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DIG64 Benefits to IT

The DIG64 Specification is a set of technical guidelines that define hardware, firmware, and operating system compatibility for Itanium-based servers. These guidelines provide IT departments with systems built on common, stabilized interfaces that:

  • Improve reliability and interoperability
  • Lower qualification and support costs

The DIG64 has been developed and backed by key OEMs, OSVs, and BIOS vendors who are contributing to its development and building compliant products.

DIG64 Benefits for the IT Community

Server hardware that is DIG64 compliant improves the reliability and interoperability of Itanium™-based solutions by implementing common, stabilized interfaces. This standardization of the key elements of Itanium-based system design serves to:

  • Simplify qualification. Having stable, consistent interfaces between operating systems, devices, and system hardware should reduce the effort, time, and expense needed to qualify new systems that comply with the DIG64 specification.
  • Lower support costs. Stable, compatible interfaces and a rational approach to managing legacy technologies leads to more reliable, interoperable products that are less costly to deploy and support. The collaborative efforts to forestall legacy problems should also yield reduced upgrade and maintenance costs.
  • Make available a wider range of solutions. Well-defined interfaces should speed the development of reliable, interoperable products, giving greater flexibility in choosing the right combination of products that meet the needs of IT organizations and business end users.

Released in 1999, the DIG64 has been backed by key OEMs, OSVs, and BIOS vendors who contribute to its ongoing development. In addition, nearly 200 developers have pledged to follow the guideline and build DIG64-compliant solutions.

DIG64 Compliance Promotes Innovation

DIG64-compliant platforms, firmware, and operating systems have undergone extensive interoperability testing before reaching the marketplace. This standardization of the key elements of Itanium™-based system design:

  • Ensures that operating systems supporting the IntelŪ Itanium™ processor family run reliably on different platforms from multiple vendors
  • Provides a broader range of solution stacks for Itanium-based servers
  • Encourages product innovation by allowing developers to focus more of their efforts on value-added features
  • Increases the interoperability and reliability of Itanium-based solutions
  • Reduces system qualification costs

DIG64: Lessening the Impact of Platform and Firmware Changes on IT Software

DIG64 defines a baseline system platform that focuses on the use of low-level abstraction layers in platform and operating system designs. This allows innovation to occur in one part of the platform design without disrupting other parts. The DIG64 guideline covers the core system building blocks (processor, memory, chipset, I/O bus, and system management) and their interfaces, plus peripheral devices for communication, networking, and storage. Low-level firmware interfaces for system configuration, boot, and run-time services are also included. In each of these areas, the guideline establishes common industry support standards and specifies requirements for their implementation. This figure illustrates the far-reaching scope of the DIG64 guideline:

DIG64 Scope

DIG64-compliant products eliminate costly dependencies between system components by inserting an abstraction layer between hardware and software to isolate them from one another.

DIG64 Provides Technology Roadmap

The DIG64 also contains a migration roadmap for removing obsolete technology that places constraints on system configuration and performance, and replacing it with current technology. By defining this orderly process by which legacy components are identified and eliminated over time, the DIG64 will ultimately allow servers to be more easily configured and managed from a central location.

To prevent costly dependencies between system components, DIG64-compliant products also implement a new firmware architecture that inserts an abstraction layer between hardware and software to isolate them from one another.

This technology migration roadmap and firmware architecture:

  • Lessens the impact of platform and firmware changes on IT software builds through the use of abstraction layers
  • Lowers IT support costs attributed to obsolete legacy technology

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