HP Offers Services to Support MySQL, JBoss

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has certified the open source MySQL relational database and the open source JBoss application server on its Xeon-based ProLiant and Itanium-based Integrity servers and that it will be backing the two programs with support from its HP Services organization. HP inked similar deals with commercial Linux distributors Red Hat and SuSE (now part of Novell), and today's moves with further legitimize the use of open source systems programs within enterprises.

HP claims to have garnered the largest piece of the $25 billion Linux pie in 2003, with $2.5 billion in sales, and says that, once again, it is taking the lead in the Linux market this year. That $25 billion figure is rival IBM's estimate of the value of all servers, storage, peripherals, software, and services associated with Linux platforms worldwide last year; Big Blue reckons that it sold about $2 billion in Linux stuff. HP is tooting its own horn about offering indemnification to Linux users last year (it may have been a restrictive kind of indemnification for customers who agreed not to modify Linux on their machines, but HP was indeed the first company to do this), and offering the broadest line of Linux-capable machines (PCs, servers, printers, and such). "While IBM is talking about Linux, HP is doing it," boasts Efrain Rovira, director of marketing for Linux at HP.

While IBM is not exactly a slouch in the Linux area, the fact remains that HP is certifying the MySQL database and JBoss application server ahead of IBM. While HP will undoubtedly claim that this is just forward thinking on its part, consistent with its other actions in the Linux market, it is also true that HP does not have a database or application server of its own to protect, and hence it has a greater degree of freedom to move than IBM in this regard. IBM wants to sell DB2 and WebSphere on Linux, and it will move very aggressively to do so. HP needed a counterpunch to IBM, and allying with MySQL and JBoss--two open source developers that are also corporations that want to make money--is a very shrewd move. It is also, in hindsight, absolutely necessary.

While HP has certified MySQL and JBoss on its ProLiant and Integrity machines running Linux, the company will not, says Rovira, preload these programs on these servers; nor will it allow companies to buy the software and support for these programs concurrently with a server sale. Rather, HP Service is the organization where HP is going to derive revenue from the MySQL and JBoss software. As was the case with the Red Hat and SuSE agreements last year, under the non-exclusive deals with MySQL and JBoss, HP's technical support teams will be providing a single point of contact for Level 1 and Level 2 support for enterprise customers who deploy these products on HP's servers. In the event of an escalation to a Level 3 support problem, HP will interface with either MySQL or JBoss to fix the problem with their eponymous programs. (Making a joke, Rovira calls this Level 2.5 support.)

Rovira says that HP is not just certifying the software running on Linux on its servers, but will also provide tech manuals (what he called "cookbooks") to help its server customers install and support MySQL and JBoss on their machines themselves if they do not want to pay HP Services for help. Clearly, the MySQL crowd likes the do-it-yourself approach. According to Zack Urlocker, vice president of marketing at MySQL (a privately held Swedish company that sells commercial and open source versions of its database), about 10 million copies of MySQL are downloaded a year and the company estimates that there are about 5 million active installations. However, MySQL has only about 5,000 customers who bought commercial licenses and support services. These customers generated, he estimates, about $10 million to $12 million last year (60 percent for licenses, 40 percent for services). The business has doubled in 2003 and 2002, and deals like HP's are certainly not going to hurt MySQL. "HP is able to stand behind a whole open source stack and make it safe for corporate customers on a worldwide basis," says Urlocker.

MySQL runs on 20 different platforms, not just Linux machines, and is often hailed as an alternative to Oracle's eponymous databases, Microsoft's SQL Server, and IBM's DB2. But these databases are more familiar to corporate customers and they have many features that MySQL is lacking. That said, there are places where MySQL is a perfect fit, and companies are going to use it more.

And while IBM wants to push WebSphere, Microsoft wants to push its .NET stack, and everybody wants to sell Oracle's application server wherever their own products are not preferred, there is similarly a place for JBoss. JBoss, which is a privately held company co-headquartered in Neuchatel, Switzerland and Atlanta, Georgia, says that it has about 25 percent of the installed Java application server base and that over 5 million copies of its open source program have been downloaded to date. Depending on how you want to measure it (influence and installations versus money), JBoss has the number three position in the application server market, behind IBM's WebSphere and BEA Systems' WebLogic servers. Bob Bichel, vice president of strategy at JBoss, says that since October 2003, when JBoss incorporated, monthly sales of JBoss support contracts and services have quadrupled. HP standing behind JBoss will help, he says, keep the numbers growing.

While HP will not say this, it has a huge Oracle and BEA business to protect on Unix machines, and a similarly huge .NET-SQL Server business on Windows boxes; it will also sell into accounts that want WebSphere. This is probably why HP stopped short of pre-installing MySQL and JBoss on its servers. But the support from HP levels the playing field somewhat for MySQL and JBoss, who are getting a cut of the HP services action as part of the deal. (How much money is at stake, no one is saying.)

In addition to the support agreement, HP also previewed what it is calling its Linux Reference Architectures, a stack of pre-tested software that runs on its ProLiant and Integrity server platforms. The open source version of the reference architecture for Linux includes the Apache Web server, the MySQL database, the JBoss Application Server, and the OpenLDAP directory server. A reference architecture based on commercial stacks of software from Oracle and BEA will also be peddled by HP. These reference architectures will be available in the second quarter of 2004, says Rovira. The name is bound to be confusing, since Sun Microsystems already uses "reference architectures" in describing industry-specific solutions tailored for its Sparc and X86 platforms.