VNU Net: Trillian to send ‘big iron’ to scrapheap

By John Leyden, VNU Net

Linux will be able to support multiple processors and
provide a platform for high-end databases with the forthcoming
delivery of Intel’s 64-bit chip architecture.

Larry Augustin, chief executive of VA Linux, which is the lead
member of the Trillian project to port Linux to the IA-64
architecture, said that a lot of the work to provide symmetric
muliprocessing (SMP) clustering is now here.

“Database servers in internet infrastructures have been until
now the preserve of ‘big iron’ [high-end server] machines, but
IA-64 will be able to do that and extend the use of Linux beyond
web and application servers,” he said.

Augustin told vnunet.com that VA Linux had successfully compiled
IA-64 binaries and that its main task is to get applications
written for the platform.

He added that the increased addressing space of IA-64 would
allow the delivery of eight-way processor machines.

Jon Collins, a senior analyst at Bloor Research, said the
arrival of Linux on the IA-64 architecture would sideline
Monterey.

IBM’s Unix operating system, AIX, is at the heart of Project
Monterey, which will marry the PowerPC Unix language with the Intel
based Unix languages from SCO and Sequent.

“Monterey will come up against an established player in key
markets: Linux, which will enter the mainstream when Linux for
IA-64 becomes established,” said Collins.

“IBM is moving towards having the same underlying kernel for
Monterey and Linux and the company has said that it sees Monterey
as an ‘interim’ step.”

VA Linux was last month recognised by researcher IDC as one of
the top five Linux server vendors.

VA Linux has now started its European operations and will target
companies expanding their internet infrastructures, but Augustin is
far more cautious about the use of Linux in the enterprise.

He said VA Linux would be “opportunistic” in this market, which
he said will not take off until a fuller suite of enterprise
applications is available on Linux.

“You have SAP on Linux and Oracle coming, but these are just two
pieces of the puzzle,” he said.