Few observations on why HPUX is loosing its grip in market. How virtualization, cloud, costing affects HPUX existence in market.
Really? HPUX really loosing market? Kind of yes. But still it is one of the preferred OS for mission critical environments like defence industry because of its reliability and security. HPUX, one of the oldest OS (35 years old) released in 1982, no doubt is one of the best server OS we have seen in decades! Being a core HPUX certified engineer obviously I appreciate it more over IBM’s AIX and Sun Micro system’s Solaris flavor.
But now a days I am seeing less companies, corporate going for HPUX maybe because of its cost involved. Virtualization, cloud computing and open source Linux OS flavors made very cost effective choices for corporate. High Availability offered by virtualization and cloud computing wins over reliability of Unix when it comes to make cheap billing. HPUX being a hardware dependent Os i.e. running only on HP hardware (inexpensive) and also involves costs in OS license itself including prime utilities like glance etc., choosing HPUX is heavy pocket decision. In today’s world of cost cutting, obviously this is one of the reason, companies are not opting HPUX.
Read also : How to learn, practice HPUX
Boom in cloud computing also has an effect on traditional in house data centers and hence on proprietary OS like HPUX. Most of the cloud world is powered by Linux which adversely affects HPUX market share rather altogether AIX, Solaris too. People opting for cloud since they offers cheap services with no maintenance. Even I have seen companies are moving away from HPUX and shifting servers on Linux or cloud for billing numbers.
Another major leap back is HP backed off from new releases of HPUX. Its like they opt to kill their own lion. Latest HPUX roadmap dont even shows HPUX v4 and v5 which was existing in old roadmaps. This clearly indicates they have stopped development for new versions and will be continuing current last HPUXv3 as latest till 2025. This is major setback since customer look out for further development plans of service when opting for it.
I wish HP wake up to new versions and we see HPUX back alive and roaring on IT world! Still its not end of era! There are many crucial companies and sectors still run by HPUX cause crucial data needs strong shoulders!
These are my observations and perceptions on HPUX’s current stand in market. Let me know if you have any infographics, new data, matrices, graphs about HPUX journey till date in comments.
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