NEWS
HP plans to inject some new life - or more accurately, a new processor - into its venerable OpenVMS operating system on Monday, silicon.com sister site CNET News.com has learned.
The Palo Alto, California-based computer and printer company is launching version 8.2 of the operating system, which for the first time will bring OpenVMS to Itanium processors, sources familiar with the plan said. The announcement will accompany a refreshed Itanium server product line that HP will trumpet during a webcast with chief executive Carly Fiorina on Tuesday.
With the launch, HP will seek to retain historically loyal customers who today are prime targets for competitors such as IBM and Sun Microsystems. HP is vulnerable because its OpenVMS customers face a major hardware and software transition: HP is phasing out the Alpha processor that is the primary foundation for OpenVMS today.
The debut of OpenVMS 8.2 will mean that a fourth operating system can run simultaneously on the same Itanium server alongside Windows, Linux and HP's version of Unix, called HP-UX. HP is expected to launch new pricing and joint support plans Monday to make that mixture easier.
HP declined to comment on its OpenVMS launch plans.
OpenVMS for Itanium will come with many of the abilities of the Alpha version - in particular a famed reliability feature called clustering that links separate machines into a tightly knit group. One machine in a cluster can fill in for another that's taken down for equipment failure or an upgrade, for example.
Storied past
When HP bought Compaq, OpenVMS "was probably one of the close calls when they decided what was going to move forward and what projects they were going to cancel, simply because OpenVMS is clearly for legacy systems," said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. "When [administrators of] legacy systems are faced with a transition, they are going to look at other alternatives."
But presumably, HP did the maths and decided the investment was worthwhile - unlike the conclusion it reached with its largely phased-out HP 3000 line. The OpenVMS business was profitable in 2003, but HP declined to state whether it is today, citing investor regulations.
Sun is one company that would like to lure OpenVMS customers. But the company doesn't plan a high-profile campaign such as its HP Away program to convert HP-UX customers, said Larry Singer, vice president of Sun's global information systems strategy office.
"I don't see the compelling market event to cause people to go running away from that platform. It's more of a slow slide into the horizon," Singer said. Sun will try to pick up customers who aren't satisfied with HP's support or who are paring down the types of servers in their data centres, though. At HP, "it is very clear that OpenVMS is not a strategic operating system and Alpha is not a strategic platform."
It's not surprising why competitors are pouncing. In August 2003, well after HP announced it would maintain OpenVMS after the Compaq merger, a survey by an HP user group called Encompass found that 42 per cent of 569 HP customers planned future OpenVMS purchases, but half that - 21 per cent of the total - did not.
HP isn't the only one seeking to rejuvenate a stalwart product line. IBM has updated its iSeries - long called AS/400 and another decades-old family - with its new Power5 processor. The same IBM Power machine now can run Linux, IBM's AIX version of Unix and the iSeries operating system, i5/OS.
OpenVMS 8.2 features
HP is expected to release three versions of OpenVMS 8.2, said Terry Shannon, longtime OpenVMS watcher and author of the Shannon Knows High Performance Computing newsletter.
The Foundation level will be for low-end use and price-sensitive customers; the Enterprise level will sport better reliability, management tools and performance; and the Mission-Critical level will feature support for clustering.
OpenVMS 8.2 supports clusters of as many as 16 machines - up to eight Alpha-based and up to eight Itanium-based in the same group, a source familiar with the software said.
HP also is expected to introduce per-processor licensing for OpenVMS, letting customers pay for the amount of computing horsepower they're using instead of today's pricing based on the capability of the entire system. The move dovetails with HP's Adaptive Enterprise initiative to better link a customer's computing infrastructure with its business priorities.
Support for the operating system initially will be available on lower-end Itanium servers ranging from the dual-processor rx1600 to the four-processor rx4640.
A key requirement for customers to make the move to Itanium will be new versions of their software, though HP offers a migration tool that eases the change even when the software's original source code isn't available.
There will be 250 OpenVMS applications available for Itanium by the end of February and 800 in 2005, HP said. That compares with 3,000 for other Itanium operating systems - roughly 1,500 for HP-UX and 750 each for Windows and Linux.
Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com.
