HP and IBM update Unix ranges

HP and IBM both refreshed their Unix server lines earlier this month as they continue to fight it out with Sun Microsystems to gain a bigger share of the market.

IBM released its first blade server built around its Power6 processor, a system that will compete with HP-UX Integrity systems powered by Intel’s latest Itanium 9100 series “Montvale” CPUs and with servers from Sun running Solaris on Sparc processors, including the latest Niagara chip.

A base IBM JS22 Express blade system featuring four 64bit 4GHz Power6 processors, with 4MB of Level 2 cache per processor core, 8GB of RAM and no hard disk drive will begin shipping on 30 November for $6,700 + VAT.

The release of IBM’s new Power6 blades was supplemented by general availability of version 6 of the vendor’s AIX operating system on 9 November, and the release of Advanced Power Virtualization Enterprise Edition (APVEE) on 16 November.

APVEE will allow partitions to be migrated between physical servers live during operation, meaning IT managers will not have to schedule maintenance outside normal working hours when the systems can be switched off.

The technology can also save power by allowing applications that normally run on up to 10 servers to be consolidated on a single system during the night.

HP updated its range of HP-UX 11i Integrity and Integrity NonStop servers to include the latest line of Intel Itanium 9100 Processors, which comprise six dual-core chips and one single-core chip at clock speeds boosted slightly to 1.67GHz, and with a faster 667MHz front-side bus.

The chips are designed to help bridge what many believe to be a significant performance gap between Itanium systems and those based on IBM’s Power and Sun’s Sparc CPUs in the Risc server/ mainframe replacement market sector.

Peter Hindle, marketing manager for HP UK business critical systems division, argued that server benchmarks are often misleading, however, and rarely reflect real-world customer usage. “It’s a marketing game of performance leapfrog, but the customer does not run benchmarks or single applications. Their systems operate in peaks and troughs and have different applications that perform at different levels,” he said.

Analysts said the Itanium 9100 chips represent a relatively minor CPU refresh, and expect most firms running Intel-based servers to be more interested in migrating to systems based on Tukwila, a multi-core chip with integrated memory controller and new interconnect, due in late 2008 or early 2009.

“Minor performance bump, the addition of a low-level reliability feature, and some power mode tweaks do not a significant enhancement make,” said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff.

Unix servers represent around a third of all server sales. Though revenue growth for Unix systems remains largely flat, many mission-critical corporate applications were originally designed for Unix servers, and upgrade cycles have remained steady.
Unix is the platform traditionally used in mission-critical datacentres, for example, and to support large databases such as SAP and Oracle, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, and technical computing environments. Business Intelligence applications are starting to rely on Unix as well, said Hindle, as are specialised, high-demand healthcare applications and SQL server consolidations.

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