Citing the continued evolution of the x86-64 architecture, Microsoft announced on Friday that the company will no longer support the Intel Itanium processor with the next versions of the Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio products.
“Why the change? The natural evolution of the x86 64-bit (“x64”) architecture has led to the creation of processors and servers which deliver the scalability and reliability needed for today’s “mission-critical” workloads,” Microsoft Senior Technical Product Manager Dan Reger wrote. Just recently, Reger notes, “both Intel and AMD have released new high core-count processors, and servers with 8 or more x64 processors have now been announced by a full dozen server manufacturers. Such servers contain 64 to 96 processor cores, with more on the horizon.”
Reger was quick to caution against panic, however, by noting that mainstream support for the Itanium in Windows Server 2008 R2 will continue until 2013, followed by extended support until 2018, a span of more than 8 years from today.
“Microsoft will continue to focus on the x64 architecture, and it’s new business-critical role, while we continue to support Itanium customers for the next 8 years as this transition is completed,” Reger said.
What is Itanium?
The Intel Itanium processor is a family of 64-bit processors developed by HP and Intel in 2001 for the purposes of high-performance computing and enterprise clusters. Though the CPU is 64-bit, the Itanium uses the Intel Itanium Architecture (formerly IA-64), which is entirely dissimilar to and incompatible with the x86-64 architecture found in desktop CPUs.
Intel’s decision to forgo the x86 ISA in favor of IA-64 was intended to simplify the Itanium’s architecture whilst simultaneously enabling higher CPU throughput. Early and sincere performance issues, the preeminence of alternative enterprise architectures and the ascendancy of powerful x64 CPUs has, however, permanently stunted the growth and worth of the Itanium family.
The latest Itanium processor is the Tukwila family, released on February 8, 2010. Based on a 65nm process, Tukwila offers two or four cores, the QuickPath Interconnect bus from the Nehalm processors and support for DDR3.
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