LinuxWorld: HP adds Debian support, AMD updates Opteron.
HP is expected to unveil expanded support for Linux – adding Debian to its portfolio – and Advanced Micro Devices plans to show off its next-generation Opteron processor, which improves performance and on-chip virtualization technology, as LinuxWorld Conference & Expo kicks off this week in San Francisco.
While AMD won’t be announcing Opteron Rev F at the show, the company is expected to unveil it Tuesday, in conjunction with the opening day of the conference. Analysts say improved performance and reliability of the x86 platform will be key for accelerating the adoption of open source software for enterprise deployments.
“More powerful and power-sparing hardware platforms are useful and necessary . . . but things that will spur greater demand for [open source software] include more broadly available enterprise-class support and service and more powerful, flexible manageability, especially in concert with proprietary closed source offerings,” says Michael Dortch, principal business analyst and IT infrastructure-management practice leader at the Robert Frances Group.
To that end, HP plans to use the conference to continue to expand its Linux and open source service offerings. The company is expected to announce Monday that in addition to Red Hat and Novell SUSE Linux, it will offer support services on its ProLiant and BladeSystem servers for Debian, a free Linux distribution used primarily at the edge of network and infrastructure deployments.
“The customers who are asking for [Debian support] have been using Linux for quite some time, and they are fully sold on its capabilities and see how stable it is for them. Now they’re looking to get rid of that annual subscription [that comes with commercial distributions from Red Hat and Novell],” says Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager of open source and Linux at HP. “We see Debian displacing commercial Linux distributions in some places.”
HP also is expanding its Linux support services in general, bringing remote monitoring and diagnosis tools it has offered for Windows systems to Linux servers, Wade says.
“With these tools we can reduce the time to resolution for customer problems by about 20% on average,” he says.
In open source middleware, HP is expanding its open source software packages and adding directory services and databases, including Oracle 10g running Red Hat for HP BladeSystem servers.
HP’s focus on expanding services and support for open source deployments reflects a growing trend as enterprise customers used to the kind of support they receive with proprietary software move to open source environments, analysts say.
“To reduce expense and improve quality [of open source software], an entire group of service providers has entered the market, with offerings that include prepackaged distributions of a project or an entire stack of projects, maintenance and support services, and joint development of new open source code,” writes Julie Giera, a Forrester analyst, in her April report, “Open Source’s Impact on IT Services.”
Giera says enterprise users can expect to see a growing number of open source service providers enter the field over the next year or so “with maintenance, support and training priced at 5% to 10% below today’s rates.”
HP also is expected to use LinuxWorld to introduce a Debian-based thin client, the 5725, which will support a variety of Debian-based applications and is geared for kiosk- and storefront-type deployments in retail and healthcare organizations. The thin client will be available in October and will be priced starting at $450, Wade says.
AMD on Tuesday is expected to announce the next generation of its Opteron processor, just months after Intel introduced its next-generation Xeon, a chip with faster performance and lower power consumption.
Opteron Rev F brings hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities to servers, giving technologies such as the Xen open source server virtualization software a boost.
In addition to the virtualization capabilities, Opteron Rev F uses an architecture that will allow for a smooth upgrade to quad-core Opteron, expected to be available in mid-2007; and supports double date rate 2, a new memory technology that uses less power and provides faster performance.n
