September 2003 - IBM Adds the Opteron

Just in case you thought I've always disliked AMD:

IBM has been a long-time Intel supporter, lately with the Itanium II, when it hasn’t been touting its own PowerPC processors. Suddenly it’s announced that it’s also building servers with AMD’s Opteron CPU. Keep in mind that while IBM has been gung-ho about Linux, it also offers Windows servers. Is this case of corporate schizophrenia? Bet hedging? Or what? Fox-like cunning is the correct answer and its based on an amazingly perceptive view of the server market and what makes it tingle: TCO. (Total Cost of Ownership for you non-IT types.)

The benefit and the problem with Intel’s Itanium family is that they are 64-bit CPUs in a world where the predominant day-to-day software is 32-bit. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle. We’ve already seen combo systems (Unisys has some in the field already) that unite both the 64-bit Itanium and 32-bit Xenon environments to provide the best of both worlds. Or do they? The Itanium, although also 32-bit compatible, is reportedly quite slow in that venue. The Xenon can’t do 64-bit anything.

Imagine if you will, that you own two trucks, one all-wheel-drive (AWD), the other rear wheel drive (RWD). Your intention is use the RWD vehicle around town and the AWD car up in the tundras of Connecticut where extra traction is the order of the day. Sounds like a reasonable arrangement and it’s very cost effective (low TCO) as long as both trucks are on their respective roads, delivering your goods. But here’s where the problems start: If you have some extra work to do around town you can always divert the AWD vehicle to handle the task during slack time on its normal route. Moving all four wheels, it’ll use a bit more gas than its RWD sibling, which means it’ll cost you more to operate, but the job will get done. If you have extra work over in the tundras, however, your RWD truck is useless. Through it all, you’re paying for both vehicles, no matter how much work you are (or are not) getting done by either of them. The less work, the higher your TCO.

That’s where the AMD Opteron comes into the picture. Again, reportedly, it is equally talented at both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. It’s sort of a 2WD drive vehicle with 4WD available on-the-fly, to hold true to the analogy. By definition, in a world where there are still a preponderance of 32-bit application paths, the Opteron is the better selection if you’re running both roads. Initially, it should also be marginally less expensive and that too is a factor in TCO. Is it any wonder that IBM would consider the Opteron for server duty into the mid-market level?