Hewlett-Packard is promising its Compaq enterprise server customers
that there will be no big surprises in the new roadmaps for product
development following the biggest-ever IT merger.
Key Compaq systems include the Alpha processor, Tru64 Unix
operating system, and Tandem Nonstop servers, which are used in
critical systems including those at the London Stock
Exchange.
Before the Compaq and HP merger, Himalaya Nonstop server and
Alphaserver users had been told of plans to migrate both hardware
platforms and their operating systems to run on Intel's 64-bit
Itanium processors.
Michael Jones, senior strategy architect at Crestco, a real-time
securities settlement system developer and HP's biggest Nonstop
customer, said, "In the early days with Compaq we felt very shaky
about the future but now that the situation has been clarified by
HP, we feel in a better position."
Andy Isherwood, the new general manager for enterprise systems at
HP, said the development path for the HP Nonstop servers, as they
are now called, will not change from the plans announced by Compaq.
The first Itanium servers will appear in 2004 but the company will
ensure that current servers, based on Mips processors, will be
maintained for a prolonged overlap period.
A degree of despondency may show in the Alpha camp. This is a
complex platform, inherited via Compaq's acquisition of Digital
Equipment. Under Compaq, Windows support for Alpha was curtailed
but it said it would take Tru64 Unix and the OpenVMS operating
systems to Itanium. HP has announced that Tru64 will give way to
its own brand of Unix, HP-UX, but remains committed to moving
OpenVMS across. HP is preparing a series of roadshows to assuage
the fears of Alpha owners.
Analyst Meta Group vice-president Rakesh Kumar said, "The simple
answer is for HP to tell its customers when it is going to kill off
Alpha and how they can migrate to HP-UX. To migrate OpenVMS to
Itanium doesn't make sense and we believe it is not going to
happen."
Kumar said an Alpha based on Itanium and running HP-UX would be no
different from a standard Intel server.
However, Intel, which entered a joint development programme for the
Alpha chip with Compaq, has announced that it plans to use some of
the Alpha technology in future Itanium releases. It may not be so
much a case of Alphaservers looking like Intel servers as the other
way around.
Jones said, "We were apprehensive before the take-over because we
have a five-year plan to migrate to a more open standards-based
Nonstop platform. We are now confident that we can go forward and
that there will be no surprises further down the road."
Compaq server migration map
- HP Nonstop users will be moved to Intel Itanium servers,
starting in 2004
- Mips-based servers will work seamlessly with the new servers
and be supported for most of this decade
- Alphaservers will move to Itanium but Itanium will incorporate
Alpha-like features
- Tru64 users will move sideways to HP-UX and some of the main
features of Tru64, such as clustering, may be incorporated in
HP-UX
- OpenVMS will be ported to Itanium to "rescue" investment by Vax
and Alphaserver users.