Itanium HP-UX upgraded

HP is to launch version 1.6 of its HP-UX operating system for 64bit Itanium processors in mid-July. The new version contains more features from the PA-Risc equivalent of the software, but HP said the two operating systems will not offer the same functionality until next year.

Ram Appalaraju, HP-UX marketing director, said the previous release for the Itanium platform was "more or less a tyre-kicking, early adopter" version. The initial edition lacked a lot of features present in the PA-Risc operating system, but Appalaraju indicated that both versions should reach feature parity with the release of HP-UX 11i version 2 that is expected next year.

The new operating system release will run on both the Itanium and Itanium 2 processors. It supports up to 64 processors and HyperFabric 2 clustering of up to 64 server nodes - this was limited to 16 nodes under the old version.

The HP-UX release date is expected to coincide with the launch of Intel's Itanium 2 processor. The new chip is widely tipped for an official launch on 8 July, followed by shipments within a few weeks.

An important new feature for the Itanium version of the operating system will be dynamic kernel tunables. These 26 tunables will allow firms to adjust kernel parameters without rebooting the server in order to activate the changes. The change has been introduced following feedback from HP customers, and HP predicts it will eliminate 75 percent of voluntary reboots.

Companies will also be able to run applications written for PA-Risc chips by using translation software called Aries. The translation software should ensure easier software migration, but it will reduce the performance of the applications.

Looking further ahead, Appalaraju said that when HP-UX 11i version 2 is released, Itanium and PA-Risc versions will run on servers with up to 128 processors. Also planned is software to allow Linux applications to run unchanged on Itanium servers under HP-UX.

The Itanium version of HP-UX includes a 32bit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that conforms to version 1.3 of the Java specification. A 64bit JVM compliant with Java 1.4 is expected in November.

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