There is still much
that can be learnt checking social media posts and commentaries as well as web
sites – but doing nothing is not really an option in the informed world we all
belong to …
At this time of year, driving on roads paved with ice in
extremely cold conditions, the lowest sustained cold spell in decades even by
Colorado standards, has reinforced the notion that it’s never good to have something
between your vehicles tires and the road surface. Each year, as winter
descends, we see it; students, new to the local university, driving Jeep AWDs
looking astonished as they find themselves in the ditch with everyone else.
Aside from fitting metal-studded tires, there’s really no safe way to negotiate
ice.
There are occasions when we take advantage of friction, and there are times,
too, when it’s best left alone. When we drive, the amount of grip our car
develops is commensurate with the amount of friction we generate between our
tires and the road, and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, when we sail,
the drag we encounter from friction created as our vessel’s hull displaces
water, is a bad thing. Everyone watching the recent Americas Cup challenge may
remember that the competitors sailed on yachts designed with foils that raised
the yachts out of the water to eliminate as much drag as possible; avoiding
contact with the water was a way out for these high-tech yachts.
In general, friction too is something we tend to avoid in our daily lives. In
the December 16, 2013, issue of Time magazine columnist, Joel Stein, wrote of
2013 as being the year of not trying too hard. “Remember 2012, with all that
running for President, jumping out of the stratosphere to break the speed of
sound, watching a 2 ½ hour movie about Lincoln negotiating for congressional
votes, and pretending to understand the Higgs boson? All that trying so hard,”
asked Stein. “This year, we learned a lesson. This year, we took it easy: 2013
was the year of not trying too hard.”
One way to avoid friction is to do nothing whatsoever, and Stein broaches that
topic for Time readers. Stein ended his column by suggesting that, “Maybe, for
2014, we should just take a nice, long nap”. In winter conditions, such as I am
experiencing right now, I can just as easily stay at home; I don’t have to
venture out onto the highways. Friction can be so easily avoided. However, when
it comes to the NonStop community there’s no escaping that one topic above all
else generates friction – NonStop systems cost too much! No matter how you
present the value proposition that NonStop provides there’s still arguments
being made that NonStop remains an expensive purchase, but is that still true?
Scrolling down the ATMmarketplace web site – a publication where I am a blogger
– I read an article based on an interview with Diebold Inc. Executive VP and
Chief Innovation Officer, Frank Natoli. Under the headline of
ATM
innovation: Give the people what they want an argument was given by Natoli
that “Any system, any process that stands on its own, that requires you to
transfer information you know, or get from another channel – all those things
are friction.” And he’s right, of course. Check with anyone in the NonStop
community who has been asked to explain why they still support NonStop as a
solution in support of mission critical applications, and why less-expensive
solutions haven’t been introduced?”
Anyone not familiar with just how much energy the NonStop community has when it
comes to justifying NonStop in support of certain applications need look no
further than the discussion on the LinkedIn group, Tandem User Group,
Hi,
Why tandem Technology has used in all Banking areas, why not Mainframe. Is
there possibility for migrating Tandem to any other new Technologies.
Passions rose quickly when the subject embraced costs, with perhaps the best
response coming from former ITUG board member, Joe Ramos, who reiterated how he
“would throw in cost savings on a Tandem Enterprise vs. and IBM Enterprise.
Cost drivers HW/SW, infrastructure, and personnel. No one does it better or
cheaper. The reason why HP Nonstop owns the electronic transaction business is
due to availability, UPTIME, and cost.”
