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Hewlett-Packard (HP) is updating its HP-UX Unix operating system today with a new update and is also announcing new HP NonStop server platforms.
The new Unix operating system update is technically identified as HP-UX 11i v3 Update 13 . HP-UX 11i v3 first debuted back in February of 2007 and has been receiving a steady stream of updates from HP ever since.
Among the enhancements available in the new HP-UX release is expanded memory support on HP servers. With the HP-UX 11i v3 Update 13 
release, virtual machines of up to 32 processor cores and 256 GB of memory can be utilized.
Jeff Kyle, Director, Product Management, Enterprise Servers at HP explained to ServerWatch that previously virtual machines of 16 cores and 128 GB of memory were available with HP-UX.
“This update doubles the capacity of virtual cores and memory, which benefits customers deploying larger, more demanding workloads with virtualization,” Kyle said.
HP-UX will now also support a ‘soft reboot’ feature that Kyle said is an an enhancement to HP-UX and Integrity i4 blades that reduces planned downtime for customers by 50 percent.
“Reducing planned downtime is critical for environments with very small yearly maintenance windows,” Kyle said. “Soft Reboot validates what needs to be validated at boot, but bypasses memory that is already secure.”
NonStop
In addition to the HP-UX update, HP is also updating the server hardware for its NonStop platform. NonStop is an HP server operating system technology that has its roots back in Tandem Computers, which originated in 1976. Tandem was acquired by Compaq, which in turn was acquired by HP in 2005
In November of 2013, HP expanded the NonStop server platform to Intel x86 powered servers platforms. HP first brought NonStop to Itanium in 2005. The Itanium powered platform was expandedin August of 2012 with the entry-level NS2100 NonStop servers.
Now HP is taking NonStop to more servers with the NS2300 and NS2400 server platforms.
“The NS2300 is licensed and enabled for 1-core operation and the NS2400s are licensed and enabled for 2-core operation providing additional performance,” Kyle said.
The HP Integrity NonStop NS2300 servers can include two or four processors per system; 1-core enabled Intel Itanium processor 9500 series at 1.73 GHz and up to 48 GB of RAM. The HP Integrity NonStop NS2400 Server can include two or four processors per system; 2-core enabled Intel Itanium processor 9500 series at 1.73 GHz and also up to 48 GB of RAM.
“These new servers round out the HP NonStop portfolio in order to bring the benefits of mission critical computing to the small to mid-size enterprise,” Kyle said.
He added that the existing NB56000c and –cg systems are all based on HP Integrity server blades compute nodes utilizing the Intel Itanium 9500 series processor. The NS2300 and NS2400 are also based on the Intel Itanium 9500 series processor. Kyle noted that HP has stated a strategy to add x86 compute nodes to the NonStop portfolio in the future along with Integrity/Itanium.
“These new platforms can also be an ideal test and development companion that will more closely match your production environment,” Kyle said. “You may even want to use this new family of servers to create or expand your Disaster Recovery infrastructure.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at ServerWatch and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist
