Can Oracle kill off Itanium? Moving to IBM is an obvious solution! : 19th March 2011

At the end of March, Oracle announced it would no longer be developing its software for the Intel Itanium chip. The database giant also said that other software makers would no longer support the 64-bit processor.

"After multiple conversations with Intel senior management, Oracle has decided to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor. Intel made it clear that its strategic focus is on the x86 microprocessor and that Itanium is nearing the end of its life," Oracle said.

Industry observers see Oracle's decision as a direct attack on HP, since HP's flagship enterprise server family, Integrity, uses the Itanium processor.

Detrimental effects on HP/Oracle users

Gabriel Consulting Group noted: "If Oracle software is not available on these systems, the workloads would naturally migrate to Oracle's Solaris Unix variant. This is not unprecedented. In the 1990s, several Unix vendors gave up on the business when Oracle either withdrew support or made them second-tier ports. However, it is a vastly different world today, and customers have many more options."

Given that HP is the leading server manufacturer and Oracle is the leading database software provider, a large number of organisations use HP/Oracle systems, and will therefore be adversely affected by Oracle's plans to stop developing applications for Itanium.

In a recent report, "Gartner believes there is less than a 10% probability that Oracle will reverse its decision. If, as we believe, the Oracle decision will not be changed, then users should consider next-generation Oracle products and new projects on HP-UX as a non-viable approach with high risk.”

Recarta has examples of where we have either migrated Oracle or SAP applications from HP-UX to the IBM AIX platform. IBM is one of the main viable options left for those HP customers who are concerned about investing further in the HP brand after these announcements.