HP Integrity server family Bad Rap

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Hi,

Don't forget to check this link

http://www.itanium-integrity.com/

[Alan_152]

I work with most of the HP IA64 linux line in a test lab. They seem to do OK for what I need them to do.

If you have an issue, I'd be happy to try and help.

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Thanks a lot everyone for your inputs, I plan to keep this thread alive to see if I get more inputs.

[Matthew Ghofrani]

I was told about the following link. Thought I should share with all you as well.


Next are some links regarding Itanium-integrity success stories.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/280683-0-0-0-121.html

[Gene Laoyan]

I have to give my 2cents in. We have ordered a new rx8640 and will be in sometime in July. All we kept hearing is about how the second biggest investor in the Itanium market (SGI) is going bellyup. Really at this point, HP is the only "Big" backer of the product. Of course HP said they dumped 10Billion dollars into the market for the Itanium but that still makes me uneasy. Word of mouth is saying it's going the way of the Alpha. I'm not knocking this down or anything but that's what I am hearing and from the stories and reports of SGI, what is one supposed to think at this point. Don't get me wrong, I like the Integrity Servers and If we had the $$$ I would have opted for a Superdome or two.

[Cameron Rooke]

HP decided years ago to use a third party to develop its processors as opposed to making them themselves. They partnered with Intel to develop a new 64-bit processor architecture and came up with Itanium EPIC. It doesn't surprise me that other big players in the server marketplace have so far chosen not to embrace Itanium since they would have their own significant dollars invested in their own chip technologies. HP recognized that RISC can only go so far, and with Itanium, they can take processing power even higher. No one raises an eyebrow when IBM sinks billions into their POWER processors, so what makes HP so different? Itanium (EPIC) is a new technology and anyone who expected it to take off day one is foolish. Itanium will make gains - first with HP, then later with other vendors that need the horsepower for their systems and that do not want to spend the R&D dollars to develop new technology. Down the road, HP can focus it's R&D dollars elsewhere and become even more profitable as their competitors try to catch up.

[Duncan Edmonstone]

If you ask me anyone who thinks that processor technology is the component of a system that adds value and differentiates a system must be living in the past. The fact that HP Integrity servers run Intel Itanium processors is kind of irrelevant, cos the value in the systems is realised by what HP build around the processors in terms of chipsets and software etc. Where's the value in having a processor which is very fast at something like the tpmC benchmark, but in a system that never gets utilised more than 30% ? The key to an effective server is how much value you can drive out of it - I don't like the term, but 'sweating the asset' is often used to deescribe this - making sure that all those expensive processors actually get used. HP achieve this through clever virtualisation and partitioning technologies that let you drive the systems up to 70-80% utilisation numbers.

The Internet tech community still gets so hung up on raw performance figures because its easy to measure compared to other meausrements of value - its like owning a car - 'my sports car has a top speed of 150mph, your people carrier is just 110mph' - so what? You can only get 2 people in yours, I can get 6 in mine, or I can convert the back seats to flat so I can transport goods as well (flexibility drives value!). Luckily the chattering masses on the various web sites ( like theregister or zdnet etc.), don't actually get to make IT decisions in general - they just spend all their time talking about it... Most intelligent CIOs can make a business decision based on more than anm acquisition costs and some speeds & feeds, and as such I'm sure that HP Integrity servers will have a bright future.

HTH

Duncan

(who actually does drive a 2 seater roadster , not a people carrier!)

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Thanks all for your inputs.

I still like to hear more opinions as we have not make a decision yet.

Matthew From Boston

[Robert Gezelter · Accepted solution]

Matthew,

I have been following the IA-64/Itanium issue for many years (I even remember being rebuffed by a representitive when I asked for details about the instruction set: the response was that it was the greatest thing since [canned beer, sliced bread] but tha the instruction set was confidential).

Things have come a long way since then. The situation with the IA-64 has followed a curve that we have all seen before, from any number of CPU architecture vendors.

When a new architecture is announced, and first shipped, the cup in the raw speed/capacity/capability race remains with the older architecture, it has the advantage of implementation experience.

In my own personal experience, I saw this during Digital's sequential release of the PDP-11/VAX, and VAX/ALPHA. When then Compaq announced the decision to adopt IA-64 as its next architecture, I did a quick re-review of IA-64 (the details had in the interim been released), and published an item on the www that I expected the migration of OpenVMS to be a significant effort, but not a major problem. This article was in response to a number of messages that had appeared in comp.os.vms. My concern was not technical issues, it was business issues. This article is still available at http://www.rlgsc.com/alphaitanium.html

I also presented a session at the 2001 Compaq
Enterprise Technology Symposium on the issues involved in migrating applications from Alpha to Itanium from an OpenVMS perspective, "The Third Porting: Applying Past Lessons to the Alpha/Itanium Transition". In this session, I identified the similarities between Alpha and IA-64 on a data level, and projected that the factors that had caused the most trouble in the change from VAX to Alpha were simply not present in a transition from Alpha to Integrity. The session was written from the perspective of an OpenVMS user, but most of the comments are applicable to other operating systems, including Tru64 and HPUX. The notes from this session are available at http://www.rlgsc.com/cets/2001/1620.html

When HP transferred it's stake in the actual chips to Intel, and reallocated its resources to server and system development, it resolved a qualm I had had about the adoption of IA-64 by Compaq, when HP had a privileged position, and that that could become a business issue. I published comments on that issue on OSNews.com, at http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9191

In short, early adoptors of any technology (read the history of the introduction of jet powered aircraft) almost invariably face the instant catcalls of users who decide that the optimized existing technology is a better bet than the unoptimized new technology.

It is only later, when the new technology begins to assimilate the improvements inevitable in each successive generation, that the benefits of the new approach become apparent (how many large piston airliners have you flown in recently).

My advice to clients in 2001 and now remains the same, "Don't speculate, do science. Buy a samll, workstation/departmental server system (rx-class in the case of Integrity), and develop an experience base with the technlogy and its use. Then we can talk about larger systems (In the OpenVMS world, there is a great deal of latitude on whether the best solution is a collection of relatively small boxes in an OpenVMS cluster, or a single Superdome, or something in between the two).

My apologies if this post is a little long-winded.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Robert;

Thanks so much for your inputs & sharing your personal experience. Reading it was very informative.