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HP-UX 11i v3 Update 2 Pricing Redux
Published: July 24, 2008
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
A few weeks ago, I did a story that described, to the best of my ability, the pricing of Hewlett-Packard's delivery of Update 2 of the HP-UX 11i v3 operating system. Back in April, HP put out Update 2, and at the same time repackaged the operating system in a manner that was more useful to its customers. However, HP would not provide the pricing specifics for the Update 2 packaging. And so I went looking for it.
To get pricing information, I used HP's Enterprise Configurator, which is available to the public and which you can see here. eCo, as the program is known colloquially in the HP community, allows resellers and potential customers to configure entry and midrange ProLiant and Integrity machinery. Unfortunately, a little more than halfway through my building a table of HP-UX 11i v3 Update 2 pricing for the new edition bundles, the eCo program stopped working; HP was apparently updating the tables behind it.
HP saw this story and decided that there was no harm in giving out pricing information and that there has been some confusion regarding the inconsistent use of the terms "processor" and "core" when people talk about HP-UX pricing, which made me think HP has not offered per-core pricing prior to Update 2. In fact, HP has offered per-core pricing since it was preparing for dual-core PA-8800 processors back in 2002 in its HP 9000 product line, which were delivered in 2003. Back in 2004, HP called this a "per processor" charge, and given that the company's main products were Integrity servers with single-core Itanium processors, I understood this as being a per socket, not per core, charge. But since 2004, a processor has been a core for HP as far as software licensing is concerned.
For good measure, Sarah Booth, the HP-UX marketing business practices manager at HP who gave me the scoop, threw in HP-UX Update 2 pricing on Superdomes, and even told me that the older packages, which are still available under Update 2, had seen a price increase as well.
Here are the Update 2 prices in the new packaging:
|
HP-UX Edition 11i
v3 Update 2--Per Core List Price |
|
| Integrity Server |
Base OE |
Virtual Server OE |
High Availability OE |
Data Center OE |
| BL860c |
$225 |
$4,420 |
$5,500 |
$8,120 |
| BL870c |
$995 |
$5,100 |
$6,000 |
$9,210 |
| rx2660 |
$455 |
$4,420 |
$5,500 |
$8,120 |
| rx3600 |
$455 |
$4,420 |
$5,500 |
$8,120 |
| rx6600 |
$995 |
$5,100 |
$6,000 |
$9,210 |
| rx7640 |
$1,970 |
$6,560 |
$6,950 |
$10,630 |
| rx8640 |
$2,370 |
$7,200 |
$7,300 |
$11,130 |
| Superdome |
$2,370 |
$7,200 |
$7,300 |
$11,130 |
If you remember the table from a few weeks ago, I was guessing on prices for the BL860c and BL870c blades and the rx3600 server, but I got them all right except for the $255 price on the Base Edition of Update 2 on the BL860c blade. You'll not that Superdome pricing is the same as pricing, per core, on the rx8640 server.
Now, let's talk about current pricing on the older Operating Editions. There were three key old packagings of HP-UX 11i v3, including the Foundation OE, which is a base operating system; the Enterprise OE, which included middleware, virtualization, and other systems software; and the Mission Critical OE, which added on high availability clustering. As of April, HP-UX 11i v3 Foundation OE costs $550 per core on machines with two sockets, unless it happens to be a blade server, in which case it costs $225 per core. The Enterprise OE costs $4,080 per core on a server with two or four sockets and $5,730 per core on a machine with eight or more sockets. The Mission Critical OE costs $8,220 per core on a machine with two or four sockets and $9,890 per core on a machine with eight or more sockets. Booth says that HP has added more software functionality to these older Operating Editions, therefore justifying the price increase.
And that clears up that. My thanks to HP for clearing it up and doing the right thing. Providing pricing information publicly really matters, as far as I am concerned. As I have said I think maybe a million times now, a list price is not a floor, but it sure as heck is a ceiling.
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