HP announced
that the HP-UX
11i v3 March 2010 release is now available. In fact, while the announcement
was today, I believe that it actually started shipping over the course of the
last 10 days in different geographies.

What is new
about this update?

First,
additional products have been added to the HP-UX
11i v3 Operating Environments. The key new products included with the
Virtual Server and the Data Center Operation Environments are HP Integrity
Virtual Machines Online VM Migration and Insight Dynamics - VSE Infrastructure
Orchestration. Insight Control power management has been added to all the
operating environments. This drastically increases the value of the software
that is included in the operating environments, which customers who have
current support contracts get at no additional charge.

There are also
product updates: a new version of HP Integrity virtual machines, a new
directory server, additional security certifications, and management
improvements for Logical Volume Manager. If you develop code, HP-UX 11i v3
offers updated tools that comply with newer standards, make porting to HP-UX
11i v3 easier, and help speed up debugging.

Not only does
HP-UX 11i v3 have additional functionality, we've also updated how we deliver
it. Actually, it was earlier this month that we rolled out e-Delivery
for most of the world (China and Japan are in the works). The default for the
HP-UX 11i v3 images and software packages is now a download instead of a
physical media set. Manuals are also electronic, instead of paper. These types
of efforts will contribute to reducing paper manuals by 13 tons and packaging
by 142 tons  across HP by the end of
2010.

Finally, it
wouldn't be a proper announcement without a story about HP-UX
11i v3 customers. For this release, we have published case studies from
customers in the financial sector including Philippine National Bank, State
Bank of India, and Tekstilbank in Turkey.

I will likely
blog a little more about this HP-UX 11i v3 release in the next few weeks.  There is a lot of new functionality, and I
will try to cover some of it in a little more depth.

Jacob

Well, it is a slow news week in the enterprise space, so I figured that I would send out something fun. We've recently posted a couple of videos about the high level value proposition for HP-UX 11i v3. They are available at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGOUakRlHa8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH9aM9QvDA0

Of course, there are a number of other videos on YouTube. They include the Disaster Proof video from a few years ago, posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMCHpUtJnEI. I actually have a piece from those blown up systems, and I've seen many other pieces, courtesy of one of my former managers who was actually there when they blew up the systems. While the video includes HP-UX 11i, it also includes Windows, Linux, OpenVMS, and NonStop running on HP Integrity servers. Proof, once again, that HP delivers resilient, mission critical environments.

Jacob

From Brian Cox, the director of Software Product Management and Marketing in HP Business Critical Systems...

I frequently am asked the question by customers which operating system should they use for their mission-critical environment.  My HP field colleagues, who see customers on a daily basis, also get this same inquiry.  I will attempt to provide my perspective on this important question.  However, like most things in life, the answer is not “one size fits all”.

First, a bit of background on me.  I manage the HP team responsible for the product management and marketing for the system software on the Integrity brand of servers.  The Integrity servers have been designed for customers’ most demanding applications, and my team helps to plan and to deliver the operating systems HP-UX, Linux, Windows and OpenVMS, along with closely associated software such as compilers, file systems and clustering that run on these servers.  These four operating systems are my “family” at work.  I love them all. 

Coincidentally, I happen to have four children at home.  And they are all different, which is a good analogy for how I view the four operating systems. Like my children, each has developed its own set of strengths, set of followers, and is at a different stage of maturity.

Without stretching the family analogy too far, let me tell you about my two oldest sons, Jonathan and Alex, ages 16 and 13, respectively.  Both are highly competitive basketball players.  In fact, my 16-year-old was MVP of his Junior Varsity High School basketball team last year.  They play one-on-one basketball against each other all the time.  However, my 16-year-old Jonathan always beats my 13-year-old Alex.  Jonathan is simply bigger, stronger, and has more years of skilled coaching and practice drills.  Similarly, when I am asked which is better, HP-UX or Linux, I view my response as I view comparisons to my sons.  I love them both, but for the most demanding basketball games, I will usually  recommend Jonathan as my starter.  However, in games against other players in their early teens, I am very comfortable putting Alex into the starting line-up.

Here’s the additional rub.  Though Alex is shorter at 5 feet 8 inches, his older brother Jonathan is about topped out at 5 feet 11 inches.  However, based on growth charts, Alex will likely end up being about 6 feet 4 inches.  Therefore, if you asked me today, who would I start in the most demanding basketball games, I would still say Jonathan.  However, if you asked me that same question in five years, then I would seriously have to consider Alex as my starter.

Similarly, if you asked me to choose between HP-UX and Linux for a customer’s most demanding workload,  I would typically recommend HP-UX.  However, if my customers’ time horizon is five years from now, then I would seriously consider Linux (by the way, you could replace OpenVMS for HP-UX and Windows for Linux in the above comparison and I would give you a similar answer).

There will always be exceptions to these general recommendation based on a customer’s unique situation.  For example, the customer might have a deep history with Linux and is able and willing to do the integration themselves that already exists within HP-UX .  In that case, I would be quite confident  to recommend Linux.  On the other hand, if the customer needs proven 99.999% uptime, one-stop serviceability and proven scalability to millions of transactions per minute or 10s of terabytes of data warehouse size, then HP-UX would be the safer bet today.

