Last week, Oracle’s announced its decision to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor. Apparently, Oracle contends that its decision was predicated on Intel’s “faltering commitment” to Itanium. The reporter surmises that Oracle wants HP's enterprise server money, and this is a means to that end.
The day after that announcement, The Register reported Intel president and chief executive officer Paul Otellini's rebuttal statement saying, “Intel's work on Intel Itanium processors and platforms continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule. We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture." The aforementioned article also reports HP's statement saying, “…it [HP] would be supporting its customers despite ‘Oracle's anti-customer actions,’ which were the result of plummeting Sparc server sales and the desire by Oracle to force customers to buy its own servers if they want to use Oracle software.”
So, what are the options for HP-UX customers running Oracle? One option (that Oracle is betting against) is a database migration to PostgreSQL. To date, PostgreSQL has not supported the HP-UX platform very well. This will change in early Q2 when EnterpriseDB introduces full support for the HP-UX platform via our Postgres Plus Advanced Server. EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Advanced Server provides a comprehensive Oracle compatibility solution. Postgres Plus Advanced Server lets you replicate your applications and the data from production Oracle databases to Postgres Plus seamlessly, with virtually no need to re-write your application.
Our solution supports a wide range of use cases, like reporting and business intelligence applications as well as most other enterprise applications your company uses to run its business. If you’re an HP-UX customer and you want to continue to leverage HP's hardware performance, consider migrating off Oracle to PostgreSQL via EnterpriseDB. You’ll save a lot of money [understatement], you’ll avoid more Oracle lock-in, and you can continue to leverage your valuable investment in HP-UX servers, confident that both the hardware and PostgreSQL database software will be well supported for the long term.