HP Revises Cluster Plans

HP is dropping its efforts to port some Tru64 Unix
products to HP-UX with the help of storage player Veritas .

The two companies announced a multi-year agreement Thursday that
finds HP’s sales teams offering Veritas Storage Foundation products as HP’s preferred file
system and volume management solutions for HP-UX 11i environments.
Previously, HP had planned to port Compaq’s TruCluster technology and
Advanced File System to HP-UX 11i v3.

HP said it plans to offer the
Veritas platform in the form of software bundles on HP-UX 11i v2
sometime after June 2005. The companies said the revised plan shaves
about a year off of the transition. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Our collaboration with Veritas helps us to deliver on our Adaptive
Enterprise strategy and assists our Unix customers in their evolution to
next-generation platforms,” Rich Marcello, senior vice president and
general manager of HP’s Business Critical Servers group, said in a statement. “The thousands of customers
running HP Serviceguard on HP-UX 11i today will gain access to Veritas
software directly from HP and close integration, a simplified purchasing
process and cooperative support.”

The goal now is to resell such Veritas products as
Veritas Storage Foundation Cluster File System and Storage
Foundation for Oracle RAC with HP Serviceguard as the company continues
its drive to transfer customers to its Itanium-based Integrity and
PA-RISC-based HP 9000 servers.

The partnership will also be a key
element of the HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE) for HP-UX 11i, the
company said. The two companies have a history of
working together
that stretches back to January 2002.

HP’s shift in plans does not seem to have fazed customers. Gene
Batan, head of Systems and Information Technology at Commerzbank USA,
said the strategic alignment with Veritas for clustering file services
is a welcome change in HP’s roadmap.

“There is no need to re-invent the wheel,” Batan said. “Veritas has a
proven track record in developing highly available software solutions,
and we believe that this partnership serves HP customers well.”

Like HP and Veritas, leading vendors, such as IBM ,
Sun Microsystems , Microsoft and
Computer Associates , have all adopted some sort of
utility computing strategy. The approach in which companies call up
computing properties as a metered service is becoming a major force on
the IT scene. Vendors say they are addressing a need for cash-strapped
companies looking to lash together their multi-vendor systems.

“HP’s decision to make Veritas the preferred file system and volume
management offering for highly available HP-UX 11i environments opens up
exciting new capabilities for our joint customers, and is a strong
validation of Veritas’ ability to deliver industry-leading
infrastructure solutions that support customers’ heterogeneous
environments, including HP-UX 11i and other leading platforms,” Kris
Hagerman, executive vice president at Veritas, said in a statement.

But don’t count HP’s Tru64 out just yet. HP said it is expanding its
Alpha RetainTrust program for Tru64 Unix customers. The program will now
give customers technical assistance to help mix HP Serviceguard with
Veritas bundles as part of customers’ transition to HP-UX 11i v2 on HP
Integrity and HP 9000 servers.

The company also said its HP 9000 Evolution Program is still in full
swing, as the company continues to lead customers to its Intel
Itanium-powered HP Integrity servers.

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