Intel's New Chip Strategy

Wolfgang Schwab

Experton Group believes Intel Corp. has declared its x86-architected microprocessors to be their general-purpose high-end powerhouse processors but will not be phasing out the Itanium line until the end of the decade. With the introduction of the Xeon 7500 servers (code named Nehalem-EX), Intel increased the number of processor cores to eight and added a number of reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features that previously only existed in its Itanium servers. Intel believes it can grow the high performance computing (HPC) market with the new microprocessors. In the meantime, Intel says it will bring out at least two new generations of Itanium servers in support of its existing customer set. However, Microsoft Corp. and Red Hat Inc. are dropping support of Itanium servers in their next operating system product releases already. IT executives should understand the implications of these product paradigm shifts, the vendor roadmaps, and adjust their IT architectures and platform strategies accordingly.

Experton Group believes Intel has laid the foundation for the next phase of data center transformations, with other vendors (including AMD) contributing as well. Within five years enterprises could be operating from a single pane of glass agile, energy-efficient, high-utilization server pools that incorporate all their operating systems. Although the Itanium-based server market will shrink, Unix systems are not going away.  IT executives should develop their own vision of the next generation data center based upon enterprise requirements, vendor roadmaps, and independent opinions and then execute strategies that enable them to realize the vision.