The giant Alpha-Itanic leap forward

ALL OSES BUT WINDOWS might be doomed but if so no one has told Intel and Compaq that, judging from documents we've seen which are all about porting Open VMS apps to Intel's Itanium family.

The Compaq briefing does, however, use the IA-64 nomenclature which as we've noted is no longer politically correct within the Intel Corporation itself.

In snappy words, the presentation tells programmers and customers that "If you're on Alpha you're a recompile and requal away from being on the Itanium processor family".

And the firm is also telling this group of better server roadmaps for OpenVMS, NS (non-stop) Himalaya, Linux, Tru64 Unix and Windows customers, mentioning there are some Himalaya and Alpha EV6 speedups and also focusing a bit on the EV7 Marvel programme, which we've dealt with in some detail before.

Although Alpha does come to a roaring halt in 2006/2007, and the Itanic roadmap proceeds in a 2010 direction, certainly everything looks a little complex between 2003-2006.

But here's the OpenVMS Itanium port roadmap as far as we understand it.

In May 2002, we'll see cross compilers like CRTL, C, Bliss, Imacro, Linkers and Librarian. In July, it is "the boot", while CPQ hopes to have a working boot environment in August/September and native comoilers in December.

In the first half of 2003, the first release will be to key ISVs, key partners and the like, with OpenVMS/IPF and Alpha/IPF common source. We;ll also see full services support then, as well as TCP/IP, DECnet Phase IV and DECset components.

In the second half of 2003, there will be the second release with limited cluster functionality, Pascal, Basic and Cobol compilers, plus we'll have LPs such as Advanced Server, RTR, DECnet+, XML, Apache and Netbeans.

Open VMS Third Release is scheduled now for the first half of 2004.

The 2004 Open VMS core will include expanding clusters, shadowing, DECram, RMS Journalling, GKS, Media Management Services and Galaxy, support for X25, support for Mozilla and Bridgeworks, MAILbus 400, X500 admin and an IMAP4 server.

There will be storage products including ABS, SLS, SW RAID and DFO, and muddleware including TP Desktop Connector, Datatrieve, FMS, DECforms, ACMS and DCE.

As far as compilers go, CPQ C will look similar to Compaq C, that is DEC C, while there will be an Intel based C++, as well as Itanic versions of existing Compaq compilers for Pascal, Cobol and the like. There will also be an ADA compiler, Intel based Fortran, the Imacro tool to emulate Itanic instructions and also to provide support for Macro 32 and Macro Vax and Alpha.

The binary translator will create Alpha to Itanium chip family images, though the engineers haven't made up their mind about Vax translation of images yet.

Intel's calling standard for the Itanium is being designed with OpenVMS modifications, but there's a fervent wish that most code will not be affected.

User code that is aware of object file formats will almost certainly have to change, while workrounds for image headers may no longer work either.

Compaq is thinking about using FlexLM, but there are other differences which also need to be worked on, because, of course, the Itanium supports IEEE floating point data types alone.

Alpha specific compiler additions may well have to be recoded.

People waiting to make the leap are being told to look at their source code for known differences and architectural dependencies - and the Intel compiler may turn up more anomalies.

All we'd say is that this sounds like a gargantuan task for any corporation which is on track for the Alpha-Itanic move - even if it four, five or six years away. µ