Intel Plans Linkup With Oracle

John Miner, Intel's vice president in charge of development and marketing for high-end server products, said the effort will focus on the next generation of Intel chips, code-named Merced, including advanced cluster computing systems.

Servers are powerful computers used to link individual outlets, like desktop personal computers, together in networks. Clustered systems link multiple processors to provide maximal computing power.

Intel's Merced processor, expected to begin shipping in 1999, is a critical new product family because it is based on a faster chip architecture.

Oracle is formally introducing Oracle8 this week with a flashy, round-the-world event, and Miner told Reuters in an interview ahead of Monday's announcement that Intel systems are the fastest-growing segment of Oracle's database business.

The widespread use of Intel processors and the early availability of Oracle's flagship product for use on Intel platforms, he said, "should fuel even more growth in this fast-moving, highest growth end of their business."

The collaboration of the two computer powerhouses also marks the ever-increasing power of Intel processors -- years ago databases were largely the province of large, costly mainframe computers.

Now, Oracle's mainline product is released for what Intel calls its standard high-volume server platform at the same time as it is shipped for other systems.

Intel said it and Oracle will also work together on cluster features for the Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) and for a new cluster communications standard known as VI Architecture.

The development efforts will support the speediest versions of Microsoft Corp's Windows NT and SCO's UnixWare systems.

The companies will work to ensure Oracle's products will be certified to work on Merced-based systems to be offered by a range of computer makers, including Hewlett-Packard Co and Compaq Computer Corp.