Whats New in HP-UX 11i?
HP has introduced HP-UX 11i with a new focus on the "Internet-centric" world. The new release HP-UX 11i was architected to encompass end-to-end e-services. The operating environment has been improved to include enhanced performance and scalability, high system availability, and flexible, end-to-end manageability. It is also easier to order, has increased Internet-ready security, and has added Internet-critical software and features. In addition, HP-UX 11i has Windows and Linux compatibility. Some of the major new features that encompass these areas are as follows:
Support of the Superdome and the rp8400, the newest PA-RISC servers
Hardware and software partitioning
Apache and other popular Web servers
Secure defaults and intrusion detection
Linux APIs
Veritas file system support as a core part of the operating environment
Four new operating environments that include a collection of layered software products
Dynamic tuning of kernel parameters
Performance and Scalability
HP has high scalability with the introduction of Superdome and rp8400 systems. The 11i operating environment was introduced initially to support the 64 processors on the Superdome server. In addition, 11i supports the use of hardware partitioning. HP-UX 11i now scales up to 64 processors and will support 256 in the future. A Superdome system can be divided into 16 unique servers with the use of hardware partitioning. It can be further subdivided with the use of virtual partitioning with a product named vPars.
HP's newest server, the rp8400, was introduced in September and also supports hardware and software partitioning. The rp8400 is a 16-way server that can be divided into two hardware partitions; it can further be subdivided with the use of virtual partitioning.
The use of virtual partitions will be available throughout the PA-RISC family beginning with the L Class server through the Superdome Server. The product vPars allows complete software isolation, to separate operating systems, middleware, and applications within a system. These independent instances of HP-UX are fully software-isolated but are not hardware-isolated, as are the hard partitions.
Hard partitions (Npars), which are inherent to the Superdome and rp8400, provide complete hardware isolation. This includes separate systems, I/O, boot, CPU, and memory. Npars can be used in conjunction with vPars so that applications can have hardware and software isolation and can be dynamically reconfigurable. By combining hardware and software partitioning on the Superdome and rp8400, the best availability and performance for each application can be optimally achieved. Figure 1 depicts the partitioning environments that are available with HP-UX on the PA-RISC family.
){kind=link}
Figure 1 Partitioning continuum.
The optimized kernel threads in HP-UX are an important enhancement to the operating environment. This enables multiple threads to access user data and multiple sets of user data to be accessed by the same thread. Java is a big user of kernel threads, so this is important to Internet applications or any applications using it.)