October 23, 1997
HP, HITACHI AND NEC TO BRING ENHANCED RESILIENCE FOR MISSION-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS TO ENTERPRISE COMPUTING- Joint Development Brings 3DA Mainframe-based Technology to the HP-UX Operating Environment -"We have combined the mainframe-based technology expertise of Hitachi and NEC with the robust-kernel functionality of HP-UX to bring greater system reliability to our customers," said Janice Chaffin, general manager of HP's High Performance System Division. "This major milestone not only provides a more robust foundation for high-end servers to run mission-critical applications, but strengthens HP's UNIX (R) system leadership position well into the future." 3DA, HP's architectural blue print for defining the future direction of HP-UX, not only focuses on delivering advanced features in the areas of modularity, scalability and performance, but also on delivering features such as the exception infrastructure that enhance the robustness of the operating environment. The new self-healing enhancements exploit features of PA- RISC(2) and future IA-64 systems-based hardware to enable the identification, isolation and recovery of unexpected software problems detected in the HP-UX kernel. These enhancements reduce planned and unplanned downtime, saving time and money. With the exception infrastructure, the kernel is expected to be more robust and able to withstand many kinds of unforeseen errors (that is, certain processes can be isolated without affecting the total workload). Initially, the companies will work on the exception-infrastructure and recovery aspects within 3DA. This work will address extending kernel functionality that provides mainframe-type fault recovery. It is designed to take appropriate self-healing actions to maintain system integrity when an exception occurs. While maintaining system availability, HP-UX will intercept system-level faults and attempt to recover from the failure or blockade the failing resource. With this capability, HP-UX is expected to further expand into mission-critical system markets that require even stricter resiliency of the system, such as financial institutions and airline-reservation systems. "I am delighted to contribute Hitachi's proven and advanced enterprise technology to this project," said Kenichi Furumaya, executive managing director and group executive of Hitachi's Information Systems Group. "Continuing to exploit HP-UX's competitive advantage will ensure that we meet the increasing demand for reliable, mission-critical systems and continue to provide the best solution for our customers." "We are pleased with the successful progress of the joint development work with HP," said Akira Date, vice president and executive general manager of NEC. "NEC's contribution, including scalability and performance enhancements for HP-UX will benefit all HP-UX customers, and the companies' joint work will contribute significantly to leverage the importance of open, de facto HP-UX, especially in the high- end-server area." Hitachi and NEC have provided UNIX system engineers to work exclusively in this project at their respective company sites as well as dedicated engineers on-site at HP.
Availability
(1) HP-UX 9.X, 10.0 and 10.20 for HP 9000 Series 700 and 800 computers are X/Open(R) Company UNIX(R) 95 branded products. HP is applying for X/Open UNIX 95 branding for HP-UX 11. X/Open is a registered trademark, and the X device is a trademark of X/Open Company Ltd. in the UK and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Limited. (2) PA-RISC stands for Precision Architecture-reduced-instruction-set computing.
Background
<Relationship with Hitachi>
<Relationship with NEC>
<About Hitachi> For more information about Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
<About NEC> For additional corporate and product information, see NEC's home page on the World Wide Web at http://www.nec-global.com.
<About HP> Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global provider of computing, Internet and intranet solutions, services, communications products and measurement solutions, all of which are recognized for excellence in quality and support. It is the second-largest computer supplier in the United States, with computer-related revenue in excess of $31.4 billion in its 1996 fiscal year. HP has 120,500 employees and had revenue of $38.4 billion in its 1996 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.
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