HP to rejuvenate OpenVMS on Monday

(continued from previous page)

Unix servers and the powerful RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processors later turned the tables on the VAX machines.

DEC embraced RISC and Unix, but it wasn't enough: Compaq Computer acquired DEC in 1998. But Compaq also decided not to go it alone, and HP acquired the company--along with OpenVMS--in 2002.

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 math 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 centers, 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 percent of 569 HP customers planned future OpenVMS purchases, but half that--21 percent--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.

The multi-OS playing card
And like IBM with Power, HP is expected to tout Itanium's ability to run multiple operating systems.

"It gives a customer flexibility," said Avnet's Custer. "As they plan for growth or a transition of their business, they can take that infrastructure and redeploy it elsewhere."

For Accuweather's Goodman, the multi-operating system ability makes it easier to free up purchasing dollars for OpenVMS systems.

"It holds appeal for management," which likes the argument that the company can use the server for Windows later. "I want a box for VMS. They say they're not sure we'll be using VMS in five years. They've been saying that for 20 years," Goodman said.

Another company intrigued by the multi-operating system abilities of Itanium is Cerner, a major HP partner that sells health care software called Millennium--30 million lines of code and 56 modules for tasks such as recording patient information, logging pharmacy orders and billing insurance companies. Cerner sells its software along with either HP's Alpha-based hardware running OpenVMS or IBM's Power-based hardware running AIX, but the company has begun investigating using Linux on those servers, too.

"We are seeing more (customers) that are asking specifically about Linux," said Mike Nill, vice president of technical architecture at Cerner. "We can run Linux on the IBM boxes and the Itanium boxes. We're starting some initial research-and-development work there."

Cerner has been working closely with HP to translate the OpenVMS version of its software to Itanium, but the software isn't ready yet, Nill said. "There's some more time to get fully certified on the technology. It's in the relatively near future," he said.

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.