HP has announced a new version of its HP-UX Unix environment with better support for virtualisation, and unveiled two entry-level servers designed to run the platform. The new servers offer the performance of HP's Integrity line at a price point comparable to x86 Windows servers, the company said.

HP-UX 11i version 3, shipping now, adds new capabilities and runs applications up to 30 percent faster than the previous version, while maintaining binary compatibility.

"If you were to upgrade today without changing the hardware, you would see an average 30 percent performance improvement over 11i v2," said Malcolm Garstang of HP Business Critical Systems in Europe.

New hot-swap and online patching capabilities reduce downtime of systems, plus four new virtual server reference architectures can cut deployment time from a typical 14 weeks to three or four weeks, Garstang said. HP-UX 11i v3 is also designed to support up to 100 million zetabytes of storage, according to HP, where a zetabyte is 1 billion terabytes.

HP also said it aims to cut the cost of Integrity ownership by offering customers new entry-level servers that blur the boundary between HP's Integrity and ProLiant server platforms.

The Integrity rx2660 uses many of the components of a typical ProLiant DL385, according to Garstang, but runs Itanium 2 processors in place of x86 chips and is available now with prices starting at €3,333 (£2,230).

Shipping from March, the BL860c is the first Integrity blade server designed to fit HP's C-Class enclosures and is capable of running up to four operating systems, including Windows, Linux and VMS in the future. It also runs Itanium 2 processors and is priced from €3,000 (£2,010).

Garstang said the new systems offered increased reliability and performance at a much lower price than rivals; a Sun Fire system with comparable performance would cost over £8,000, he said.