AlphaServer lives--at least until Itanium
Summary
Topics
HP made a flurry of announcements recently. As with all such press shows, some items were ho-hum, some were standouts, and some didn't seem to really matter until the follow-up questions were asked.
For those of you who write me to express anger about the demise of the Alpha CPU (which some of you apparently consider a gift from the gods), HP's announcement of three new Alphas in its AlphaServer series should help to defuse your rage. Of course it's not going to mollify your concerns. You grew up in the same age I did where your CPU was like your wife. You wrote code for it in iambic pentameter, you coddled it through cranky times, you overlooked its few shortcomings in return for the satisfaction of knowing it was yours, and anyone who maligned it deserved no less than an eternity on the rack--with no functional cooling fans.
But you many not know that HP plans to phase out the AlphaServer in the 2006-2007 time frame--depending on sales--and it vows to provide support for an additional 5 years. Unless I've run out of fingers, that's a 15-year run for AlphaServer--only a whisker shorter than the musical Cats, which seems to have gone on forever. If you're still concerned, remember that key phrase, "depending on sales."
In its place, HP is heading for a pure Itanium environment with IA32 and IA64 products. Yes, it believes that the Itanium processor will be an unqualified success and no, contrary to what our mothers told us early in life, it's not worried about putting all of its eggs in one basket. For those of you who think in a logical fashion--rather than the atmosphere of rationalization that surrounds lawyers, CPAs, and others of similar ilk--that should throw up a red flag. HP, however, is happy in its decision.
But that, in my estimation, is not really the big announcement; TiCOD (Temporary instant Capacity On Demand) is. This is one of those ideas that is amazingly simple, deviously profitable, and immensely helpful all in the same stroke of the pen.
We've all had those times when the workload reached a point where we would have sold our souls for just a little extra processor capacity--but not all time and not necessarily for a long time. All we want is a temporary boost in capability to meet an expected, but probably seasonal, crush. Ordinarily, you'd need to anticipate the event, order new equipment, have it delivered and integrated, and, by the time that's all done you probably don't need it any more. HP's solution is to give you those extra processors up front.
All right, "give" isn't really accurate. You and your HP rep sit down, decide what additional capacity you may temporarily need, it's included in your order, and you pay a use fee up front which HP describes as being about 10 percent of what the additional processor complement might cost if purchased outright. What you receive is 30 days worth of minutes (about 7,000 minutes total) of use time. You're able to activate and de-activate the processors as needed and your usage will be decremented from the amount you've purchased. It's like a phone card in most aspects except your charges accrue from the moment of activation, not utilization. If your CPU has been activated but is sitting there idle, you're still paying for it. Wise decisions will need to be made here.
Essentially, HP gets partial payment in advance for something it's not really selling. (Let's wait for the SEC ruling about how that should be reported.) For HP that's a good thing. Obviously there are drawbacks from your perspective. You're paying for something you don't really own. While that sounds like the typical lease scenario, in fact, you could end up paying more for the processors on this pay-as-you-go plan than if you bought them outright, if you've misjudged your special usage regimen. (And you can't apply what you've investing in pay-as-you-go toward purchase.)
On the other hand, if you're good at your job (and we all are, aren't we?), you'll be able to amortize costs in real time, not just over time on the accounting books. It means a smaller chunk of your budget is extracted at each re-licensing interval rather than a huge bloody handful of money all at once. That leaves you free to invest in other needed services, like storage solutions.
Does your company use AlphaServers? What's your take? TalkBack to us, or send e-mail to Bill.
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