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Re: Project Odyssey

 

Project Odyssey

For those who haven't seen the announcement:

 

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111122xb.html

 

Interested in hearing opinions on this...


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11 REPLIES 11
Stephan.
Honored Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

First!

 

Ok, I try to be serious ... Odyssey would have been my personal last choice as name for a project like this but it seems someone still saved a kind of humor.

 

HP-UX is one of my big focus so I would like to hear something different than we are improving Windows & Linux but as the customer wish, he get it. Windows & Linux is from my point of view still and will never be a BCS system - both try to support everything on anything, this will just not work or not so good as a OS built for a specific Hardware with no support for anything else.

 

Never the less, pretty exiting announcement and we will see what the future brings up.

 

My 2 Cent.

Kris_Knigga
Trusted Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

HP is sending a very mixed message.  With their words they are saying, "HP-UX is alive and well!  It's not going anywhere!".  With their actions they are saying, "Time to move off of HP-UX and on to Linux (or Windows) because the end is nigh.".

 

The Register is reporting that "some of the technologies that make HP-UX and its Integrity and Superdome platforms rock-solid will end up being donated to the Linux kernel, as will tweaks for core and thread scalability and large memory support" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/22/hp_to_make_x86_superdomes/ ).  Couple that with the fact that HP is bringing back ServiceGuard for Linux and it sure sounds like HP is trying to make Linux a replacement for HP-UX.

 

I'm worried for HP-UX.


Kris Knigga

Re: Project Odyssey

I was kind of expecting this, but at the same time I don't really understand these sorts of concerns

 

- when IBM (as it does regularly) states it is "bringing IP from the mainframe to its Power/AIX systems", do IBM Mainframe customers take that as a signal that this is the death of the mainframe and its associated OSs?

 

- when HP announce they are supporting Oracle Linux on their Proliant boxes, does it mean the "death of Red Hat Linux"?

 

Taking one action does not mean you stop doing everything else. You just can't make broad sweeping statements like that - the end isn't nigh - HP have committed support for HPUX right out to 2021, and plenty of new technology coming to market right now (have you looked at vPars 6.0 - vPars on blades!)

 

If customers are asking for "mission critical linux and windows", why not provide it? Surely its about flexibility and choice?


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Stephan.
Honored Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

These points of concerns comes due to the fact that there is nothing new announced for BCS since all the confusion with the oracle guys.

 

Do you believe support up to 2021 is a long term? I have customers where a Integrity/PA-RISC systems live time is longer ...

 

All we got is:

- support up to 2021

- Poulson (est. 2012)

- Kittson (est. 2014)

- and many many statements that Itanium will stay

 

What we do not see:

- new hardware

- new idea's (vPar on blades is just a port of existing technology to the current Hardware)

 

I attended a Session called "Future of BCS" on the DISCOVER and what did they show? The ProLiant 890 ...

 

So I have concerns that this project means somehow the end of an area, even if I believe that it will not affect the time that I have to work before I retire.

 

 

 

Re: Project Odyssey

>>All we got is:

>>- support up to 2021

>>- Poulson (est. 2012)

>>- Kittson (est. 2014)

>>- and many many statements that Itanium will stay

 

So what do IBM and Oracle say about their processors that goes out beyond 2014/2015? Why do HP have to publish a longer roadmap than their competitors? I don't think the public roadmaps for Xeon go out beyond 2015 - does that mean Intel is going to stop developing that as well?

 

>>What we do not see:

>>- new hardware

>>- new idea's (vPar on blades is just a port of existing technology to the current Hardware)

 

Huh? The SD2 and i2 blades only came out last year - what new hardware would we want? These models were designed (much like the old SD1) to be field upgrade-able to newer processor types when they come out.

 

And I suggest you have a closer look at vPars 6 - it is nothing like previous versions of vPars - right now its just on blades, but as v6.1 and 6,. come online you will see it on SD2 as well, and you will also have the capability of having vPars and HPVMs on the same nPar/blade... Also take a look at all the new capabilities for automation/orchestration coming with the HP-UX version of CloudSystem.

 


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Stephan.
Honored Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

Just to clear this up, this should not be an offense. You asked for the reasons of the concerns, above are mine.

 

I don't care about IBM or Oracle (not 100% true but for this statement it's fine) and what they are doing, I'm HP labeled/minded/... my whole working life.

 

I don't ask for publishing a longer roadmap, I just don't want to hear nothing or that the future of BCS is x86 and/or linux/windows.

 

About vPar 6, I know that there are pretty nice new feature and a lot of things got changed but the basic still is electrical isolation and this was not possible on the blade server and with v6 it is - so for me a port of the existing technology to the current hardware.

Kris_Knigga
Trusted Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

Duncan Edmonstone wrote:

- when IBM (as it does regularly) states it is "bringing IP from the mainframe to its Power/AIX systems", do IBM Mainframe customers take that as a signal that this is the death of the mainframe and its associated OSs?

 

No, because the mainframe is a very, very niche market where Unix, Linux, and Windows don't compete and may never.  I don't get it, but some companies are very loyal to mainframes and just aren't looking to change.  Plus, IBM owns both businesses, so any resulting losses from the mainframe arena probably end up as wins in the AIX arena.  IBM isn’t hurting themselves necessarily by doing that.

 

Duncan Edmonstone wrote: 

- when HP announce they are supporting Oracle Linux on their Proliant boxes, does it mean the "death of Red Hat Linux"?

 

No, because HP doesn't control either and we're talking about commodity hardware, not big iron.  Even if HP stopped supporting RHEL on Proliant Red Hat isn't sunk, as RHEL runs on nearly anything x86.  HP-UX, however, only has Integrity.

 

Duncan Edmonstone wrote:

Taking one action does not mean you stop doing everything else. You just can't make broad sweeping statements like that - the end isn't nigh - HP have committed support for HPUX right out to 2021, and plenty of new technology coming to market right now (have you looked at vPars 6.0 - vPars on blades!)

If customers are asking for "mission critical linux and windows", why not provide it? Surely its about flexibility and choice?

 

I’m not saying the end is nigh, I’m saying that’s what it sounds like HP is saying.  In the current state of things Linux and Windows should not be competing with big iron in the mission critical space.  While some people are trying it, in general Linux and Windows just aren’t reliable enough yet.  They are trying to fight a two-front war, in the data center and on the desktop, and they are disadvantaged for it.  The big advantage big iron Unicies have is that they focus on the data center and have gotten really good in their roles there.  By HP contributing HP-UX IP to Linux and possibly Windows, they are creating competition for themselves.  It’s a stupid move unless HP plans on getting out of the OS business and focus only on hardware.

 

If I were HP, I’d be fine with Microsoft or some Linux vendor trying to build up their product to compete with HP-UX, but I surely wouldn’t be helping them.  Unless, like I said before, I was planning on killing off HP-UX and needed to make sure there still were OSs to run on my hardware.


Kris Knigga

Re: Project Odyssey

 

The last time HP developed these kinds of delusions of grandeur, the result was Project Monterrey.  Look where that led them.

Dennis Handly
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: Project Odyssey

>the result was Project Monterrey.

 

Do you have some references??  The only thing I find is that:

... Project Monterrey, and Tarantella are registered trademarks of the Santa Cruz Operation.

 

And this mentions IBM and SCO:

http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Project_Monterrey