Sun Provides Solaris for Intel's IA-64 Simulator to Leading Independent Software Vendors

Business Wire, Sept 1, 1999

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 1999--

Building on its momentum in the Intel market, Sun Microsystems announced today that it plans to make an early access release of the Solaris(TM) Operating Environment for Intel's IA-64 architecture available this fall to key independent software vendors (ISVs).

These ISVs can now develop and test their 64-bit applications on the Solaris Operating Environment, enabling their enterprise customers to be able to take advantage of Intel's powerful IA-64 architecture when it ships in 2000. At this week's Intel Developer Forum, Sun will demonstrate Solaris running on the IA-64 simulator system and highlight the easy migration path that Sun has created for developers moving from Solaris on IA-32 to IA-64.

"Sun is committed to optimizing Solaris for Intel's IA-64 platforms, and leading ISVs are demanding access to Solaris on IA-64," said Rich Green, vice president, Solaris Products Group, Sun Microsystems. "We are working closely with our IA-64 ISV Program participants to make sure their applications will take full advantage of the advanced features and capabilities of the IA-64-based systems when they ship."

Sun's IA-64 ISV Program

ISVs in Sun's IA-64 ISV Program will develop their IA-64 optimized applications using existing Solaris IA-32 systems with IA-64 cross compilation tools from Sun. ISVs will run their IA-64 application on Solaris using the Intel Pre-Silicon Software Development Environment. Applications that are already available on Solaris 64-bit UltraSPARC(TM) platforms require only a simple recompile for IA-64. Solaris Intel(TM) Platform Edition applications that already exist will run on IA-64 without change.

To aid in application development and testing, ISVs will receive:

--An IA-64 simulator system that has been pre-configured by Intel;

--The Solaris Operating Environment;

--A suite of tools, including early versions of the Sun Workshop(TM) compilers and tools for migrating applications from 32-bit to 64-bit;

--Technical development white papers; and

--Direct access to Sun's engineering development team.

"Today's business-critical enterprise environments, from small workgroups to very large parallel processing applications, demand the most reliable, scalable, secure foundation available," said Chuck Altomare, vice president, product engineering, Informix. "Our software solutions and database engines running on the Solaris Operating Environment on IA-64 will give businesses the mainframe-class solutions they need today for data warehousing, OLTP and Web/e-commerce that can easily adapt to meet their changing needs."

"The Solaris Operating Environment is a very popular platform for TimesTen's In-Memory Database Technology," said Tim Shetler, vice president of marketing, TimesTen Performance Software. "In our target markets, Internet Applications and Voice and Data Networks, customers recognize the value of the Solaris Operating Environment's reliable, scalable foundation supporting the real-time database performance of TimesTen. TimesTen was one of the first 64-bit enabled products available on Sun's 64-bit Solaris 7 Operating Environment, and based on our experiences, we expect the Solaris Operating Environment to be very compelling on the IA-64 processor."

Protecting Investments With 64-bit Solaris

Sun is able to leverage its experience delivering Solaris for the 64-bit SPARC(TM) platform as it optimizes Solaris for IA-64 architecture. The Solaris Application Programming Interface (API) and Device Driver Interface (DDI) are common across all Solaris platforms, meaning that ISVs that develop 64-bit applications today on Solaris SPARC Platform Edition can easily migrate these same applications to the Merced platform by simply recompiling their application or driver.

In addition, the Sun WorkShop development products provide a consistent software development environment across all Solaris supported platforms, delivering constant reliability and ease-of-use for developers.

To protect customer investments, the Solaris Operating Environment will provide full compatibility on Merced with the more than 3,500 Solaris Intel Platform Edition applications that are available today. This means that ISVs with applications that do not require 64-bit addressing or the full Merced performance do not have to change or recompile their existing 32-bit Solaris on Intel applications to take advantage of Merced.

For more information about Solaris and 64-bit computing, visit the Sun web site at http://www.sun.com/developers/solaris64.> Intel Developer Forum Conference

The Intel Developer Forum (IDF) conference is a semiannual, three-day conference targeted at business and consumer desktop, mobile, workstation and server hardware manufacturers and peripheral and software vendors working on advanced platform solutions. The conference provides attendees with 13 informative technology tracks comprised of more than 100 in-depth sessions and 8 hands-on labs. The theme for Fall IDF's conference is "Advancing the Internet" and it will outline technology directions in support of Intel's vision of one billion connected computers.