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UNIX®: HP-UX 11i vs. Sun Solaris—virtualization compared

Advantage: HP-UX 11i
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Compared to Solaris, HP-UX 11i v3 delivers real benefits from more comprehensive and functional UNIX system virtualization—enabling you to maximize utilization of your mission-critical computing resources, pay only for what you use more cost-effectively, and ensure IT alignment with your bottom-line goals to degrees beyond what Solaris delivers. Plus, HP-UX 11i virtualization management is an integrated control station, contrasted with disjointed manual tools in Solaris 10 on SPARC servers.

The Gabriel Consulting Group results show HP-UX 11i ascending and Solaris declining in Average Technology Criteria Scores for the second year. Virtualization has come on strong over the past five years—coinciding with when Sun began focusing on developing x86 Solaris environments.

HP-UX 11i virtualization—the HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE)—trumps Sun’s virtualization offering for Solaris in ways that deliver higher IT efficiency and application availability than does Solaris.

Virtualization management: simpler to use, greater scope, analysis and control

Today’s partitioning options deliver better flexibility and utilization than ever before. They also introduce new system management challenges—managing virtual systems along with physical systems, to mention one. For the best of both worlds—maximum flexibility plus simplified management—HP has invested in advanced virtualization management functionality that today is superior in three ways compared with Solaris:
  • Integrated virtualization management of both virtual and physical servers, simplifying to save administrators’ time in contrast to disjointed tools to manage Solaris physical and virtual servers.
  • Advanced capacity planning, with advanced what-if simulations to explore configuration and workload placement options, “best-fit” recommendations, and energy consumption metrics. No such tool is available for Solaris.
  • Automated optimal alignment of computing resources to your workloads with the industry’s leading goal-based workload management software Global Workload Manager (gWLM)
Virtualization management HP-UX 11i v3 Solaris 10
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View the detailed comparision behind virtualization management

Superior soft partitions give HP-UX 11i more partitioning options

Superior soft partitions, in addition to comparable hard and secure resource partitions, ease HP-UX 11i consolidation and the deployment of new solutions.

Most comprehensive partitioning options for IT agility HP-UX 11i v3 Solaris 10
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View the detailed comparison of partitioning technologies for the two UNIX operating systems.

Leadership utility pricing: more options and the only automated activation

Utility pricing: scope of offering and functionality HP-UX 11i v3 Solaris 10
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Expand to view the options from Sun and HP compared
Beyond these virtualization functionality advantages, the virtualization technology all works together to achieve results Solaris can’t offer.

HP-UX 11i v3 virtualization benefits combine with consolidation benefits—an Integrity server blade replacing multiple Solaris boxes reaps the footprint and power consumption reduction benefits—for the most dramatic IT cost reduction.

Integrated-by-design benefits: out of the Solaris question

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Beyond discrete virtualization functionality advantages, the virtualization technology all works together to achieve results Solaris can’t offer. With HP-UX 11i v3, you get better protection, better performance, and cost savings due to smart integration between gWLM, HP Pay per use, and HP Serviceguard Solutions.

Consider the integrated-by-design benefits in this scenario:

  • HP-UX 11i disaster tolerant clusters ‘just work’ together with goals-based workload management to balance the workload on the cluster nodes remaining after a fail-over.
  • Global Instant Capacity automatically fires up processors on the remaining cluster nodes to meet your specified performance goals per workload or application.
  • Our automation eliminates the need for a system administrator to balance the workload and activate the new processors, so the benefit of continuous productivity comes without operator intervention.
  • Pay for the processors in the disaster recovery cluster only when you need them.

With Solaris, there is no goal-based workload management, nor global instant capacity offering. So, the automatic application fail-over, processor fire-up, and workload balancing is functionality unavailable on Solaris. The benefits attainable by HP-UX 11i users are out of the Solaris question.

What do you think?

The comparisons represented here are accurate to the best of HP’s knowledge, the result of extensive research including tests conducted by HP engineering and review of publicly available information posted by Sun.

In the spirit of accuracy and transparency, we invite you to share your perspectives in the blog established for this purpose.

To the extent possible, we’ll resolve any differences there to the satisfaction of that community. If a correction is merited on these pages, we’ll make it, and if the challenger wishes, credit him or her with the correction.

Move from Solaris to HP-UX 11i―with assistance available from HP

While you’re evaluating a move from Solaris to HP-UX 11i, consider this additional assistance available from HP:

We recommend the following KoD Webcasts:

When you’ve made the decision to move from Solaris to HP-UX 11i, support is available to accelerate your return to optimal system management productivity.

  • Trade-in credit toward HP-UX 11i licenses and HP Integrity servers, in return for your SPARC systems—ask your HP or HP channel partner sales representative about current local offers.
  • Education courses, including one especially for Solaris-experienced system administrators.

Explore how HP Enterprise Services can offload some work with services to help you re-host your environment on HP-UX 11i as quickly, efficiently, and productively as possible.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

i Results from Gabriel Consulting Group 2008/09 Unix Vendor Preference Survey. Survey period covered 12/08-03/09 with 266 survey respondents representing small, medium and large enterprise data centers. For more information, see www.gabrielconsultinggroup.com.