Oracle's announcement last week that it will stop developing software for Intel's Itanium processor has database startup EnterpriseDB looking to capitalize.
Hewlett-Packard's Integrity servers are based on Itanium chips and run its HP-UX OS. PostgreSQL, the open-source database at the core of EnterpriseDB's products, historically has not supported HP-UX "very well," CEO Ed Boyajian said in a blog post late Monday.
"This will change in early Q2 when EnterpriseDB introduces full support for the HP-UX platform via our Postgres Plus Advanced Server," he wrote.
The HP-UX support will build on EnterpriseDB's existing cross-compatibility with Oracle's database, which has been the company's strategic calling card for years. Customers who migrate from Oracle to EnterpriseDB have "virtually no need" to rewrite applications, Boyajian said.
The company's website contains a data sheet that outlines the various aspects of Oracle compatibility, which include SQL extensions and Oracle's PL/SQL language.
EnterpriseDB offers a migration assessment service that is supposed to give customers a solid sense of how much money and work it will take to switch from Oracle.
But HP-UX and Itanium customers looking to migrate off Oracle need not go to EnterpriseDB per se. In 2009, IBM licensed EnterpriseDB technology to make Oracle compatibility a part of its DB2 database.
In any case, EnterpriseDB may be able to tap a significant customer base by adding HP-UX support. "Oracle's database is a major workload on HP's Itanium servers, with possibly up to 40 percent of HP's flagship Superdome servers running Oracle," Forrester Research analyst Richard Fichera said in a blog post last week.
Oracle is only the latest in a long line of vendors, including Microsoft and Red Hat, that have stopped developing for Itanium Still, last week HP and Intel both insisted they remain committed to HP-UX and Itanium.