HP has embarked on a new push to improve its standing in the mission-critical server market.

The company has released the latest incarnation of its HP-UX server offering. The Unix-based system targets the server space where stability and reliability are at a premium.

Lorraine Bartlett, vice president of worldwide marketing for business-critical systems strategy and operations at HP, told V3.co.uk that, while reducing the amount of downtime from crashes and errors is always important, the latest update to HP-UX also looks to minimise scheduled downtime for tasks such as server maintenance.

Bartlett explained that the HP-UX 11i v3 update would allow administrators to perform routine maintenance tasks without taking the entire server offline. Additionally, the update will improve management features to better manage server connections and handle network traffic.

"One of the things which we have been very focused on over the last several years is minimising unplanned downtime," said Bartlett.

"Now what we have done in this release is focus on planned downtime. Customers need to minimise the amount of time that they have to take their server offline."

HP is also hoping that the update will help to usher in a flurry of new customers from rival Sun, which is in the process of merging with database giant Oracle.

With some customers uneasy about the possible future of Sun's server business, HP has launched a campaign to bring companies over to its own offerings. Bartlett estimates that upwards of 100 Sun customers have switched so far.

"Sun customers are quite uncertain about their future," said Bartlett. "We see this as an opportunity to address some of their concerns and introduce them to HP's role in the Unix and mission-critical market."