Kernel Level Threading in HPE Nonstop – the dawn of a platform that scales like no other

HPE’s introduction of Kernel Level Threads (KLT) on the Nonstop platform marks a strategic modernization of its threading architecture—realizing a compute platform that can both scale-up and scale-out at the same time – a unique feat in the industry.

What’s Changing?

Historically, Nonstop applications relied on cooperative threading models (PUT, SPT, GTHREADs), where multiple user threads shared a single kernel thread. This limited scalability as it restricted threads of a process to a single CPU core. With KLT, each user thread is backed by a kernel thread, enabling true parallel execution across CPU cores. Support for POSIX APIs and services such as mutexes, read-write locks, thread local storage and others enables applications built for commodity platforms such as Linux and Windows to be easily ported to run on the HPE Nonstop platform to allow these workloads gain HA and scalability advantages out of the box.

Why It Matters for Business

• Scale-up: For applications currently running on Nonstop, unlocking multi-core performance for real-time workloads. Gain scale-up advantages by utilizing all cores of a Nonstop CPU in addition to being able to scale-out across multiple CPUs of a system.
• Portability: Multi-threaded applications developed for Linux or Windows can be more easily ported to Nonstop, reducing development overhead and accelerating time-to-market. Maintain common code base for your application across different supported platforms and reduce development cost.
• Operational efficiency: Better CPU utilization means lower infrastructure costs and improved responsiveness for mission-critical workloads.

Strategic Implications

HPE Nonstop is a modern, standards-aligned platform for enterprise workloads. It enables:

• Workload modernization offering improved support for modern application environments based on Java, Python and others.
• Scalability and high availability for solutions developed using design concepts such as microservices, polyglot programming, and devsecops principles
• Enables deployment of real-time transaction processing workloads with reduced latency
• Easier adoption of open-source and cross-platform software

For organizations invested in Nonstop, KLT is not just a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic enabler for hybrid architectures, modernization initiatives, and long-term platform viability.

For more information, refer to the technical brief and KLT user guide.