HP Takes a Building Block Approach to Open Source

Published: April 6, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

While server makers like Hewlett-Packard have benefited from the rise of Linux as much as being hurt by it and they do participate in various Linux and open source projects, open source is not something they can leverage exclusively and it is not something they can control. The best that the major server makers can do is make it easier to use and support open source software on their server platforms, and that is what HP has been doing for the past few years.

HP started out two and a half years ago with its Linux reference architectures, and then last year announced open source software stacks that are certified for its own HP-UX Unix variant. And now, at LinuxWorld this week, HP ironically added Microsoft's Windows platform to its open source efforts and start moving beyond promoting Linux to promoting all key open source projects on Linux, HP-UX, and Windows operating systems.

"Over the past seven years, we have been fortunate enough to have the leading market share in the Linux space," boasted Doug Small, worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing at HP. "Now, people are comfortable with Linux, because Linux is definitely mainstream, and they are asking us to help them move to other open source software." In particular, large enterprises are now pushing HP to make it easier to deploy open source software stacks. But, being large enterprises, no two companies agree on what should be in the stack and what should not. Which is why HP is taking a building block approach. And, HP doesn't think that open source will stop at middleware and databases. "We are at the beginning of the open source middleware cycle, and once that gets established, as Linux is now, you will see customers asking for open source applications."

Rather than compete with the open source software channel, HP merely wants to front end it, using its global sales and support teams and expertise in configuring systems and software to speed up the installation and integration of stacks on its iron. "Our strategy is to be at price parity with our open source partners, but to offer the simplicity and comfort of buying all the software from HP." HP is partnering with JBoss for its JEMs application server, JBoss Cache for app server clustering, the Apache Foundation for its Tomcat/Hibernate for database access, and Symas Conexitor Directory Services for a commercialized but open source LDAP server. HP intends to support these building blocks equally and agnostically on Linux, HP-UX, and Windows platforms, on either ProLiant or Integrity boxes. (HP-UX is not, of course, available on Xeon-based or Opteron-based ProLiant servers, but is available on the Itanium-based Integrity machines. Windows and Linux can run on either HP line.)

In addition to these open source building blocks, HP will create what it is calling open source blue prints, which will be implementations of specific pieces of the software stack that are integrated and tested by HP and come into data centers ready to rock on HP iron. No fuss, no muss, just sign here on the purchase order. Blueprints for Web application serving and J2EE application serving based on the JBoss tools are available this week, with a directory services blue print based on Symas products due this summer. HP will complete the stack with database serving blue prints some time in the second half of this year, and Small was not about to tip his cards and say what databases HP would be putting out as building blocks. The obvious ones are MySQL and PostgreSQL, but the open source Ingres database is also interesting.

HP is also obviously putting a big services spin on all of these open source building blocks. "Our ability to help customers solve problems has helped us close big deals," said Small, and by big he means multi-million dollar engagements where open source software technology is a key component. "We are pushing out what we learned from these engagements into the mainstream, simplifying and integrating the open source stack and delivering sales and support for it worldwide."