

HP to begin charging for firmware updates and service packs for servers - Ecio78
http://www.zdnet.com/hp-to-begin-charging-for-firmware-updates-and-service-packs-for-servers-7000026110/

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omh
Why would HP choose to do this? Is it really likely to increase revenue? I
can't imagine many customers without a support contract now getting one purely
for firmware updates - they'll just ignore them.

So perhaps a few extra sales from people who really need the bug fixes. But at
the expense of at least a loss of goodwill and increased hassle for legitimate
customers.

~~~
cones688
I had a thought about this that a lot of growing economy are using second hand
kit to run vast virtualised environments, HP could be trying to shut the door
on people buying old enterprise kit instead of their shiny new ones?

~~~
omh
That sounds plausible. For the most part though I'd expect those users to just
use the old hardware anyway, so it's not a loss of revenue. And I'm sure the
resources used to serve the updates wasn't significant.

------
kabdib
All this really means is that, if you have an HP server that you let the
service contract on lapse, you're going to ditch that hardware sooner.

Whether or not you buy another HP server is an interesting question. Dunno;
this is kind of a dick move on HP's part, and not a great sign.

~~~
javajosh
This assumes that people will continue to "upgrade" their hardware at roughly
the same rate they do today. My sense is that 10+ years ago we leveled-off on
the order of (1GHz, 10GB RAM, 1T, 1Gbps, 100W, 1 core). (Sure, the last 10
years has given us a small factor improvement across the board, a bit more
with power and disk, but it's not really a game-changer). HP _probably_
believes that people will be sticking with older hardware much longer, which
means they can't subsidize the ongoing work of software updates with new
equipment purchases any more.

Or I could be completely wrong and HP is trying to boil the frog in the same
way banks do with their fee structures. Either way, it doesn't seem like a
smart move in the absence of a compelling "if we buy server boxes, they better
be HP" story.

~~~
rch
> HP probably believes that people will be sticking with older hardware much
> longer

I really hope this is the case, and that a sustainable update model means I
can reasonably expect multi-decade lifetimes for utility grade systems. My
main concerns would be lock-in, and process changes that artificially create a
need for continuous updates.

~~~
lsc
The lack of BIOS upgrades is very rarely what kills a box. I have seen many
boxes still in production that are more than a decade old. a good friend has a
10 CPU sun enterprise server from the first dot-com; He conned some poor ISP
in davis into hosting it for him for $50/month. I'm certain that he is causing
their power bill to go up more than $50 every month.

That's the thing, though, today, I could give him 1/10th of a server that uses
1/10th the power, and he'd have more compute resources.

That's the primary thing that kills old servers; It's not that they die (They
become less reliable, but if it's good stuff and it's treated well, it's still
'good enough' for people willing to use "the cloud") What kills old servers is
that newer servers use dramatically less power per unit of work done.

~~~
rch
I'm looking into ways of using that waste heat. It's a feature :)

~~~
lsc
I've had many discussions about how to monetize old hardware; a favorite idea
is to set up some sort of "distributed grid computing" service in cold
climates, where the servers are all older, but they run in buildings that
would otherwise be electrically heated, making power costs zero.

(I mean, there are lots of problems with the idea; it's not getting past the
purest of fantasy stage, but it was fun to think about.)

------
Firefishy
HP's Vice President of HP Servers Support Technology Services received a
beating in the comments for the announcement:
[http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Technical-Support-Services-
Blog...](http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Technical-Support-Services-
Blog/Customers-for-life/ba-p/154423)

------
DiabloD3
I imagine I'm going to be downvoted for asking this, but isn't this an
extremely bad idea that is going to pretty much just bankrupt the HP server
division?

~~~
Ecio78
actually an internal source that I contacted told me that Cisco and others
have been doing the same for years, and also that after registration you'll be
able to get most of the firmware and software for consumer and servers, but
not for storage (or network). But just to be sure I downloaded today the
latest stuff for my N54L..

~~~
gtirloni
Oracle has also started doing this a while ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320436)).

It hardly impacts the customers these big corporations focus on (mostly other
big corporations).

I won't go into all the arguments pro and con this change but, suffice it to
say, companies that have HPUX/AIX/Solaris/etc servers and cannot afford a
support contract anymore are probably better served by other offerings (Linux,
BSD, etc) running on less expensive hardware.

People will probably say "HP server division will die now because of this".
While it's likely HP/Oracle/IBM's server divisions are not cash cows anymore,
this is unlikely to happen. Just as with mainframe, it's part of IT
optimization and using the right tool for the right job. Mainframes aren't
gone, just hidden away in very specific areas. These proprietary Unix
behemoths will go the same away... and the hidden areas they will be used at
can afford the support contracts.

Overall, nothing new happening here. We are just going to repeat all the
arguments again for why it's such a good/bad idea.

