The HP Way to Unix nirvana

As it repositions its Unix server lines, HP is shifting its mid-range servers to Itanium 2, strengthening HP-UX and in the process making the HP-Intel combo a potential competitor to Sun’s SPARC-Solaris platform, says Prashant L Rao

Pallab Talukdar says that many server consolidation projects are visible in India as banks and telcos buy bigger systems

When HP launched its Integrity servers it tapped right into a latent demand. Two weeks later 12 servers had been shipped in four deals—all for business computing. These deals cover everything from core banking to SAP to custom applications on Oracle. What’s fascinating is the fact that most of these deals were on HP-UX. The combination of Unix and 64-bit Intel hardware seems to have proved irresistible for India Inc. The market’s rapid acceptance of HP’s Integrity server line is a shot in the arm for the company that is grappling with a massive transition as it simplifies its server line-up and standardises on Intel chips for its entry-level and mid-range servers.

Managing the transition

Acquiring Compaq, a company that had itself done its fair share of acquisitions, left HP with five server lines—its own PA-RISC, Alpha, Proliant (IA-32), Non-Stop and IA-64. HP is now trimming its sails, and plans on taking the number of server lines down to three in 2004-05. The three survivors will be Proliant (IA-32), Integrity (IA-64) and Non-Stop.

Meanwhile, the company has taken a pragmatic approach to how it sells a platform.

"The final point dictating [the choice of a platform] is application availability. If there is an environment where both PA-RISC and Itanium 2 are available—we give the customer a choice. PA-RISC is well known and stable. Conservative customers go for it," says Pallab Talukdar, director, Business Critical Systems Group and Enterprise Marketing, HP India.

These customers have a 36 to 48 month window to switch to Itanium 2. The decision to change from one platform to another is based upon the buying cycle. With a five-year depreciation cycle in place, a company that bought, say, an Alpha server one or two years back won’t see commercial viability in switching over to Itanium 2. "Customers can continue using their existing platform till they recover their investment. If the customer says that he’s ready to be an early adopter we give them Itanium," says Talukdar.

All roads lead to Itanium 2

That said, HP’s bullish on Itanium 2. "60 percent of the Indian server market is likely to be addressed by Itanium products," says Talukdar. The company believes that the superior price-performance of the Itanium 2 Madison processor combined with the availability of popular OSes such as Windows, Linux (Red Hat AS) and Unix on it will tilt the scales in HP's favour. Some of the factors the company lists to support its strategy are:

• The hardware decision is now independent of the OS decision.

Traditionally you were stuck with a RISC box if you wanted to run 64-bit Unix. With HP offering Unix (and Windows and Linux) on Itanium 2 boxes, a company doesn't have to go in for a particular OS just because it buys a particular piece of hardware.

• Seamless migration from PA-RISC to IA-64.

"Lots of customers have gone in for PA-RISC in the last six months as it is the most cost-effective way to migrate to Itanium," says Talukdar. This assertion is supported by HP's In box upgrade capability. The rp5470—one of HP's most popular 4-way serversbe converted to an Itanium box by changing the motherboard and processor. In a Superdome this would involve replacing all the boards and memory. In HP's worldview, companies buying PA-RISC have three to four years to migrate. HP sees its role as that of providing tools and training to move from one environment to another and offering financing and investment protection.

HP's Integrity line will eventually have five products. Today there are the 2600 (2-way), 5670 (4-way) and the Superdome (up to 64-way). HP will release its 8- and 16-way Itanium 2 boxes in late October or the first week of November. That's when things should get interesting. The high-end commercial Unix space is currently ruled by Sun's Sun Fire servers. It will be fascinating to see how the Madison Superdomes stack up against the incumbent in the marketplace.

On paper, the Madison 1.5 GHz chip beats its RISC counterparts with close to 1,100 SAPS/CPU vs. 500 to 600 on a typical RISC processor. That's a far cry from the earlier Itanium processors that did great on maths but didn't quite have the same advantage while running business applications.

Initial deployments of the Integrity line have been two-tier, with the application server running on a 2-way machine and a 4-way for the database. Still, while entry-level servers accounted for 69 percent of the market last year, the segment shrank by 11 percent. The growth is in mid-range servers, 38 percent year on year. That's where 8-way and 16-way boxes, such as HP's Superdome, come into the picture. "Lot of server consolidation—banks and telcos are buying larger systems," says Talukdar.

These systems are required for scenarios such as:

• Large database deployments where a company needs to scale up.
• HPTC—Sometimes code can't be parallelised and massive SMP is needed.
• Server consolidation where a company puts everything together on a single machine with multiple partitions.

Continuing validity of HP UX

Despite the fact that HP offers its customers three OSes on its Integrity line, so far it has been mostly HP UX followed by Linux. As the only vendor to port Enterprise Unix onto Itanium, HP is well positioned to reap the benefits of this move. The combination of Unix and Madison has got off to a good start and with most enterprise applications continuing to be deployed on Unix, there's no reason why it shouldn't continue to do well. While Linux and Windows can scale up to a large extent, Unix continues to be the CIO's first choice. That is going to play a big part in getting Indian companies to accept 64-bit Intel as a platform for mission-critical applications.

Competition for Sun's SPARC-Solaris platform

Sun dominates telco and banking set-ups in India with its SPARC-Solaris combination. While it is still early days, the combination of HP UX and Madison is the first platform that looks like a worthy challenger. The launch of 8- and 16-way Superdomes built around the Madison processor will be a step in that direction though it may be a while before HP breaks into the 32-way and higher market. Availability of commercial applications on Itanium 2 is constantly improving, the last count was that 500 applications had been ported, up from 300 a year back. Sun has thousands of applications however, a line-up that's second only to Wintel. HP has begun the transition from PA-RISC and Alpha to Itanium. It'll be a year or more before a verdict can be pronounced but early indications are positive. There's no reason why HP can't consolidate its existing position in the Unix server market and perhaps even improve upon the same if it plays its cards right.

Indian Unix Server market (Q1 & Q2 2003)

HP’s vertical strategy

Initial deployments of HP Integrity servers in India