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the operating system and the hardware platform on which new storage technologies that reduce data center costs and
it runs, but the ability of the platform to enable and support help you be more responsive to changing business needs.
your future business requirements.
Innovation Fuels the Rise of Linux
The Decline of Itanium/HP-UX What is the alternative? Until recently, x86 servers running
Historically, Itanium/HP-UX has been a competitive UNIX Linux lacked the performance, RAS (reliability, availability
platform even though Itaniums original performance was and serviceability), scale-up capabilities and workload man-
disappointing compared to other RISC processors. However, agement of Itanium/HP-UX platforms used to run mission-
in recent years, uncertainty around Intels support for Itanium critical, back-end database applications. Now, that is no
processorsas well as the uncertainty about Oracle and Red longer the case.
Hats continuing support for Itanium with their offeringshas
generated questions about the viability of Itanium long term Intel has incorporated (and continues to add) RAS and scale-
and helped draw HP-UXs market share down sharply. up features from its Itanium processors into its x86 Xeon
processors. In addition, HP has incorporated many of the
Specifically, in March 2011, Oracle announced that it would dis- RAS features from its Itanium-based Superdome 2 hardware
continue development on Itanium. Prior to this, Red Hat and running HP-UX into its ProLiant computers such as the DL
Microsoft had announced plans to drop support for Itanium. 980, which uses multi-core Xeon processors. These features
An HP lawsuit against Oracle in the latter half of 2011 resulted in include improved interprocessor communication, higher in-
Oracle being ordered to maintain support for Itanium/ HP-UX. terconnect bandwidth, machine check architecture recovery,
By this time, however, market interest in Itanium/HP-UX had double device correction and more.
waned, and orders for Itanium/HP-UX were either delayed or
canceled. HP ended up paying Intel several hundred million These types of enhancements have made SUSE Linux Enter
dollars to keep Itanium afloat. Today HP has about 95 percent prise Server running on HPs x86-based servers very compe
of the Itanium server market share, primarily running HP-UX. titive with its Itanium/HP-UX platforms in terms of RAS, I/O
As the use of Itanium diminishes, HP-UX has experienced an speed, processor performance, resiliency and more. In other
annual double-digit market share decline from 10 percent to words, today, the price, performance and reliability of x86/
more than 20 percent per year,1 beginning in 2008.2 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server platforms now meet or exceed
the capabilities of Itanium/HP-UX.5
Other issues also dog the platform. Support and mainte-
nance contracts for Itanium/HP-UX platforms continue to be Just as important, many of the innovative technologies used
much more expensive than for x86-64/Linux.3 Itanium server to modernize data centers are built for Linux and x86 serv-
performance has suffered greatly, especially on a per-core ers, and virtually none of them are associated with Itanium/
basis.4 In addition, ISVs are dropping support for applica- HP-UX. Staying with Itanium/HP-UX limits your ability to
tions on Itanium/HP-UX. Lack of innovation around Itanium/ modernize your data center and effectively locks you in.
HP-UX limits your ability to take advantage of many new __________
technologies, such as virtualization, cloud computing and
1 IDC Worldwide Server Operating Environments Shipments and
Installed Base, 19962016, August 2012.
2 www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/
oracle-resumes-hp-itanium-support-for-n/240006723
Itanium/HP-UX is viewed as having an extremely
3 www.pcworld.com/article/223360/Oracle.html
uncertain roadmap, even for the next few years, 4 www.zdnet.com/blog/howlett/hp-superdome-dead-as-a-dodo/
due to lack of market interest in both Itanium 4194
5 http://docs.media.bitpipe.com/io_10x/io_106502/item_582322/
and HP-UX and, most important, lack of interest TT 12-188 HP Unix to Linux Migration revised.pdf
in Itanium by Intel.
www.suse.com 3
Data Center Modernization White Paper
The Case for Migrating from Itanium/HP-UX to x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
As a result, enterprises are migrating from Itanium/HP-UX to x86/Linuxespecially SUSE Linux Enterprise Serveris the
x86/Linux platforms running new multi-core, scale-up x86 centerpiece of their data center modernization initiatives.
servers such as the HP DL980 Xeon 7500 series servers, Today x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers the features/
x86 AMD and Intel servers from IBM such as the IBM System technologies of RISC/UNIX, plus higher performance, greater
x3690, and PowerEdge M910 and R910 servers from Dell. In interoperability and openness to innovation all at a lower
fact, for many corporations with an HP-UX installed base, cost, as shown in Table 1 below.
migrating legacy Itanium and PA-RISC/HP-UX systems to
Table 1: Comparison of Features/Technologies Available in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and HP-UX
Technologies SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (for x86) HP-UX (for Itanium)
File system Ships with several different file systems, including btrfs, ext3 Includes the VERITAS File System (VxFS), sometimes called JFS
(default for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), ext2, ReiserFS, XFS and Online JFS in HP-UX. Originally developed by VERITAS
(open source version) and OCFS2. Each has advantages and Software, VxFS is an extent-based file system.
disadvantages.6
VxFS is also supported on AIX, Linux, Solaris and OpenSolaris. It is
A file system comparison table is located at: www.suse.com7 comparable to other UNIX file systems such as Oracle Sun ZFS.
