In 2001, Oracle held the lead with 43 percent of the market of relational databases on all operating systems, followed by IBM with 31 percent and Microsoft with 9 percent, according to IDC. Because of Oracle's dropping database revenue this year, Olofson expects IBM to gain some ground on last year's market share leader. High-end 64-bit servers and databases traditionally have been used for the most demanding applications, such as high-volume e-commerce sites or huge data stores to analyse corporate operations. Databases optimised for 64-bit hardware can store great amounts of data -- up to hundreds of gigabytes -- in a computer's memory. Without the need to fetch data from a disk for every database query or transaction, so-called in-memory databases greatly quicken application performance and response time. Although the number of applications that take advantage of 64-bit technology remains relatively small, the hardware may garner more interest from companies looking to consolidate servers. Increasing pressure on IT organisations to save money is driving a wave of server consolidation, where multiple machines are replaced by fewer, more powerful boxes. Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik, Iceland, is transitioning from a four-processor server to two single-processor Itanium 2 machines to run its Oracle e-business application suite. The hospital was originally seeking a way to add redundancy to its applications in case its single server failed, but it found that the new configuration will provide sufficient processing power at a lower price. Because Oracle charges a per-processor fee for its software, the total cost of its back-end system will go down by moving to a cluster of two more powerful 64-bit machines, said Olafur Adalsteinsson, IT manager at Landspitali University Hospital. "We did a request for proposal from the major companies and found that the Itanium 2 servers were maybe 15 or 20 percent more expensive than others. But if you compare all the costs, including the software licensing, it was a much cheaper solution," Adalsteinsson said. The hospital not only gains equivalent performance, but also redundancy and backup if one server fails, he said. Server consolidation also has cost savings associated with IT labor and management, said Jeff Jones, director of strategy for IBM data management solutions. "A single platform vastly simplifies hardware administration. And the database performance is improved because you're not dealing with as many network connections," he said. Large corporate users have traditionally used mainframe or high-end Unix systems to consolidate multiple servers, using partitioning software to manage multiple applications among processors on a single machine. Muscling in
Until now, 64-bit databases have run exclusively on Unix servers from IBM, Sun Microsystems, HP and others, which build machines around their proprietary chip architectures. By muscling into the realm of 64-bit computing, Microsoft and Intel intend to dethrone so-called big iron hardware, or mainframes and high-end Unix servers long the bastion of IBM, Sun and HP. "Because Itanium 2 gives such a great cost of ownership, it makes (64-bit systems) a lot more approachable for many customers," said Sheryl Tullis, product manager for Microsoft's SQL Server database. "If companies want room to grow, they can do it much cheaper than Unix and with less complexity than a mainframe. That's where we see the tide turning." HP and Unisys already sell Itanium 2 servers, while IBM plans to ship its own early next year. AMD will also be girding for a piece of the high-end server market when it ships its 64-bit Opteron processor in the first half of next year. While existing 32-bit applications need to be optimised to take full advantage of the Itanium 2 processor, AMD's Opteron is designed to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications unchanged. AMD's Opteron "is a nice smooth migration story from 32 bit to 64 bit without having to go through the application adjustment process," said IBM's Jones. "Companies don't have to make changes or suffer performance degradation." But even broadening the number of 64-bit server suppliers beyond the established Unix base will not dramatically shake up generally lackluster server sales, analysts said. "I can't see the introduction of a new processor getting too many CIOs (chief information officers) excited in the current climate," said James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk. "They have better things to worry about than a new architecture without a great deal of application support."
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