The above discussion proved long lasting and extremely volatile with arguments
pro and con bandied about with abandon. Few participants were prepared to
remain quiet and do nothing when it came to discussing whether NonStop was
still expensive. In prior years I had the opportunity to talk to current users
on this very topic and through introductions provided by HP I also interviewed
HP users running Linux, Unix and Windows (LUW) solutions. Two papers were
produced and both are available for download from the HP web site. The findings
were also covered in a number of blog postings here and elsewhere. To find
these papers, check out these links:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetDocument.aspx?cc=us&doclang=EN_US&docname=4AA4-0269ENW&doctype=white%20paper&lc=en&searchquery=&jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/docs/NonStop_TCO_ResearchNote_PyallaTechnologies_Final.pdf
I am revisiting these papers as a result of an inquiry from a real NonStop user
who knew little of their existence. Checking further on his behalf, as well as with
other users, I became aware that they have dropped down the list of opinion
papers and research notes and few know where to find them. However, these
papers remain every bit as relevant today as they have ever been – and the
numbers have improved significantly since I did the initial crunching. No,
there wasn’t the NB56000c and no, there wasn’t the NS2100. And no, HP had as
yet not announced plans for NonStop to support the Intel x86 architecture. It’s
as if new chapters are being written by HP on a predictable basis now, and we
need to communicate that every one of these chapters is good news.
When I last wrote about these latest systems in the post,
By
the numbers … Looking at the new NB56000c I quoted Yash Kapadia, CEO,
OmniPayments Inc. when he said “we have seen a marked uptick of interest in
OmniPayments when we were first able to talk about the new entry-level NonStop
system, the NS2100. Having everything in the one box, as I noted last year, at
an affordable price is the most important number of all – the additional
performance is great but it’s still all about price/performance and I hope HP
keeps an eye on the overall bottom line!” There’s no friction here whatsoever
as far as Yash is concerned. It’s simply cheaper to put an OmniPayments
solution into the marketplace running on NonStop than on equivalently sized LUW
cluster solutions.
That’s right, out of the box, a NonStop system in support of a
mission-critical solution costs less today on NonStop than a similarly
configured system running a stack that includes a popular SQL offering such as
Oracle. Knowing Yash the way I do, and the markets in which he operates, it’s
not surprising to see how aggressive Yash has become about pricing his
OmniPayments solution; and he is not alone – other payments solutions providers
are now following suite. Perhaps the myth about high prices can be traced back
to the early success of ACI where competitive pricing took a back seat for many
years!
For more about real world experience download the paper on Pulse, written
following its decision to go with NonStop in support of a new application. Pulse
also had a new business opportunity where the alternatives had included adding
to the IBM mainframe or building out the Unix / Oracle infrastructure. Instead,
NonStop won, on cost. “In addition to high availability and scalability, the HP
Integrity NonStop BladeSystem environment reduces our overhead costs and our
system complexity while delivering a cost point for transaction processing that
meets the requirements of our business model,” according to Tony Zeis, Senior
Vice President of Switch Technology, PULSE.
For more, download the paper from the HP web site:
https://www.pulsenetwork.com/pulse/documents/index/serveDoc.html?doc=HP_Case_Study-PULSE
And I am sure HP will direct any of us to even more stories on the subject of
costs, should we ask.
Furthermore, out of the box, NonStop systems are meeting the
needs of the CIOs charged with the oversight of the mission-critical solutions
deployed on NonStop. HP has done a wonderful job staying engaged with these
CIOs and responding to their requirements. First came the move to commodity
chips, then commodity storage followed by support of multiple industry standard
and open interfaces making development of new products easier. And now, the
final piece of this jigsaw – planned support of Intel x86 architecture. By my
count, this is definitely a positive reinforcement of just how closely connected
to CIOs HP continues to be – and that’s
a message more of us need to communicate to our peers.
Avoiding friction is easier said than done. In our everyday lives, it seems
impossible to escape friction however when it comes to NonStop and the topic of
pricing, it’s not a time to do nothing. It’s not a time to simply take a
holiday and to take it easy. That’s exactly what competitors to NonStop hope we
do and from my perspective, it’s not going to happen. This is simply a case
where presenting the facts on NonStop is giving the people what they want and
the good news is that this is a story that’s only going to get better with each
new chapter!
