New SW to strengthen Intel Itanium 2-based systems

NEW DELHI: Intel Corporation has announced the availability of IA-32

Execution Layer (EL) software for systems powered by the Intel Itanium 2

processor running Microsoft Windows operating systems. The company claims that

the technology provides greater flexibility for customers by increasing the

performance of many 32-bit software applications and facilitating customer

migration to Itanium 2-based platforms running Windows.

According to the company release, IA-32 EL is a software package integrated

with the operating system. Itanium 2 processors provide support for 32-bit

applications using on-die hardware; however, with IA-32 EL, support for IA-32

applications will be carried out in software.

After installation, execution of the 32-bit applications is transparently run

using IA-32 EL. At run time, the IA-32 Execution Layer translates the IA-32

application code into native Itanium architecture code and allows it to run as

native code.

IA-32 EL is supported in Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for 64-bit

Itanium- architecture-based systems, Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition for

64-bit Itanium architecture-based systems, and Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. The

software is available for download at

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/ipf/default.mspx, and will be

available in the second half of this year in Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Service Pack 1.

(CyberMedia News Service)