~~~
cones688
> proprietary Unix behemoths

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_System_z](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_System_z)

> just hidden away in very specific areas

Like every single Financial Institutions on the globe...

Horses for Courses... asking a steeplechaser to do a flat race would be
foolish, but each is exceptional for the task they have been bread for.

~~~
gtirloni
I think you're exemplifying my point. Any company that has enough resources to
buy a System z mainframe, can also afford to have a support contract and thus
won't be bothered by HP/IBM/Oracle's decision to hide firmware updates behind
a pay-wall.

Perhaps I should have phrased it "RISC machines" instead of specifying the OS
they run.

One fault in my argument is that HP sells smaller x86 machines, not only RISC
behemoths. So the small customer that bought an HP server a while ago, ran off
the warranty period and cannot afford a support contract, is royally screwed.
Even here, this go back to my argument: these people are not who HP/IBM/Oracle
are focusing on so they couldn't care less.

~~~
cones688
Totally agree with you, the low margin x86 servers whose focus is SMB or even
personal (in the case of N40L) are the ones who are most affected by.

Even most of the Proliant range comes with 3yrs service/support/warranty so
its only really the microservers which are really affected.

------
BrownBuffalo
So v1 is buggy, because sales numbers need to be up and its rushed to
production. However, sales Q3 is down, so let's charge for "added
functionality" (aka bug fixes) on the shit coming out the horse. Old trick,
same crap.

~~~
cjfont
Yes this certainly doesn't add incentive to get things done right the first
time around.

------
Firefishy
"For critical fixes HP will continue to make available 'Critical Fix'
Firmware." [for out of warranty systems] -
[https://twitter.com/HPChannelUK/status/432823844718387200](https://twitter.com/HPChannelUK/status/432823844718387200)

------
acd
Clearly HP is not giving a shit about its end customers, they do not want to
sell servers as its more profitable to sell IT services. I will not shop HP
the next time.

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nailer
Since firmware updates are frequently bug fixes, shouldn't this be covered as
part of the cost of the server?

Some firmware fixes are for serious thermal issues or other problems which
would result in data loss.

------
antr
This kind of anti-customer move will only help initiatives such as open
compute and companies that rely or want to develop this technology under that
route. HP feels to me like it's going down hill.

------
timpattinson
Prediction: Piracy of HP firmware will explode.

~~~
neoyagami
The pirate bay will be plased with this

~~~
brokenparser
But be careful, there might be an exloit lurking inside

~~~
drdaeman
Aren't firmware updates signed?

~~~
brokenparser
Yep, HP made it a policy to sign all their vulnerable firmwares. The procedure
remains the same: please print this document to commence firmware upgrade. See
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGEnakrx9o](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGEnakrx9o)

------
yardie
I had a feeling this was coming long ago. When I download support packs from
HP you do a little store checkout for 0.00 before you can download. It would
take no effort for them to add a few digits to that download process and turn
it into a full fledge store.

------
hpaavola
As a consumer I sometimes wish I could pay someone to get newer version of the
FW on various devices. On the other hand FW is a crucial part of the devices
and I should not have to pay extra for that.

~~~
lallysingh
I've had a support contract on an "enterprise-y" machine before, and that
still didn't mean I got firmware updates. Just because you're paying doesn't
mean that you get anything extra.

Specifically, I had a sun workstation (dual socket AMD) and it was originally
advertised as quad-core compatible. I had a support contract for it (it was <
$100). The firmware to make it support quad-core AMDs never came.

Word was that Foxconn (who actually built the motherboard) wasn't happy with
the poor sales, and didn't want to spend the money on more firmware
engineering. I donno how much of that was true, but it left me with a 60 pound
box that could only hold four cores (and no power management).

------
Fuxy
Interesting. I guess the firmware team/department have a new incentive to make
awfull software now.

We'll just make it barely function and the poor sap who doesn't notice any
problems untill the waranty runs out will just have to pay for support.

Wonder if you could sue or ask for a refund if the hardware doesn't work and
it's clearly their fault.

Aguably they were selling defective hardware that they refuse to fix from now
on. That would be a fun argument in court.

