, the use of 64-bit capabilities on x86 platforms is taking off slowly, in large part because of the need to wait for applications that can take advantage of features such as the larger memory addressability available with the systems, analysts say.
“Some applications, such as databases, benefit more than others [on the 64-bit platform],” says Gordon Haff, an analyst with Illuminata. “Primarily, it’s a question of memory. . . . If you don’t need more memory, then you’re not going to get a significant boost.”
Analysts agree 64-bit databases are the prime candidate for the 64-bit side of the x86 platform, which provides access to more than the four gigabytes of memory that is 32-bit systems’ limit. At the same time, independent software vendors (ISV) continue to roll out products that support 64-bits. Virtualization specialists VMware and SWsoft, for example, support 64-bit operating systems. Windows and Linux have 64-bit versions.
While virtualization support should help drive interest, analysts still recommend that enterprise users make the shift slowly. “I tell customers to look at the transition to 64-bit in the Longhorn time frame, which for Gartner means 2008,” says John Enck, a research vice president at Gartner.
Mortgage company homes in on 64-bit
Being able to run 32- and 64-bit applications on the same platform makes migration easier.
Art Beane, IT enterprise architect at Aegis Mortgage, for instance, says part of the reason the Houston company chose Opteron-based blade servers was that the platform provided an easy path to 64-bit computing.
“When we bring in a server platform, we know it’s going to have to last us four years or so, and we have to say, ‘What is the environment going to look like in four years?'” he says.
While the ISVs that provide Aegis its loan-processing applications are not yet supporting 64-bit platforms, “we want to be ready for it when it happens,” Beane says. In addition, Aegis already is looking at moving databases that are hitting 32-bit memory limits to 64-bit environments.
“After we started down this road, the CIO came over and asked us, ‘What is it going to cost us if we have to switch to 64-bit?’ And, of course, the answer is, ‘Nothing,'” Beane says.
