HPUX vs other unix based OS

[Sanjay Dronamraju]

What are the advantages HPUX offers vis a vis other unix based OS's ?

[Jupinder Bedi]

There are so many advantages

1) LVM which is more powerful filesystem tool other than any unix OS

2) Trusted system is the extra feature

3) one of the best virtualization system ( N-par and V-Par ) concept

4) best clustering system ( MC Service guard cluster )

No need buy any third party software or any clustering software or any volume manager like veritas volume and cluster which is very expensive .

[Vishu]

Hello Mr. Bedi,

is VCS more expensive than MC/SG?

[Jupinder Bedi]

Go for Mission critical OS of hpux and there is no need buy anything and cheaper than any other combinations

[J. Maestre]

But LVM and MC Service Guard aren't HP-UX exclusive technologies, are they?

[Torsten.]

About LVM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_volume_manager

(Part of HP-UX since hp-ux version 9)


Service Guard is by HP, what else?

[Jupinder Bedi]

I am not saying that they are exclusive from hpux . I was only giving the answer to vishal that MC OS is the best package other than any other combination.

[Michael Steele_2]

Hi

In my opinion these o/s's are pretty equal: HP-UX, Solaris.

I would not put Linux at the same level of these two because it's inferior in many utilities as well as software put together and supported by hobbyists. Why is this a problem? When you pay someone to meet a deadline its met. When you rely on a hobbyist it might be a decade before its complete.

Between HP-UX and Solaris support and architecture are what I look at and at this time I have to put Solaris / Oracle (* I forgot, Sun is now owned by Mr. Ellison *), above HP. Sparc was equal too or superior to PA-Risc, and Itanium is still way inferior.

HP has let thousand's of intelligent, knowledgeable support people go and replaced them with uneducated, illeterates who can't get the job down: Despite have five plus years to get better.

HP support is very, very bad.

One note that I'd like to open up for discussion is a comparison between the PA-Risc CPU and the Itanium. I see reviews and advocates for greater Itanium MIPS and MOPS, but few recall what Risc is and means: Reduced Instruction Set. Which translate into approximately, what a PA-Risc CPU can do in one operation, an Itanium needs a hundred.

When you factor this in, all those rave Itanium speed reviews deflat like a popped balloon, for I have never seen a Itanium box on par to a PA-Risc box, either in speed or reliability.

Number One: Sun / Solaris / Sparc

[Torsten.]

This is what HP says:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/os/hpux11i-competitive-solaris-overview.html

[J. Maestre]

RedHat is supported by hobbyists? Since when?

[Michael Steele_2]

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-6.2-Manual/getting-started-guide/ch-history.html

[J. Maestre]

My point is that RH is supported by RH, you don't get forwarded to hobbyists. They issue their own fixes for third party OSS and merge them upstream.

[Dennis Handly]

>Michael: what a PA-RISC CPU can do in one operation, an Itanium needs a hundred.

Any particular instruction you had in mind as that slow?

[Nafez ALNajjar]

Hi,
Performance is not always the key value , a combination of Price/Performance could be a better benchmark , And according to this research by illuminata , Intel Itanuim on Integrity seems to have a nice Price/Performance comparing to RISC machines.

http://www.integrity.com.pl/upload_module/u_doc/nowe/partnerzy_materialy/iluminata_itanium_p5_sparc.pdf

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] few recall what Risc is and means:
> Reduced Instruction Set. Which translate
> into approximately, what a PA-Risc CPU can
> do in one operation, an Itanium needs a
> hundred.

Oh, yeah. Those Reduced Instruction Set
Computing CPUs are famous for having a large
number of different instructions, each of
which does one or more complex tasks.

Yow.

> I have never seen a Itanium box on par to
> a PA-Risc box, either in speed or
> reliability.

Perhaps you should get out more. I'd say
that an rx26XX system, say, would beat any
number of ten-year-old PA-RISC systems in
both speed and reliability.

[Michael Steele_2]

Here you go Steven Weeda, maybe you should as you clientian about this: fluphenazine decanoate) Has the advantage of providing reliable dosing for a person who doesn't want to take the medication. A high-potency antipsychotic, it is formulated to allow slow release of the active drug when given as a deep, intramuscular injection.

[VK2COT]

Hello Sanjay,

The question should probably be rephrased as:

Which Unix-based O/S works best for me?

Generic questions about which one is better
will draw immense amount of conflicting
comments. People base the answers on their
experience, rumours, feelings...

I have worked in Unix for the last 25-odd
years. And I am at HP for the last 10
years. I design, manage and review
all sorts of Unix/Linux/MacOS platforms,
so I think I have a reasonably wide
experience with all of them:

http://www.circlingcycle.com.au/dusan.html

HP-UX has some great advantages over
other O/Ses and there are some areas
for improvement too.

Other Unices have some great features as
well. It all depends on what you need and
what price you are prepared to pay.

It is easy to be negative and I avoid
doing it in my life.

So, please tell us what you want to achieve
with Unix servers?

Regards,

VK2COT

[dirk dierickx]

Depends what you mean with Unix based, do you include Linux in that or not? I would say if you do not, these days, you're an idiot.

