Introduction
Why You Need to Know About the Intel Itanium Processor Family
When you think of the business pressures that influence technical innovation and microprocessor design, several drivers come to mind immediately. Processor speed. Scalability. Cross-platform compatibility. Seamless transitions from legacy hardware and software. Reliability at a level that eliminates downtime. And perhaps the biggest driver of all today: the nebulous concepts involving Internet computing and its resulting effect on electronic business.
The Demands of Change
As little as 20 years ago, the capabilities—and problems—resulting from vast numbers of machines that collected and collated data simply did not exist. Information storage and retrieval was primitive and expensive. The ability to share data between machines was limited by the current day's wiring standards and architecture. The entire field of IT industry players, from the massive wafer fabrication plants to the startup dotcom operating out of your neighbor's garage were barely out of their infancy.
There has been a lot of change since then. Some of the key developments resulting from the incredible speed of development in the industry include:
The need for computers to handle ever-more complex data and computations.
Vast improvement of tracking and storing customer information.
The accumulation of vast amounts of data resulting from the proliferation of data in digital format and the ease of creating new content and distributing online.
Resulting need to analyze and mine this data for only the most relevant parts.
The need to squeeze ever-more processing power out of the IT investment—to handle today's complex software, higher user demands, and all of the aforementioned tasks.
To these resulting demands, I would add two more:
The recognition of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC)'s limitations in today's world.
Developing the idea of computing as a service, not a hardware- or software-dependent model.
The Intel Itanium Processor Family
The Intel Itanium[1] architecture was, in essence, designed to meet all of these challenges and take corporate IT services to the next level. What you get with the Intel Itanium processor family are the characteristics built into the chip's architecture itself: the ability to handle tomorrow's problems from much bigger databases to rich media content and to do so in the most cost effective fashion. With the Intel Itanium platform, you can mine data and complete the analysis in a more timely and effective fashion, and with more reliability and availability of the system.
[1] Intel and Itanium are registered trademarks or trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Today's jumbo-size databases and the need to handle incredibly higher levels of processing, networking, and security result from the IT revolution's own successes. Today, a CEO actually can demand and tap into huge amounts of information that have the ability to help manage his or her business. The Intel Itanium processor family, designed from the start with fully parallel instruction execution and a 64-bit address ability, is ideally suited to handle these needs.
About this Book
This book covers the development and application of the Intel Itanium processor family. It describes why the revolutionary leap forward in processing power can help CEOs achieve their company's vision. It also discusses the implication of these changes to a company's IT infrastructure. The final section of the book discusses the future of the Itanium architecture and the technological changes resulting from it. This will prove to be a helpful guide and forecaster.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is for CIOs, CEOs, IT managers, and technology managers. It has been written for the early adopters and those in the early majority who need to quickly and cost-effectively deploy Itanium-based solutions and transition their business to an Itanium-based infrastructure for increased performance and flexibility. While it is best to read through the entire work, the book is divided into four sections should you want to focus on a specific area of the Intel Itanium processor family.
Itanium Development
Chapters 1 through 4 are written specifically for CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, and C-level executives in general. The focus is on the development of the Itanium architecture at HP and Intel, why you should be aware of the coming Itanium revolution, and how it can help you develop your company's vision and attain goals of cost efficiency, productivity, and profits.
The opening chapters also introduce you to an idea that has been around for a long time in the technology world but can only now be pursued in a cost-effective manner: computing as a utility. We'll explore why computing is not just about hardware and software anymore. In the future, business will be moving to a model where you buy computing power as a service, not a product.
Architecture and Total Cost of Ownership
Chapters 5 through 9 narrow the theme to areas that a technology director will find of more direct concern. While continuing to discuss how the Intel Itanium platform is going to impact your business, we'll also spend time examining the true total cost of ownership. You'll see how you can get more processing power, more choices, and more flexibility for a lower overall cost, even in a mixed network environment.
In addition, the changes on the back end are discussed in detail. Where the Intel Itanium architecture is the next PA-RISC for Hewlett-Packard, to the average user the transition will be completely transparent. This is one of the implicit goals of the Intel Itanium platform, since the typical corporate knowledge worker should not have to struggle with what's behind the wall.
Transition Issues
In Chapters 10 through 16, we deal with the application of the Intel Itanium processor family. It directly addresses the issues of an IT manager or network engineer: when and how to get started in transitioning to the platform. A discussion of some early examples of the application of the Intel Itanium processor family architecture and the industry trends that drive the transition to it follows.
We also examine more technical issues, such as RISC versus CISC processing, how Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) improves RISC, and how it can improve and simplify the needs of hardware, application software, and networking. Of particular interest is adding reliability that is a major concern for server-centric systems and ways that Itanium-based systems correct soft errors that are built directly into the architecture.
These chapters also provide a transitional plan that follows these steps:
- Planning
- Informing
- Preparing
- Training
Future Itanium Development
Chapters 17 and 18 explore the next steps beyond the initial Intel Itanium platform rollout. In short, what does the future hold for the family's continued development and use in the corporate world? I'll share with you some of the anticipated development directions for this amazing chip family and the continued importance of compilers to the process.
Finally, we'll take a quick look at the rest of the value chain in the business of providing computer systems to you, including the chipsets and operating systems of the future and how they will be affected by the Intel Itanium architecture.
Towards the Intel Itanium Evolution
It's a truism in today's hype-laden world of technology that a lot of different items, be they hardware, software, or simply a new knowledge base, are labeled next generation. However, you'll find after reading this book that the appellation in this case is justified. Why is that?
Because of the quantum leap that the Intel Itanium architecture makes in turning high-end data processing into a cost-effective proposition, all of the other aspects of the IT revolution—networking, security, software development—will become easier, faster, and more reliable. The Intel Itanium architecture underpins all of these areas and gives them a solid boost.
So, pause a moment before rushing headlong into the use of the Intel Itanium processor family in a strictly corporate or IT department sense. It has been said that in order to know where you are going, it's helpful to see where you've been. On that note I invite you to take a moment to understand the history of the architecture's development and its growth as a major technical force of the future. Turn the page, and begin to understand why the Itanium processor family is so important and what it can really do for you.