FAQs from HP on the Oracle Itanium Announcement

by on 03-30-2011 06:57 PM

Due to the interest in and concern about the Oracle/Itanium recent announcement we wanted to ensure that you, our valued community, were properly informed of some key questions that have been raised. The FAQ’s and responses listed below should assist.

 

WHAT WILL HP DO?

 

1. How much of HP's UNIX business is tied to Oracle software?

 

More than 140,000 Oracle customers have selected HP as their platform of choice. We are committed to supporting these customers with new innovations on HP-UX operating system for the next 10 years. More customers choose HP Integrity over Oracle/Sun hardware for their mission critical Data Base, Business Intelligence and ERP systems.

 

2. What is HP going to do to continue to support HP-UX customers running Oracle software?

 

HP, along with key partner Intel, is committed to at least 10 years of development and innovation on its HP-UX operating system and Itanium-based Integrity servers. Customers, including those running Oracle’s current software portfolio can confidently deploy HP-UX-based systems through the next decade.

 

3. Will HP pull out of the UNIX business?

 

No, HP is 100 percent committed to the UNIX market and moved ahead into second position in the UNIX market while Sun lost share and fell back into third since Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun in April of 2009. HP, along with key partner Intel, is committed to at least 10 years of development and innovation on its HP-UX operating system and Itanium-based Integrity servers.

 

4. Can HP’s UNIX business survive without Oracle?

 

Absolutely, we are winning in this market. Since Oracle announced its acquisition of Sun in April 2009, HP has moved ahead to the number two UNIX position while Sun fell back to the third position. The question is why does Oracle feel they need to force customers to choose Solaris? This decision is a shameless gambit to limit fair competition.

 

5. Will HP migrate their Oracle/UNIX customers to ProLiant?

 

No, HP is 100 percent committed to the UNIX market and moved ahead into second position in the UNIX market while Sun lost share and fell back into third since Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun in April of 2009. HP, along with key partner Intel, is committed to at least 10 years of development and innovation on its HP-UX operating system and Itanium-based Integrity servers. More customers choose HP Integrity over Oracle/Sun hardware for their mission-critical Database, Business Intelligence, and ERP systems. HP’s focus is on our customers business and offering them the best choices in the industry.

 

6. Will HP port HP-UX operating system to x86?

 

HP has announced no plans to port HP-UX operating system to x86.

 

7. Is this move by Oracle a final end to the HP-Oracle partnership?

 

You need to ask Oracle. HP is committed to our 140,000 customers who run Oracle software.

 

8. What is Oracle’s next move?

 

What’s clear is that during the past 12 months, Oracle has shown a pattern to limit customer choice, raise prices, and cut off partners. Clearly, Oracle’s actions have been in the best interest of Oracle and not that of customers.

 

9. Will you pull support for Oracle software in other business – storage, security?

 

No. HP and Oracle share more than 140,000 customers and HP is committed to supporting these customers with new innovations on HP-UX operating system for the next 10 years.

 

10. I’m sure HP must be in the middle of many customer deals with Oracle. What are you telling your sales teams to do?

 

HP, along with key partner Intel, is committed to at least 10 years of development and innovation on its HP-UX operating system and Itanium-based Integrity servers. But with the move, we expect many customers to question their investments with Oracle hardware and software to protect against lock-in. Customers, including those running Oracle’s current software portfolio can confidently deploy HP-UX systems through the next decade.

 

11. What is HP’s strategy for an enterprise database platform? Sybase? DB2? Open source: MySQL? EnterpriseDB? PostgreSQL?

 

HP is well positioned for the next generation of data platforms to take advantage of the revolution of Big Data analytics. HP is committed to lead this evolution with innovation, investments and a strong partner ecosystem.

 

WHY WOULD ORACLE DO THIS?

 

1. How can Oracle be successful without HP as a hardware partner?

 

You would need to ask Oracle, but it is clear that Oracle lacks a strategy and a roadmap for the UNIX marketplace. Since Oracle announced its intent to acquire Sun in April 2009, HP has moved ahead to the number two UNIX position while Sun fell back to the third position. UNIX is now a two horse race between HP and IBM.

 

Where can I join in?