1) LVM which is more powerful filesystem tool other than any unix OS
Wow, that is so untrue, linux comes with LVM as well, it uses the same commands as HPUX. Solaris has ZFS which everybody wants

2) Trusted system is the extra feature
Yawn, linux has SELinux special kernel extentions developed by the NSA, pretty nifty stuff. With solaris you have the 'trusted extensions'

3) one of the best virtualization system ( N-par and V-Par ) concept
some depend on hardware, which SUN has as well, and i know that in the past there have been intel boxes with this (don't know if they still exist or not). On software level solaris has zones and linux has a bunch of stuff like kvm, xen, actually too many to mention

4) best clustering system ( MC Service guard cluster )
riiight, which is available on linux too. on solaris you have the sun cluster or use vcs (which is available for hpux and linux too).

"I would not put Linux at the same level of these two because it's inferior in many utilities as well as software put together and supported by hobbyists."
Oh, common, are you stuck in the 90s or something? you do know that most of linux contribution comes from companies, actually paying programmers to work on linux. the fact that linux is OSS allows anybody to add/fix code, but the actual amount of 'outside' contributes in total is minor (we're talking a few % here). you do realise that services from google (to just name the biggest player) are build on linux from top to bottom. yeah, really hobbyist system.

i would choose hpux myself only in the case that the software that needs to be used is hpux only or runs best on hpux (sometimes ISV's do lousy ports, and software is not stable on platform X or Y).

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Dirk,

>> Depends what you mean with Unix based, do you include Linux in that or not? I would say if you do not, these days, you're an idiot.

Strong language - I personally _would_ include Linux in these sorts of comparisons, but I would not be so quick to label anyone an "idiot" who didn't. extreme statements produce extreme responses - thoughtful and calm arguments generally produce better results than slanging matches.

>> Solaris has ZFS which everybody wants

Hmmm - Not "everybody" - As a HP-UX admin I don't think I see a great demand for it - ZFS has some nifty features, no doubt, but everything it does is pretty much acheivable with a filesystem and volume manager anyway - also to me it seems more directed a JBOD rather than for use with already "protected" disk array storage...

>> SELinux special kernel extentions developed by the NSA, pretty nifty stuff.

Ever used SELinux? I found it _very_ painful
- but thats just my opinion...


>> Oh, common, are you stuck in the 90s or something? you do know that most of linux contribution comes from companies, actually paying programmers to work on linux. the fact that linux is OSS allows anybody to add/fix code, but the actual amount of 'outside' contributes in total is minor (we're talking a few % here). you do realise that services from google (to just name the biggest player) are build on linux from top to bottom. yeah, really hobbyist system.

Your point is correct, Linux is no longer a hobbyist system, but there _are_ areas where Linux still misses functionality and capability... Being able to add/remove hardware online being one of my main gripes... another being the painful integration of os, hardware, tools and application - all of which seem to support different kernel revs, plus the rate of change is painful too!

But I would certainly consider Linux when the app fits well there...

HTH

Duncan

[OldSchool]

"application - all of which seem to support different kernel revs, plus the rate of change is painful too! ..."


I'll second that. Used to get dozens of updates a week on RedHat....

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

HP-UX is the most salable, industrial strength OS out there.

It is very reliable and Enterprise class.

The financial footing of HP is a factor in its continued existence in the market place.

The quality assurance of HP-UX is much improved when compared to Red Hat Linux.

SEP

[dirk dierickx]

"ZFS has some nifty features, no doubt, but everything it does is pretty much acheivable with a filesystem and volume manager anyway - also to me it seems more directed a JBOD rather than for use with already "protected" disk array storage."
yes, but that is not the point. like perl which makes quick scripting and small prototype programming easier, but does nothing you couldn't do in C. doesn't mean perl isn't great or useful to have on a system.
it is targetted to JBODs because it handles the protection itself (ofcourse nothing is stopping you from still using the arrays hw protection). it does make the disk hw a lot cheaper.

"Ever used SELinux? I found it _very_ painful
- but thats just my opinion..."
it is not the most intuitive piece of software, that is true, but it is powerful, and in the recent years the have made it 'easier' to use.

"there _are_ areas where Linux still misses functionality and capability... Being able to add/remove hardware online being one of my main gripes... another being the painful integration of os, hardware, tools and application - all of which seem to support different kernel revs, plus the rate of change is painful too!"
linux does support online hw changes, it is mostly a problem with HW. there are only a few intel boxes for example that will allows such actions and they are expensive, mostly people do not want this feature for an intel box anyway since they mostly scale horizontal, so when one drops out or needs an outage it is not even that much of a problem.
i can agree to a certain point with the integration with HW. but that is again a choice of the HW vendor not to support standards. if they require extra software to be loaded (and sometimes as a kernel module), they should open it up so it can be maintained since the vendors mostly do not want to put effort in maintaining it themself.

"I'll second that. Used to get dozens of updates a week on RedHat."
which very few are critical to install, just like i get a staggering list of hpux patches each week to install (and a lot more of those would require a reboot).