The upcoming version of Windows Lognhorn Server is designed for Intel Itanium-based servers is optimized for three work loads only; and won’t run anything else on this server platform. The three workloads in question are ‘database workloads’, ‘custom’ and ‘line-of-business applications’.
As per Microsoft, Customers of Windows Server “Longhorn” on Itanium-based systems will receive a superior deployment experience in terms of administration and management for database workloads, and custom and business applications.This might dissapoint for those who use Microsoft Server series for specific purpose and waiting for Longhorn server and may need to stick to Windows 2000 or 2003 server OS.
The real question is, if the server is optimized for database workloads means; does this tuning is just specific to SQL Server or also applies to general database servers like Oracle, ANTs, MySQL and Sybase . The answer is, we have to wait till beta testers report.
For more info, check the Microsoft statement on this from here. Also here is another interesting news item on 64-bit from TechWeb.