 

  1. HP.com: For updates & latest information, see www.hp.com/go/customersfirst
  2. Linked IN: Join the new Linked In discussion group, Customers First
  3. Connect WW: Submit your position on Connect WW Advocacy Submission Form
  4. Twitter: Tweet to HP: #HPCustomersfirst and follow @HPIntegrity and @HPConverge

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Comments
by Zoran Popovic(anon) on 04-01-2011 01:57 PM

There is no answer about the situatuin in which customer has to move to a newer Oracle software version (eg. RDBMS due to SAP support requirements) which is no longer supported by Oracle ... so, for example, here is my quiestion:

I am an SAP customer based on Itanium, HP-UX and Oracle RDBMS. There is plan to move to newer Netweaver 7.3 or 8.0 platform in next 5 years (reaching more expensive extended SAP support period), ans SAP support demands as a prerequisite from customers to move from Oracle 11gR2 to Oracle 12gR2 (or whatever newer) which is no longer supported by Oracle or developed on new Itanium architecture and HP-UX. Is this scenario possible, and what HP expects from me to do in next 10 years about this ?

by Zoran Popovic(anon) on 04-01-2011 02:08 PM

I've made few typos by copy&paste without spell-checking - once again, sorry. There is no answer about the situation in which customer has to move to a newer Oracle software version (e.g. Oracle RDBMS due to SAP support requirements) which is no longer supported by Oracle on (Itanium / HP-UX) ... so, for example, here is my question:

I am an SAP customer based on Itanium, HP-UX and Oracle RDBMS. There is plan to move to newer Netweaver 7.3 or 8.0 platform in next 5 years (reaching more expensive extended SAP support period), and SAP support demands as a prerequisite from customers to move from Oracle 11gR2 to Oracle 12gR2 (or whatever newer - we are currently dealing with the same situation with NW7.0 and Oracle 10gR2 whose extended supported expires in June 2011, by which we have to move to Oracle 11gR2 if we expect to have full SAP support) which is no longer supported by Oracle or developed on new Itanium architecture and HP-UX. Is this scenario possible, and what HP expects from me to do in next 10 years about this ?

by on 04-01-2011 02:27 PM

Hello Zoran,

 

Thank you for engaging with us on the blog. I have your question in to our senior folks here and will respond ASAP.

 

Best regards,

Kristie Popp

by Torlica(anon) on 04-01-2011 09:20 PM

HP should get a database onboard to complete the stack, perhaps buying Sybase, or (much more difficult) work with Microsoft in order to port  SQL Server to HP-UX.

by Thomas Burg(anon) on 04-05-2011 07:29 PM

 

In fact HP already owns a rather powerful database. It is called NonStop SQL/MX and implements the ANSI standard on the HP NonStop platform. Food for thought for HP ...

by rkbuckle(anon) on 04-05-2011 08:05 PM

G'day Kristie,

 

Perhaps your readers may like to see my take on all of this, as it appears in my blog for the NonStop community:

 

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2011/04/bad-case-of-s.html

 

We may want to include NonStop alongside Unix when it comes to discussion as yes, there's a marked interest in secure data bases and on this score, there's now a growing body of NonStop users who are positioning their servers (particularly the new BladeSystems) as data base servers running the latest NonStop SQL/MX offering ... it's pretty cool!

 

Again, thanks and these are good responses we should all learn by rote!

by Michael Leu(anon) on 04-06-2011 08:19 AM
by Alan S Muir(anon) on 04-06-2011 08:36 AM

Don't forget to include OpenVMS in your responses, HP. Many OpenVMS customers are wondering about the future of both their Oracle database platform and Oracle RDB. If Oracle has decided to pack up their toys and go home, what can HP do to source new toys for its committed customers? All the talk above about vaulting into the number 2 spot for Unix is completely ignoring this very loyal customer base.

by Zoran Popovic(anon) on 04-08-2011 01:54 PM

SQL/MX is not supported by SAP, and I believe it will never be in the future, while Sybase is already supported - that much I can tell.

I have opened message to Oracle and SAP support about this situation - shortly, Oracle advised us we should consider talking to our local Oracle account team, while SAP stated that this is actually a consulting issue and not a support issue. I suppose what king of answer we can get from HP. If we do not plan to upgrade our SAP systems up to 2018 we can rely on SAP's and Oracle's extended support, and that's it - normally, major SAP Netweaver release upgrades on the customer side should be planned at least every 3-5 years max. And my company, as an HP customer, has to decide if we should invest now in Itanium hardware which might become a seriously ill business bottleneck in next 3-5 years. Not a good situation at all, and I suppose that every SAP customer on Itanium feels the same (I do believe it is not an insignificant community). Regards,

ZP.

by sanjeev(anon) on 09-18-2011 06:00 PM

You guys are in fools paradise.... in every single response the guy is rattling out some corporate non-sense of 140,000 customers running on Oracle and HP is commited for 10 years support. Microsoft and Red Hat accounced not developing their softwares in furture on Itanium platform and now Oracle followed suit.

 

For a customer like me does it make sense to continue on Itanium if ISVs and OEMs are not supporting it.... dear friend I have to run business for an enterprise and these fake claims for 10 years support don't work for me. Do you expect me to run oracle 11g r2 for next 10 years and expect my ISV to support the same.... in that case I will be 10 years behind my competition...

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