Is HP Inching Towards Opteron Machines?

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Neither Hewlett-Packard nor Advanced Micro Devices will confirm or deny the story that is going around, but there is talk that HP is going to launch a server line, perhaps with the Integrity brand name on it, based on the 64-bit AMD Opteron processors. With HP being a co-developer, staunchest supporter, and biggest seller of the 64-bit Itanium processor from Intel in the server arena, such a move is significant--some might say stunning--if it proves to be true.

In an interview we published only two weeks ago, Brad Anderson, general manager of HP's Industry Standard Server Group, said point blank that AMD was not in the works. But he did leave himself some wiggle room when asked if HP was looking at adopting the 64-bit Opteron processor in either ProLiant or Integrity servers. "AMD is not on our current roadmap," he said back then. "But I have learned to never say never. If HP did use AMD, it would be because it enabled us to get better 32-bit performance compared to Intel's Xeons." Notice he did not say 64-bit.

Today, when pressed about HP's possible Opteron plans, Tim Willeford, a spokesperson for HP's Intel server unit, said that the principles of "adaptive enterprise" as promoted by HP for its customers and applied to its own business model of selling PCs, servers, software, and services "assures HP customers that they will have the broadest choice of industry standard-based platforms to meet their evolving business needs." He said further that HP's servers continue to be based on "X86 and Itanium" architectures. It is interesting that he did not say Xeon or Pentium, eh? He then ended with this: "HP acknowledges customer demand for support from a trusted vendor for X86 extensions technology in certain vertical segments where specific price/performance needs exist. HP is currently assessing our options in this area. We are not disclosing information about systems, partners, or availability at this time."

While that doesn't sound like an endorsement of Opteron, it sure doesn't sound like Anderson is getting his lips any closer to saying never. They might be getting ready to form another set of words entirely: "AMD Inside."

If HP does decide to deliver an Opteron server, it will probably be a two-way machine aimed at 32-bit HPC and technical applications in clustered environments, much as IBM has created with the two-way eServer 325 announced last summer. Sun Microsystems is getting ready to announce its own Opteron machines, but has kept tight wraps on its specific product plans.

The Opteron's niche in the server market is for two-way to eight-way servers, so HP could go even broader than just a two-way box if the vertical scaling of Opteron machines is better on 32-bit Windows and Linux applications that are currently running on Intel's Xeon DPs and Xeon MPs. Right now, both Celestica (which used to be part of IBM's manufacturing operations a decade ago) and Newisys (which was acquired by contract manufacturer Sanmina-SCI last year) can make two-way and four-way Opteron servers. HP could be using their machines, modifying their designs, or creating a modified version of its own ProLiant or Integrity machine to support Opterons. Or, because HP doesn't want to confirm or deny what it is doing, the company could be doing nothing at all but toying with the idea of Opteron and using its power in the server industry to get concessions out of Intel. HP, which has two distinct server lines (PA-RISC and Alpha) with two different operating systems (OpenVMS and HP-UX) that are being converged into its Integrity line of Itanium servers, had bet big on Itanium and it was been hurt by the prolonged rollout of the EPIC architecture that it helped to create with Intel. To be fair, with the "Madison" Itanium 2 processors, HP is showing stellar performance and bang for the buck, and Itanium is about where it should be.

But the software ecosystem around Itanium, while greatly improved, is still an issue. Because Opterons can run either 32-bit code or 64-bit code--and run 32-bit code without a performance penalty--HP might be interested in using Opteron for HPC workloads on Linux machines. Support for 64-bit Windows could be offered on these theoretical HP Opteron machines, too. And while HP could, in theory, port its HP-UX Unix variant to Opteron--as Sun is doing with its Solaris environment--this seems unlikely. (Though still possible, mind you.) HP has spent considerable time and money to port HP-UX 11i to Itanium, and it seems unlikely that it will go through another port to Opteron.

As it is, HP-UX 11i v3, the next version of the operating system that incorporates features from Tru64 Unix and its TruCluster clustering software and which is supposed to be based on a single code base for both PA-RISC and Itanium platforms, was pushed out 12 to 18 months in November 2003. A few months ago, HP expected to deliver HP-UX 11i v3 in the second half of 2005 instead of at the end of 2004. It seems unlikely that HP pushed out the next version of HP-UX so it could add another architecture to the tree, but then again, who knows? That is certainly not what Rich Marcello, senior vice president and general manager of HP's Business Critical Servers line, said to HP's employees back in November. He said that moving Tru64 and TruCluster functionality into HP-UX was more difficult than expected, and that HP was deploying more people to the task and would still need more time.

If all of this very thin data and heaps of speculation adds up to anything, the odds favor HP putting out two-way and four-way Opteron machines running Linux that will compete directly with any Xeon boxes (including HP's own ProLiants) and indirectly with any box running Windows, HP-UX, or Linux on Itanium processors. HP is the dominant player in the HPC server market, and the Opteron has come on strong with Cray's backing to win some big deals--such as the 40 teraflops "Red Storm" contract--that HP did not win--at Sandia National Laboratories. If HP is seeing a big uptake of Opteron in HPC accounts, it might deliver an Opteron machine for those users but not push it for regular commercial users--at least not at first and certainly not as an alternative to either Xeon or Itanium for plain, old data processing. This is the tack that IBM is taking with the eServer 325.

All of this AMD love could simply be maneuvering by vendors to get Intel to release its own 64-bit version of the Xeon processor, which is code-named "Yamhill" and which is something that no one wants to talk about because it is heresy against the Itanium and Xeon establishment. IBM, Sun, and HP would all benefit from Yamhill, and it would leave AMD struggling to differentiate Opteron against Xeons. It would also undermine Itanium, which is why Intel doesn't talk about Yamhill.