Midrange servers with Itanium 2 took spots in HP’s price list

HP announced the midrange components in its HP Integrity server line, a group of systems powered by Itanium 2 processors. Itanium-based servers will push the PA-RISC HP-UX systems off HP’s price lists in the future, an end of life to another part of the HP enterprise product line. The new servers, the rx7620 eight-way and rx8620 16-way midrange systems, can step in for customers who are looking for a replacement for high-end HP 3000s but can’t commit to the Superdome price range of HP’s 3000 alternatives.

HP’s product release reported that Integrity 2-based systems had beaten IBM’s pSeries Unix servers by a 2:1 margin in summertime benchmarks, but the figures HP quoted from the Transaction Processing Council were for Java transactions — a field where HP 3000 sites might have little code to migrate onto the new servers. In a more commonplace benchmark, HP broke the 1 million transaction per minute TPC-C barrier with an Itanium 2 server; that box was a 64-way Integrity Superdome server running Oracle Database 10g.

At least the storage configured for the record benchmark would be familiar to HP 3000 sites: HP StorageWorks Virtual Arrays 7110 configured with 36 gigabyte and 73 gigabyte drives. Consultants report the 7110 is a popular choice for homesteading sites who are improving 3000 installations.