from Tru64 UNIX® to hp-ux
questions and answers

A1-1. As co-inventor of the Intel® Itanium® architecture with Intel® Corporation, HP has more expertise in this technology than any other vendor. We intend to offer the most advanced Itanium® platforms in the industry, along with the best end-to-end service and support.

HP is uniquely qualified to help our customers get the most out of Itanium®-based technology. We have recently released servers based on Intel Itanium® 2 chips and have enhanced the latest version of HP-UX for the Intel® Itanium® platform to deliver the industry’s most capable and complete enterprise UNIX for the Intel® Itanium® architecture.

In addition, HP’s leadership capabilities, world-class services, and expertise in transitions make the company the best choice for existing and future customers. The best evidence we have today for the type of support our customers can expect is that we are still providing support for Digital PDP-11 and VAX systems purchased well over a decade ago. HP has already put programs in place, such as the AlphaServer Customer Assurance Program, to ensure investment protection for its customers.

Finally, HP has the best roadmap in the industry, giving its customers the choice of platforms while ensuring them of the best features and functionality on whichever platform they choose to run their business. That’s a commitment that no other UNIX® vendor has made.

A1-2. HP believes that Itanium® -based servers will become the enterprise platform of choice over the next 5+ years. HP enterprise systems developed on the Intel® Itanium® architecture will provide leading performance, with the scalability and flexibility needed for mission-critical environments. We believe that HP-UX on the Intel® Itanium® platform will be the best, most robust enterprise UNIX available, with the additional benefit of being the most cost-effective server solution in the industry.

Enabled by the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor and the high-bandwidth low-latency HP Chipset zx1, HP servers and workstations set record performance in recent benchmarks. Adopting Intel® Itanium® technology from HP will offer customers clear advantages in terms of performance, technology leadership, time to market, low cost solutions, and flexibility and investment protection.

A1-3. You should change your platform strategy only when it makes business sense to do so. Until such a time, you will continue to enjoy the benefits of a strong product offering over the next several years, including new features for Tru64 UNIX and sales of new AlphaServer systems until at least 2006.

In a report titled “Migration Choices for AlphaServer/Tru64 Users”, D. H. Brown offers advice and suggestions on when it is best to make the transition to the new platform. The report is available at http://h30097.www3.hp.com/pdf/dhbunixmig.pdf.

In a white paper titled “From Tru64 UNIX on Alpha to HP-UX on the Intel® Itanium® architecture”, HP gives specific recommendations on best timeframes according to customers’ business needs. The paper is available at http://h30097.www3.hp.com/pdf/unixmigration_wp_902.pdf.

A2-1. The EPIC design of Intel® Itanium® architecture is a new design philosophy that goes beyond proprietary RISC- and CISC-based processors. EPIC technology enables greater instruction level parallelism than previous processor architectures, supporting higher levels of performance in targeted application segments. EPIC is based on a unique combination of innovative features such as predication, speculation and explicit parallelism enabling world-class performance for the high-end enterprise class of computing.

An indication of the great things to come occurred in July, 2002, when HP announced record-breaking performance results on new HP servers and workstations featuring the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor. Results of these benchmarks can be viewed at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/08jul02b.htm.

A2-3. The Intel® Itanium® architecture was built from the ground up to address the most demanding challenges facing the enterprise. It delivers high performance, scalability, and reliability based on the revolutionary Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) architecture.

In July 2002, HP announced record-breaking performance results on new HP servers featuring the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor. Although future AlphaServer systems based on the new Alpha technology will continue to bring outstanding performance to Tru64 UNIX customers, we expect Itanium® -based servers to provide a compelling upgrade option to AlphaServer customers by the middle of this decade.

