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According to Intel Corporation and Microsoft today, Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 with Itanium-based systems is the platform with the highest scalability for mission-critical business applications being migrated from RISC-based UNIX servers. An increasing number of organisations in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are adopting Microsoft and Intel technology to replace their UNIX-based solutions or integrate with their UNIX-based enterprises. These include: Alfa Bank, 8el.com, Ementor ASA, Mappy SA, Panasonic Germany, SG Weber and Vattenfall. With the introduction this week of the Intel Itanium 2 processor with 9 MB of cache, Intel is delivering a significant price and performance boost for transaction processing, data warehousing, business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and high-performance computing. The Intel Itanium platform is Intel's highest performing, most reliable and scalable platform for enterprise and technical computing, offering value and choice over proprietary RISC. "Itanium processor-based servers running on Windows Server System are a cost-effective, open, standards-based solution," said Tom Garrison, head of enterprise marketing, Intel EMEA. "Itanium architecture offers outstanding performance, RAS and choice for business-critical enterprise and RISC replacement." "Organisations that have heavily invested in UNIX-based solutions can potentially save significant expense by moving toward technologies from Microsoft and other leaders in the IT industry," said Mauro Meanti, general manager of the Server and Tools Business Group at Microsoft EMEA. "Our customers recognise that migrating their existing applications to the Windows platform and Windows Server System products running on the Intel Itanium 2 platform is a powerful and versatile solution that cannot be surpassed in long-term value and flexibility." High Performance, Low Costs Available With Windows Solution SG Weber is one of the world's leading industrial companies, manufacturing and selling a range of mortar-based solutions. With rising competitive pressures in the construction industry, the company was looking to streamline administration processes, rationalise IT operations and improve interoperability between their systems. The decision to rationalise operations gave SG Weber a welcome opportunity to break the lock-in effect with the UNIX operating system in use at the time. "The decision to migrate to Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 was prompted first and foremost by cost considerations. The Microsoft suite gave us the opportunity to reduce the platform costs for our SAP deployment by over 30 per cent," said Philippe Marsy, chief information officer, SG Weber. In addition to cost savings, other compelling benefits of the new system are its interoperability, scalability and flexibility. "We had some communications difficulties with the old platform," Marsy said. "With Microsoft, we can say goodbye to all interoperability problems." Another organisation that is consolidating and standardising its technology on the Microsoft platform is Ementor, one of the largest IT solution companies in the Nordic region. As a result of nearly 90 acquisitions over the last few years, Ementor was running more than 150 business applications. The company felt that the Microsoft environment would offer availability, scalability and good price for performance for its enterprise applications. "We feel that SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) is a mature, trustworthy, enterprise-ready product that will deliver the levels of availability we need for our business-critical solutions at unbeatable price/performance," said Magne Solberg, chief information officer, Ementor Group. Reliability Key For Alfa Bank in Migration Alfa Bank, one of the top-five banking and financial organisations in Russia, successfully integrated an Intel Itanium 2-based hardware platform, which has allowed the company to help eliminate problems that emerged with requirements imposed by the bank on its critical financial applications. Speaking about the experience of implementation of Intel Itanium 2-based servers, Serghey Mednov, IT director, Alfa Bank, said, "We have had a positive experience with Intel Itanium 2-based solutions for our mission-critical banking systems. Based on our experience for the past 12 months we have seen a high level of reliability and effectiveness with the solutions. More than five of our mission-critical banking systems run on the Intel Itanium 2 platform, based on a 64-bit Microsoft operating system and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for a database management system." Alfa Bank, one of the top-five banking and financial organisations in Russia, successfully integrated an Intel Itanium 2-based hardware platform, which has allowed the company to help eliminate problems that emerged with requirements imposed by the bank on its critical financial applications. Speaking about the experience of implementation of Intel Itanium 2-based servers, Serghey Mednov, IT director, Alfa Bank, said, "We have used Intel Itanium 2-based servers for critical tasks, and we assess this solution as highly reliable and effective. As compared with standard 32-bit platform-based solutions, the cost/performance ratio is almost two-times better. Several important results have been obtained: We still use all our positive experience of OPICS operation, we can scale the system on the basis of the Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL Server program stack, and now we have a level of reliability that was only available on the base of RISC/UNIX solutions before. Today, we regard Intel Itanium 2 architecture as the base for the further equipping of the bank and consolidation of its computing resources." Tools and Services for Migrating to Windows For companies looking for alternatives to UNIX-based solutions, Intel and Microsoft are collaborating with technology and services leaders such as Unisys and Bull and jointly offering a comprehensive set of Windows- and Intel-based integration and migration solutions. Microsoft provides a clear road map and guidance for reducing the complexity and time involved in migrating applications from UNIX-based solutions to Windows. Microsoft offers Windows Services For UNIX (SFU) 3.5, a set of services, solutions, training and technical information enabling enterprises to move enterprise applications from UNIX to the Windows Server System quickly, and without disruption to the business. This set of cross-platform network services from Microsoft provides interoperability between Windows and UNIX-based environments. Available to customers at no charge, SFU 3.5 offers customers enhanced performance of cross-platform tools and services, enhanced UNIX command-line administration capabilities, and the ability to extend UNIX-based applications in a web services environment based on Microsoft .NET.