Predictive Requires hardware support to be fully effective. SUSE is working Supports automatic mitigation of software/hardware errors, such
self-healing with all major hardware vendors, especially IBM and Intel, as admin notifications, isolation/deactivation of faulty components
to optimize integration of hardware and operating system in and guided repair.
this area.
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Technologies SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (for x86) HP-UX (for Itanium)
Containers Supports Linux Containers (LXC), an operating system-level HP-UX Containers provide an environment for consolidating
virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems multiple workloads within a single image of HP-UX 11i v3, similar
(containers) on a single control host. to Linux Containers and Oracle Solaris Containers.
www.suse.com 5
Data Center Modernization White Paper
The Case for Migrating from Itanium/HP-UX to x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Technologies SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (for x86) HP-UX (for Itanium)
High Performance Linux dominates the Top500 List of the worlds largest super- Itanium/HP-UX used to be a leader in the HPC market.
Computing (HPC) computers with 94 percent of the supercomputers running Today, Itanium/HP-UX has only a single system on the Top500
Linux. And SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is running on many supercomputer list. Its performance on a per-core basis (based
of them. on SPEC processor benchmarks) has dropped significantly
below that of x86 multi-core servers from AMD and Intel
HPC business applications, referred to as crossover HPC running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (see the Performance
applications, are also preferred on x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise table entry below).
Server. High-performance computer clusters running crossover
applications are typically smaller than supercomputer clusters. Crossover HPC applications can run on Itanium/HP-UX, but the
cost of an Itanium/HP-UX platform would be almost prohibitive.
Innovation x86/Linux is at the center of innovation for technologies used to Today, HP is effectively the only supporter of Itanium/HP-UX.
modernize data centers. Open access to source code encourages Innovation, if any, on this platform is being done by HP. No external
innovation, as does a vibrant, growing community. innovation is happening.
Cost x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server platforms are a fraction of the The cost of HP-UX varies depending on the operating environment
cost of Itanium/HP-UX platforms. The big differences are cost of (OE) and the Itanium-based Integrity server used.
the Itanium servers, licensing of HP-UX, and maintenance for the
Itanium platform. HP-UX with the Data Center OE with clustering and virtualization
wrapped together has a per core cost of over US$4,000.8,9
Because the per-core performance of x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server is often 2x that of Itanium/HP-UX, you have big savings The cost of a five-year Priority subscription for a 32 core
on application licensing because you need fewer cores (and (four socket) IBM Xeon 7560 is US$12,000. The one time cost
sockets) to run those applications. of an HP-UX license for the HP Integrity rx8640 with 32 cores is
US$128,000. And the IBM Xeon 7560 provides 2x the performance
per core.
Performance x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a clear winner on perfor- x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on SPECint, SPECfp,
mance tests, especially the core SPEC performance benchmarks. SPECint_rate and SPECfp_rate benchmarks (www.spec.org)
These benchmarks include SPECint, SPECfp, SPECint_rate, and clearly outperforms Itanium/HP-UX by a factor of 2x on a per-
SPECfp_rate. The results of SPEC benchmarks can be found at: core basis.
www.spec.org
8 www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2010/
nextgenerationintegrity/NGISHPUXMarch2010.pdf
9 http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx%2F4AA3-
5947ENW.pdf
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Summary and Conclusion In contrast, x86/SUSE Enterprise Linux Server offers the in-
Itanium/HP-UX still has excellent RAS capabilities. It could teroperability, openness to innovation, higher performance
also have been a formidable competitor to Linux for the and lower cost necessary for success today and tomorrow.
back-end, mission-critical database applications market As a result:
were Itanium to have not lost favor in the market. Today,
Itanium/HP-UX is viewed as having: x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is an excellent platform
for replacing your more costly, lower performing Itanium/
An extremely uncertain roadmap, even for the next few HP-UX systems.
years. This is due to lack of market interest in both Itanium x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is an excellent platform
and HP-UX and, most importantly, lack of interest in Itanium for modernizing your data center.
by Intel. In short, HP-UX is a dying platform x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers the affordability,
A lack of the technology, interoperability and innovation interoperability and innovation necessary to support modern
necessary to modernize data centers and to accommodate data centers in the face of new technologies such as cloud
new IT trends such as cloud computing, Big Data, mobile computing, Big Data, mobile devices and social media.
devices and social media
A confusing cloud computing strategy and product offering
Costly operating system licensing and costly hardware x86/SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a preferred
Poor per-core performance
ISV development platform while Itanium/HP-UX
Limited virtualization, and limited interoperability and
integration with other virtualization software is a secondary platform to which applications may
Rapidly dropping ISV enthusiasm only be ported if demand warrants.
Lock-in
www.suse.com 7
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