A3-1. In the 2004 timeframe, the new HP-UX will have all the strong features of HP-UX on PA-RISC today, as well as key technologies from Tru64 UNIX on Alpha. The combination will bring a wide spectrum of compelling technologies and market leadership to enterprise customers:

• High-end scalability and performance. HP-UX is remarkably scalable—up to 64 processors and is designed for future scaling up to 256 processors in a single system. The new HP-UX will be enhanced with the Tru64 UNIX Advanced File System (AdvFS), scaling up to 16 TB and improving I/O performance.
• Mission-critical availability. HP-UX offers best-in-class RAS with MC/Serviceguard today and will be enhanced with leadership TruCluster Server capabilities in the future.
• Manageability. HP-UX system management tools allow administrators to easily allocate system resources among application loads. HP OpenView provides a service management solution to align people, processes, and technology to leverage best practices, measure IT performance, and effectively support the entire enterprise. And in the future, the integration of TruCluster Server capabilities will allow multiple systems to be managed as one, for ease of management and improved productivity.
• Workload Management. HP-UX provides the most complete set of server partitioning tools. HP-UX’s leading resource management software allows dynamic reallocation of resources based on business priorities. On the Itanium® platform, HP-UX will support partitions of Windows, Linux and OpenVMS as well.
• Security. HP-UX is a highly secure commercial UNIX operating system with built-in security features at the operating system level, network level, and perimeter level.
  Tru64 UNIX technologies other than TruCluster Server and AdvFS are currently being evaluated as potential candidates for inclusion into the new HP-UX. These Q&As will be updated as the information becomes available.

A3-2. With over 31% share in the UNIX servers market, HP-UX is the #2 UNIX vendor after SUN. Combined with Tru64 UNIX’s #4 position, HP becomes the leading UNIX vendor. With more than 15,000 applications available, and more than 1 million active systems, HP-UX is a tier 1 platform for leading UNIX ISVs.

The success of HP-UX in the market place is largely due to its technological superiority and the company’s ability to focus on quality and results. In its “2002 UNIX Function Review” report, D. H. Brown awards the top spot in all five of the report’s categories. HP-UX led the scorecard in reliability, availability and serviceability; Internet and Web application services; directory and security services; system management; and scalability.

A3-4. There are over 60,000 HP MC/Serviceguard licenses installed on HP-UX worldwide. HP MC/Serviceguard will continue to be a major differentiator and a strategic product from HP for its customers. HP is integrating the TruCluster technology and MC/Serviceguard products with the goal of maintaining compatibility for current and future MC/Serviceguard customers.

More information on MC/Serviceguard is available at http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/highavailability/ar/mcserviceguard/index.html.

More information on TruCluster Server is available at http://h30097.www3.hp.com/cluster/.

A4-1. HP is working with its ISV partners to ensure application availability on HP-UX on the Itanium® architecture. More than 95% of Tru64 UNIX applications are already available on HP-UX. With the support of our partners, virtually all these applications will be available for Itanium®-based servers.

In addition, HP is developing tools and services to assist ISVs in the development or porting of their applications onto the new platform. Such tools include porting assistants, APIs and compilers that will be built into future versions of the Tru64 UNIX operating system.

A5-1. Because HP’s number one priority is to solve the needs of its customers, the company is fully committed to the AlphaServer roadmap. We publicly committed to sell new AlphaServer systems until at least 2006, as well as new versions of the Tru64 UNIX operating system through at least 2004. Support will be available until at least 2011.

HP’s track record of helping customers transition into new technology speaks for itself. Examples include HP’s migration from e3000 to HP9000 platforms, and Compaq’s move from VAX and MIPS to Alpha platforms. Customers can rely on HP’s large experience in the transition domain.

A5-2. To demonstrate its commitment to customer investment protection, HP launched the AlphaServer Customer Assurance Program. This program offers a comprehensive suite of investment protection initiatives available to customers and partners who purchase new AlphaServer systems running Tru64 UNIX or OpenVMS today, and who anticipate transitioning to an Itanium® -based system running OpenVMS or HP-UX enhanced with the Tru64 UNIX technologies in the future.

More information on the program is available at http://h18002.www1.hp.com/hps/ipf-enterprise/customer_care.html.

