HP has announced the launch of HP-UX 11i v3, the latest version of its Unix-based server operating system.

Despite the increase in Linux servers, HP is committed to the HP-UX operating system, and plans releases every two to three years in line with its publicly available roadmap.

The vendor is placing a heavy focus on total cost of ownership, virtualisation and dynamic resource management.

HP claims an average 30 per cent performance increase in applications running HP-UX 11i v3 simply by upgrading and without any recompiling.

This is down to tweaks in threading and a complete rewrite of the storage stack. The biggest performance gains can be seen in Java applications.

HP director Nick van der Zweep said at a press conference in San Francisco: "There really is no need to recompile your applications to experience an improvement in operational performance.

"The new version is completely code-compatible with anything that currently runs properly on version 2."

The complete overall of the mass storage stack means that the architecture now supports the addressing of up to 100 million zettabytes of highly available, secure storage. 

One zettabyte equals one billion terabytes, so the capacity represents effectively limitless data storage.

HP-UX 11i v3 also promises many new virtualisation features, allowing administrators to dynamically move memory and resources among distributed virtual partitions on the fly with no disruption to users.

Similarly, in the event of planned or unplanned downtime, instances can be moved to another available server or cluster to help maximise uptime and server utilisation.

Uptime and stability is also enhanced with the ability to hot-swap memory, processors and I/O cards.

A new Software Assistant simplifies patch and security bulletin management and patch deployment, while a Dynamic Root Disk system administration toolset enables online patching by running an image of the system while patches are installed.