HP set to extend Integrity line-up to x86 platform

BANGALORE, INDIA: Technology company Hewlett-Packard announced that its mission-critical converged infrastructure will continue to enhance the company's integrity platforms supporting HP UX, HP NonStop and OpenVMS operating systems. Over time, these will cascade mission-critical x86 platforms delivering single, unified infrastructure for Unix, Microsoft Windows and Linux platform.

Santanu Ghose, director, business critical system, said: "Itanium range with HP UX and OpenVMS was happening in the mission critical domain. Some of these applications which were running on X86 using Linux or Windows are also becoming critical for us today. That is why we are going to extend our mission critical portfolio into the Linux and Windows area with x86 range of processors. We do not have an exact timeline, but is on the anvil, although still some quarters away."

The makers of Itanium, Intel, too had sometime back made their intentions clear on similar lines.

Srinivasan Ramaprasad, business manager, MNC accounts, Intel South Asia, said: "We are focused on mission-critical environments. Kittson is the next version of Paulson. I do not have any particular date for its launch. It will take roughly two-three years as did Paulson. After Kittson, we will be announcing the next version as and when it happens because we do not look beyond two years."

The future generations of Intel Itanium processors will adopt Modular Development Model that enables commonality between Intel Itanium and Xeon processor E7 family, from shared silicon design elements to full-socket compatibility.

"Going forward Xeon processor will also be a part of mission critical applications. Kittson onwards, the same platform will be compatible with Xeon and Itanium processors and OEMs can choose whichever they want," Ramaprasad added.

HP new product launch

In the midst of all the uncertainties looming over Itanium-based server's future, HP and Intel launched five new Integrity servers based on the latter's latest Itanium platform.

The new products include, Integrity Superdome 2, three new HP Integrity server blades - BL860ci4, BL870ci4, and BL890ci4, and a new entry-class HP Integrity server, rx2800i4. The other announcements include HP-UX software upgradation and new advisory workshops for customers.

The new servers, built on Intel's eighth generation Itanium 9500 series processor platform (codenamed Paulson) launched earlier this month, are meant to cater to 'mission critical environment', a word that was the most oft repeated and stressed upon by both the company representatives throughout the event.

Itanium 9500 contains 3.1 billion transistors; up from 2.1 billion that of its predecessor 9300, supports up to twice as many cores (8 instead of 4) than 9300. The new frequencies range up to 2.53 GHz. It provides up to 2.4 times performance scaling and 33 per cent faster IO speed over the previous generation.

HP Superdome 2 comes with double the number of cores. The new server blades utilize up to 21 per cent less energy with new low-voltage, dual in-line memory modules (DIMMS). HP claims that it can processes transactions almost three times faster (1x owing to OS and 2x owing to processor) than the previous model and can achieve a 33 per cent TCO reduction.

While BL860c i4 server can scale up to two sockets, BL870c i4 can scale up to four and BL890c i4 can scale up to eight sockets. Double the size of HP-UX workloads are supported within the same data center footprint with up to 256 cores per server, says the company.

The first new HP Integrity systems, including the Superdome 2 server blades, are currently available

When asked as to why HP showcased a bad show in the quarter results, Ghose said, "World economy, especially the US and Europe, was dull in 2012. So customers were spending less. This explains why HP saw a dip in its server revenue. And, it was not just HP, but other server vendors also saw a similar phase. Moreover, today systems are becoming more efficient, so you are seeing better price performance and so investment was less. 2012 was a tough year in India as well. Although a few sectors, such as banking were spending, others such as telecom came to a stand still. Moreover, for various reasons, government was not spending. However, in the past couple of months we have been seeing some trends and are positive about how 2013 would be, when we expect spending and investments to go up."