How would you describe HP-UX to a group of non-technical people?

[hpnovice]

I have to give a presentation on HP-UX. The presentation should last about 10 minutes. The audience is a group of about 20 people who have absolutely no idea what HP-UX does. My goal is to help them understand HP-UX better so that they can have knowledgeable discussions about it. Any help that can be provided is much appreciated.<br>
<br>
**I am a technical recruiter BUT my intentions are not to recruit. I simply would like some help on understanding HP-UX.**<br>

 

[MikeLacey]

Is the presentation on HPUX specifically? (as opposed to UNIX in general)<br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<p>Mike Lacey<br><a href=mailto:Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com>Mike_Lacey@Cargill.Com</a><br><a href=

http://www.cargill.com/>

Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>

 

[msjohnso]

In one sentence:<br><br>HP-UX is a version of the Unix operating system that runs on Hewlett-Packard computers.<br><br>[If they understand neither Unix nor operating systems, going into more detail is relatively pointless. If they do have some understanding, this statement will trigger additional questions whereby you can gauge your audience and decide how much detail to provide.]<br><br>Good luck with your presentation.

 

[rtrusty]

HP-UX is Hewlett-Packards version of Unix.   It supports the CDE (common desktop environment) which is pretty much analogous to the 'windows' desktop, and is standard across AIX, Sun, and HP-UX.<br><br>For most intents and purposes, HP-UX is pretty much indistinguishable from Sun and AIX.  Perhaps the biggest differentiators (at least from an admin's point of view) is the fact that HP's administrator tool (SAM) is less robust than AIX's SMIT.  I have been told that the same is true of SAM in comparison with SUN's product, but have no personal experience to back it up.  Unlike AIX, HP-UX is relatively weak in tracking system events.   In support of this, I would refer you to the AIX facility 'errpt', which tracks hardware/software problems across the operating system, and in many cases will diagnose the problem to the point where the CE has to do nothing more than show up with the board recommended by 'errpt'.  HP-UX has a tool called STM (or XSTM) which models the hardware of the system, and runs simple diagnostics against it...but in general, this seems much weaker than IBMs offering.  Again, I have no direct experience with SUN. <br><br>Finally, like AIX, HP-UX has a LVM (logical volume manager) integrated into the system, although it is weaker than what is available under AIX.  For example, disk-mirroring is an 'extra' that you have to pay for, until recently, file-system journalling was an 'extra', and the ability to dynamically change the size of logical volumes is an 'extra'.  Last I checked, these were all standard on AIX.  In contrast, SUN does not appear to have LVM support built in, although most SUN people tell me that this is not a problem, because 'all' you have to do is purchase and integrate the veritas product.     

 

[kaih]

HP-UX is one of the world's leading flavors of unix. Unlike some flavors of unix (for example, aix) HP-UX generally uses standard commands for system maintenance, so general unix training is useful to sysadmins on an HP-UX system. The advantage to unix over other operating systems is that unix is designed as a mid-range operating system. It is a multi-user, multi-tasking, timesharing operating system that runs on relatively cheap hardware.<br><br>Multi-user means that Unix can support more than one user. It has file and process security that helps keep people from stomping on each other, either by accident or on purpose. (Which is not to say that Bad Things can't happen, but they are much less likely.) Multi-tasking means that unix can run more than one proccess at the same time. Again, Unix is designed from the ground up to multi-task, so processes don't use each other's memory or other resources. Timesharing means that rather than run one process to completion, then starting on the next one, the operating system runs one process for a few milliseconds, then switches to another process, so each process can complete in a reasonable time. That way short-running processes don't have to wait for long-running processes to finish before they get a turn.<br><br>