------
protomyth
Basically, we will stop buying HP and buy SuperMicro. Very simple.

~~~
wmf
If you even consider SuperMicro to be an option, I don't think HP wanted your
business.

~~~
protomyth
I'm a little unclear on your response. We buy a mix and pay for support
(either through the vendor or a recommended 3rd party).

~~~
GFischer
I think he believes HP is focusing on certain kind of enterprise customers (I
guess big, large-margin ones).

------
pstuart
A nice write up on HP's buggy firmware (which we apparently have in
production):

[http://www.softpanorama.org/Hardware/HP/ILO/#Fiasco:_some_ad...](http://www.softpanorama.org/Hardware/HP/ILO/#Fiasco:_some_additional_information)

~~~
yuhong
I don't think this included iLO firmware, only system BIOS and CPLD.

------
jayrox
ahh yes, exactly what the world needs. another excuse for servers to not have
the latest patches and service packs. as if it wasn't already bad enough.

------
Nux
Luckily we stopped using HP at work, good riddance!

------
zeruch
Well, this will likely be a boon for whitebox vendors.

------
nashashmi
A sign of things to come.

------
teddyh
Well, Apple already charges for MacOS, so I don’t see how this is any
different.

~~~
schmidp
MacOS is not a firmware or bios. And the 10.9 update is free of charge as
well. Firmware updates have always been free.

Also we are talking about servers here and not a desktop OS.

So what's different? Everything, we are not even talking about the same thing.

~~~
teddyh
In both cases it is software which is specific to hardware sold by the same
entity which made the software. There is no way anyone else except the
company’s customers could benefit from the software, and the software is
necessary for the hardware to operate correctly, but the company sees fit to
charge extra for the software anyway.

Of course, no analogy is perfect, but those are the commonalities I see.

~~~
vonmoltke
As GP said, and OS and board firmware are not the same thing, and equivalences
are silly.

> In both cases it is software which is specific to hardware sold by the same
> entity which made the software.

The only thing that makes OSX Apple hardware-specific is that Apple put a
check to try to prevent it from being installed on hardware they didn't
produce. I can install OSX on non-Apple hardware just fine via hacks. I can
also install OSX 10.9 on any Intel Mac that has the horsepower to support it.

Firmware is specific to a set of revisions of a specific board. I can't use
N40L mainboard firmware on an N54L and vice versa. I may not even be able to
use the same firmware on every board inside those lines.

> the software is necessary for the hardware to operate correctly

OSX is absolutely not required for Apple hardware to function correctly. I can
install Linux and Windows on any Intel Mac, and Linux on any PPC Mac.

> Of course, no analogy is perfect, but those are the commonalities I see.

The analogy is shit. I can find commonalities in blue whales and elephants,
but they are very different creatures. Firmware is a set of instructions for a
special-purpose controller in a specific circuit. Software is a set of
instructions for a general-purpose computer of a certain architecture.

------
cones688
I agree that its a bit of an annoyance for those of us who do use N40L or
N54Ls as they are brilliant home servers.

However this:

> That’s a hefty price to pay to fix what is arguably a defect in the original
> product

What a blatant lie. How can it be a defect in the original product for an
operating system which is brought out months after release of the hardware.

~~~
MertsA
A motherboard doesn't target a particular operating system for the most part,
it targets a set of standard interfaces. If a motherboard is capable of
booting Windows 7 it should be fine booting Windows 8 as well. In practice
these interfaces have bugs, your motherboard probably has dozens if not
hundreds of obscure bugs which violate specifications like ACPI causing sleep
not to work right or similar issues. Often times these bugs are just for
corner cases that weren't exposed in development with a particular OS and a
different OS might depend on a particular part of whatever spec that the BIOS
implementation doesn't quite get right. It can very well work fine the way XP
does things but not the way Vista does but this would still obviously be a
defect in the BIOS.

One interesting case many years ago was a particular motherboard that had
broken ACPI support only in Linux so suspend wouldn't work. The motherboard
would explicitly look for if the computer was running Linux and if it was it
would hand it a mangled ACPI table that didn't work. The fix was to actually
delete any code specific to Linux and have it give the Linux kernel the same
ACPI table it would give to Windows and it suddenly worked perfectly.
Obviously that's a problem with the BIOS and even though it said it
implemented ACPI it didn't implement it properly. It worked fine for Windows
but not Linux. You can certainly get more obscure problems going from one
Windows version to another as well.