On a feature-by-feature basis, Linux more closely matches HP-UX and the other enterprise UNIX offerings with each passing day.  However, the open source community is still building out the breadth of manageability toolsets, and most importantly the proven case studies where the system regularly delivers flawlessly under the most demanding workloads.  A good description of this Linux evolution is a white paper written by Ideas International that can be found at: http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/os/hpux11i-v3-and-linux.html

As I was  writing this blog, a manager on my staff named MJ was at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas..  She kept me updated with text messages about highlights of the conference.  During a session entitled “Is the Luster Off Linux?,” hosted by Gartner analyst George Weiss (its OS and server expert), George polled the audience of about 150 people and asked how many were actively moving from Unix to Linux/Windows, and just a few hands went up.  This is consistent with findings I saw earlier this year from another industry analyst firm called Gabriel Consulting Group on the current state and future for UNIX.  For background on these findings see www.hp.com/go/gabrielonunix.

In addition to the poll taken during the Gartner session, here were some of the key points:

* A New Reality Has Set In: Linux Is Not Inexpensive

* Big users are committed to Linux but believe they're paying too much.

* Linux should be synonymous with ease of application portability and zero switching costs, but is not.

* What should be a leader in virtualization is not yet.

* Virtualization market presence — missing in action

* Escalating contract costs and restrictions

* Large nonpaying population: Equated with lower value?

* TCO evaporating up the food chain

* One-vendor dominance, despite dozens of distributors

* "The stand-alone OS is dead." (Nat Friedman, vice president, Novell )

* "Linux is bloated" comment by Linus Torvalds, Linux creator; (A forewarning?)

* Difficulty growing beyond 1- to 2-socket servers

In summary, Gartner did not recommend that customers not move to Linux, but they did state the issues and risks.  Most vulnerable are systems in the $5-25K range.  They acknowledged that systems in the $25-500K range are UNIX strongholds and require stability, strong management capabilities and virtualization.

So when customers ask me, whether they should to choose between Linux and HP-UX for running most demanding workloads for deployment today, I will honestly have to recommend HP-UX in most situations.  However, Linux development will continue for years to come.  Thus if a customer’s time horizon is five years from now, then I think it would be time for a serious comparison, just as I will do with my two oldest sons in playing one-on-one basketball a few years from now. 

In closing, and to wrap up  my family analogy, I love all my children just as I love all the operating systems for which my team has responsibility.  They are simply at different stages in their development.

Brian Cox 

A number of years ago, I was working booth duty at Linux World in San Francisco. I believe that I was showing off the HP Virtual Server Environment for Integrity servers running Linux, now Insight-Dynamics - VSE for Integrity servers

At one point during the day, after a customer demo, one of the two people watching the demo started asking about HP-UX 11i, and UNIX in general. We talked about server virtualization for HP-UX for a bit, and then came the big question. Does UNIX have a future? Isn't Linux on x86 going to wipe it out?

My answer then, much as it is now, was that UNIX is a large, mature market, and that the existing vendors were going to keep innovating in that market for years to come. The revenues on non-x86 servers, at least back then, were roughly the same as for x86 servers, although the x86 server market was and is growing faster. Linux is going to grow, especially for new workloads.  However, UNIX will still deliver mission critical environments, especially for existing workloads, better than many of the operating systems typically found on x86 servers. I used server virtualization as a proof point: the UNIX environments were offering a variety of mission critical virtualization technologies that were not available on Linux at that time (such as dynamic hard partitions and instant capacity), and indeed, are still not available today. In other words, Linux was small and growing, but UNIX was big and stable, and would be around for years to come.

After the customer walked away, satisfied with the answer, the other person watching the demo spoke up. She worked on AIX, and commented that she was glad I got to answer that question, since she also had to answer it many times! We shared a laugh, and went our separate ways.

Now, years later, I still get the question on a regular basis, and my answer is still much the same. I keep speaking with sales reps, who are still making a living selling UNIX. I keep speaking with customers, who definitely want more UNIX servers, and are often wondering not whether or not to keep UNIX, but which UNIX vendor they should buy from (HP of course, since that is where I draw a paycheck <grin>).

In addition, we have the Gabriel Consulting Group reports on UNIX preference . Their report on UNIX is title UNIX: Alive, Well, and Strategic . In short, the report states something that many of us already know: In the datacenter, UNIX is still a go to choice for mission critical workloads, especially for large enterprise customers.

I look forward to working with those customers and sales reps for years to come.

Jacob

Based on all the news around Oracle and Sun, I know that there are a lot of Sun customers considering their options, especially if they are looking to replace older systems as the economy stabilizes and they are looking towards some growth next year. HP, and most of our competitors, offer a whole host of offerings for Sun customers who are looking to move. One of those options, especially since most people are already running Windows in their environment, is moving some of their mission critical applications to Windows, either in a scale up or a scale out environment.

I got an e-mail from a co-worker, Dan, that I though I'd pass along. It may be of interest for people who are considering application redeployment on Windows.

"



Hi Jacob,

I know you are aware of the robust program HP has for users of Sun equipment to help them migrate to HP in light of the uncertainties surrounding Sun.   This is the Sun Complete Care program .

But I want you to also know about a special part of this program.  We have teamed up with Microsoft and Intel to help those Sun users who may be thinking about moving to a windows environment.  Windows on HP servers is a wonderfully cost-effective, reliable, and scalable alternative to Sun.  It is also backed by three of the most stable and innovative companies in our industry.  To introduce Sun users to the program we are recording a series of webinars that cover the topic of Sun migration to HP,  Microsoft, and Intel, in general as well as one each focusing on SAP and business intelligence (BI).  They are very informative and cover many of the whys, hows, and cost implications of such a move.

The webinars can be found at  http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1256737022_263.html

In addition you can check out the joint HP/Microsoft/Intel web site established for this program at http://www.SecureFutureNow.com.

Best regards,

Dan"