A5-3. HP is committed to develop new versions of the Tru64 UNIX operating system until at least 2004. The following versions are currently planned:

• V5.1B (Q402): V5.1B will support the new AlphaServer systems based on the EV7 Alpha technology. In addition, it will support big pages for improved performance in HPTC situations, as well as enhancements in the IPv6 security, storage, and Linux Affinity domains.
• V5.Vail (2003): The proposed features of this version will revolve around scalability (support for up to 64 processors), mobility, and resiliency.
• V5.Utah (2004): This version will support the EV79 Alpha upgrade. It will also include tools to assist in the transition to HP-UX on the Intel® Itanium® architecture.
  Maintenance releases will follow as planned in the roadmap.
  

A5-4. HP is committed to develop new versions of the TruCluster Server software until at least 2004. The following versions are currently planned:

• V5.1B (Q402): This version will feature faster update and patch installation as well as on-going support for new platforms and options.
• V5.Vail (2003): This version will support more than eight nodes in the cluster.
• V5.Utah (2004): This version will include enhanced single system features such as new cluster-wide commands, improved clusterized services and management.
  Maintenance releases will follow as planned in the roadmap.

A5-5. HP is committed to sell new AlphaServer systems until at least 2006 and provide support until at least 2011. The following versions are currently planned:

• Q4 2002: HP will begin delivering new AlphaServer systems based on the EV7 technology with support of up to 8 processors.
• 2003: HP will deliver new larger EV7-based AlphaServer systems with models ranging from 2 to 64 processors.
• 2004: HP will deliver new AlphaServer systems based on the EV79 processor upgrade.

A6-1. HP will work with customers to ensure that their transition occurs smoothly. Training is already in place to assist customers in assessing their transition needs. We will provide training in various forms such as Webcasts, self-paced Web-based, formal class, workshops, etc.
In addition, we already provide specific services that provide various levels of depth and breadth into transition planning. These services, such as Architectural Workshops and Customer Consultancies, include consultations with experts, workshops, assessments and implementation recommendations.

Finally, HP will provide tools and methodologies to assist with the transition. Compatibility libraries are being built into future versions of the HP-UX operating system and a porting assistant will be available on Tru64 UNIX and HP-UX.  Other tools are provided as part of the migration services mentioned above. They include inventory, migration analysis, and performance optimization.

A6-2. First, a definition of the endian situation:

• Little-endian: A computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than bytes; most often these are bits within a byte.
• Big-endian: A computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address (the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most processors, including the IBM 370 family, the PDP-10, the Motorola microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs current in mid-1991, are big-endian.

The Intel® Itanium® processor is little-endian but supports both big and little-endian operating systems. HP-UX has always been a big-endian operating system, and will continue to be so on Itanium®-based systems. This means that applications with databases already running on PA-RISC HP-UX will still be able to read the existing database without modification when moved to the Itanium® architecture. The Tru64 UNIX operating system is little-endian based. Database applications cannot simply be moved from Tru64 UNIX to HP-UX on the Intel® Itanium® architecture. They will not be able to read from the old database. The database as well as any binary data must be migrated.

A white paper that describes aspects of migrating database environments from the Alpha Tru64 UNIX platform to the new HP-UX UNIX environment on the Intel® Itanium® architecture is under development and will soon be available.

A6-3. Efforts are under way to address data compatibility and endian issues. Work is ongoing with all major database vendors, such as Oracle, to enhance and verify data migration. Some databases, such as SAS, will move over without migration issues. Others will be segmented according to size and criticality before migration.

A white paper that describes aspects of migrating database environments from the Alpha Tru64 UNIX platform to the new HP-UX UNIX environment on the Intel® Itanium® architecture is under development and will soon be available.

A7-1. More information on the transition from Alpha to the Itanium® architecture is available on our external Web site at http://www.hp.com/products1/evolution/alpha_retaintrust/.

Information pertaining to the transition from Tru64 UNIX to HP-UX is available on our external Web site at http://h30097.www3.hp.com/transition/.