Hewlett-Packard has updated its HP-UX 11i v3 Unix operating system again, this time rejiggering the pre-packaged “operating environments” so customers can focus on high availability and virtualization.

Previous operating environments from the company included Foundation, Enterprise, and Mission-Critical. Each came with the HP-UX operating system kernel plus some HP middleware to accompany it, and were built like Russian dolls. Foundation was the smallest, Enterprise had everything Foundation had and a little more, and Mission-Critical had everything Enterprise had plus a little more.

Users don’t have to buy the pre-packaged deals; they can just buy the operating system and then add on middleware products a la carte. But HP claims customers can save thousands by buying the packaged deals, as well as the time in not having to buy and install each separate feature they want.

With the new update, the operating environments are a bit more like different looking dolls sitting next to each other. They include Base, High Availability, Virtual Server, and Data Center. High-Availability and Virtual Server both have everything Base has, but with unique features to one another. High-Availability, for example, has HP Serviceguard, software that helps clustered server environments prevent downtime.
The Virtual Server OE, meanwhile, has Virtual Server Environment, HP’s virtualization environment for its Unix servers.

Data Center OE encapsulates everything.

“It’s about as good a direction I can think of as any,” said Tony Iams, an analyst at Ideas International. “Virtualization is clearly an important development in the industry, but not everyone is ready to fully embrace that yet. So for users that just want to keep running the same workloads in the way they have in the past, the High Availability operating environment makes a lot of sense.”

The update is one of a regular string of updates (about every six months) that HP plans to make between major versions of HP-UX. An update this fall made it easier for users to add and subtract resources to hardware partitions using HP-UX. Along with the most recent update, it’s clear that HP is focusing its Unix operating system on virtualization, which is pretty much what every Unix operating system vendor — actually, every OS vendor, Unix or not — is doing.