Analysis & Commentary:

INTEL'S BARRETT ON MACROPROCESSING

Intel Corporation president and Chief Executive Officer Craig Barrett outlined a design principle for e-Businesses and enterprise computing that will transform the way companies build and run their computing and communications infrastructures.

In a keynote speech delivered here, Barrett emphasized how "macroprocessing" provides a choice of innovative and cost-effective computing solutions that companies can customize and scale to match their data center needs.

Macroprocessing is a deployment model where benefits of the microprocessor, such as volume economics, performance, innovation and industry standards, are extended to meet the demands and opportunities of servers in the Internet-enabled enterprise.

"From one design approach, information technologists are able to build an unlimited number of solutions to meet their specific data center requirements," stressed Barrett. "Today's competitive realities and challenges of e-Business drive corporations to adapt their compute models, and macroprocessing allows companies to shift from proprietary systems to open standards. This standards-based macroprocessing principle is the elegant design approach for the most complex IT challenges."

Growing Momentum on Intel Architecture

IT managers from all sectors, including financial, telecom, automotive and government, are implementing the macroprocessing design approach to meet their enterprise computing and communications requirements. Barrett showcased examples of macroprocessing implementations from business, government and the scientific community, which use the power of Intel Architecture and Oracle9i Real Application Clusters to build large complex and scalable database solutions.

Dell, the Federal Aviation Administration and European scientific organization CERN illustrated how macroprocessing is solving the most complex computing challenges. Dell described how it is building highly scalable databases to support Dell's mission critical global applications. The FAA example discussed a powerful implementation of Intel Xeon processor-based servers running Oracle9i Real Application Clusters that can be used to monitor flight patterns in real time from FAA command centers. The CERN testimonial explained how the need for high performance computing to perform scientific research on sub-atomic particles was accomplished by using clusters of Xeon processor-based servers.

An on-stage demonstration featured Oracle9i AS Unified Messaging technology running on clusters of Xeon processor-based servers, including Intel's standards-based communications building blocks. The demonstration showed a highly scalable solution that allows for integrated e-mail and messaging. The combination of these technologies will allow users to access, retrieve and manage any data from any device any time from anywhere in the world through a Web browser and standard telephone, thus lowering costs and increasing reliability and functionality.

Investing in the Future of Macroprocessing

In the first technology demonstration of Intel's future "McKinley" 64-bit processor running Oracle9i Real Application Clusters, Barrett showed how systems are able to scale to match the future processing requirements of larger databases, rich media, Web services and other e-Business applications. The demonstration featured the McKinley processor (Intel's second product from its Itanium processor family which will be available in mid 2002) in a four-node cluster configuration with binary-compatible Itanium processors and the Intel Xeon processors. He demonstrated how doctors can securely access and review patient medical records more quickly when using fingerprint recognition technology, and how this configuration has the power to search through a video database of hundreds of thousands of multimedia files.

"Technology is not slowing and continues to be driven by Moore's Law, increasing bandwidth, and a growing network. The Internet will be the center of commerce, communications, research, information and entertainment, and companies must invest in Internet technologies that are cost-effective and grow with the businesses needs," Barrett said.

"The Internet is evolving to a services model, where applications interact with each other on any device using Internet standards-based infrastructure. Companies need to be ready to fully realize the capabilities of the Internet through macroprocessing," said Barrett. He explained how Intel's products and architectures are focused on providing the fundamental computing and communications building blocks of the Internet.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products.

Contact Intel Corporation, Tim Schulte, 503-264-8788, tim.schulte@intel.com.