Headline Feeds
HP (NYSE: HPQ) on Tuesday announced it has extended its agreement with JBoss to offer an expanded portfolio of open-source solutions and services customers can deploy within their existing data centers.
HP will now provide worldwide support services for the entire JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS) of products on Linux, Windows and HP-UX 11i. HP also will certify JBoss Application Server for HP-UX 11i Open Source Reference Architecture.
Consulting Opportunities
HP plans to leverage its position as a single point of contact to tap into consulting opportunities, such as architecture and design, implementation and migration planning for the JEMS platform.
According to HP, the expanded agreement enables customers to implement large-scale adoption of open-source technology through its Linux Reference Architecture (LRA) program. The program is designed to allow smooth migration and help enterprise customers reap substantial cost-savings when deploying industry-standard platforms.
"Customers count on HP to continue enriching open solutions that meet genuine deployment needs and extend their flexibility," said Christine Martino, vice president of Open Source and Linux at HP. "By partnering with key open-source companies like JBoss, HP is enabling customers to confidently implement integrated open-source solutions on three powerful computing platforms."
HP's Open Opportunity
HP was the first major Linux vendor to certify JBoss Application Server. The company has since broadened support services for it worldwide.
Today's agreement expands HP's worldwide services and support for certifying JEMS components across all HP platforms. It also broadens consulting and integration services and subscription sales 
from HP to all JEMS products -- including Hibernate, JBoss jBPM, JBoss Portal and JBoss Cache -- with expected availability in late February.
HP and JBoss want to use their consulting and integration services to build service-oriented architectures (SOA) on the JEMS open-source platform and help customers build, deploy and support open-source SOA infrastructures and applications quickly and efficiently.
Hindsight Is 20-20
Interarbor Solutions Principal Analyst Dana Gardner told LinuxInsider that HP is well positioned to move on open-source services, support, maintenance and outsourcing.
"Some people look at HP and say they missed the boat because they didn't have their own software stack over the last four years or so," Gardner said. "But now the recognition that software licensing is diminishing as a business model."
Gardner said HP doesn't have the drag of incumbency; it doesn't have too much proprietary licensed software to protect. That, Gardner said, leaves HP free to get innovative with partnerships rather being forced to wait for a three-year research and development cycle.
The HP-UX 11i Factor
As part of HP and JBoss' agreement, JBoss AS becomes an integral component of HP-UX 11i Open Source Reference Architectures for Web Services just as it is for the HP LRA program.
Similar to and interoperable with HP's LRA, HP-UX 11i Open Source Reference Architectures for Web Services offer customers a choice of pre-configured, tested and documented open-source components that HP supports to facilitate secure solutions deployment on HP-UX 11i.
As with Linux, HP said it has the technical and engineering resources to support solution certification, environment evaluation, implementation, performance tuning and integration of JBoss AS with HP-UX 11i.
Perfect Pairing
Gardner said JBoss and HP go together like peanut butter and jelly.
"At a time when people are trying to read the tea leaves as to what HP is going to be doing about software, middleware and the enterprise stack, this sort of solidifies the notion that HP is fully behind open source and recognizes that the business model is about professional services, and that it will continue to partner in a big way," he said.
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