News
64-bit Developer Release of Oracle 9i Available
- By Scott Bekker
- 12/04/2001
Oracle Corp. released a developer edition of the Oracle9i Database for Intel Itanium processors on Monday that supports several platforms including Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition and Windows .NET Enterprise Server Beta 3.
The developer edition, available as a free download from the Oracle Technology Network, also runs on HP-UX Itanium and Linux64. Oracle's database has been available in a 64-bit version for several years for various RISC processors.
Itanium is Intel's first generation of 64-bit processors. But the term Itanium is also commonly used for Intel's family of 64-bit processors, which is expected to grow in 2002 to include the second-generation version known as McKinley. Systems vendors began shipping the first production systems built with the Itanium processor in June. Widespread deployment of 64-bit systems is expected to start with the McKinley release.
Oracle also had an evaluation edition of Oracle8i for 64-bit Intel Architecture systems available for about a year. The Oracle Technology Network's nearly 2 million members downloaded about 13,000 copies of that database for Windows, Linux and HP-UX during that time, according to Oracle.
In a recent interview with ENT, Oracle director of database marketing George Demarest said Windows is the most frequently selected platform for evaluation edition downloads from the Oracle Technology Network.
The first reference customer for the 64-bit Intel Architecture version of Oracle9i is running HP-UX. Retailer Liz Claiborne Inc. is in the evaluation stage of its long-term plan to run a large Oracle database on HP-UX Itanium and an HP Itanium server.
Intel's director of enterprise processor marketing, Lisa Hambrick, called support from vendors like Oracle a key for the adoption of Intel's Itanium family of 64-bit processors.
"Intel and Oracle have worked together to ensure that developers have early access to the platform technologies needed to build cost-effective applications for a choice of system manufacturers and operating system vendors," Hambrick said in a statement.
The Windows evaluation edition on the Oracle Technology Network is a 300 MB, zipped download. Minimum system requirements include 1.5 GB of hard disk space, a 733 MHz Itanium processor and 1 GB RAM.
The evaluation version runs on the Beta 3 version of Windows .NET Enterprise Server released in November and the production version of Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition released in October. Enterprise Server, the successor to Windows 2000 Advanced Server, will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit editions.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.