Skip to main content

Landscapes change but whom they serve stays the same …


City landscapes keep changing but when it comes to what can be seen inside the data center, it is changing even faster with little that reminds us of the past! 


Counting down to the 500th post to Real Time View – only nine to go with the publication of this post - and considering I have just celebrated yet another birthday, it leaves me to wonder; where did all that time go? It’s just a little over a decade following the publication of the very first post but already, the NonStop landscape has changed in ways none of us could have predicted. Back in 2007 I had been off the ITUG Board for little more than a year but after an ITUG Board meeting in Chicago somehow a discussion followed where the topic of social media was raised at which time someone suggested I may want to start blogging about NonStop. The details are sketchy and who was part of the conversation, but no matter, I took the bait. The landscape has certainly changed – ITUG is now part of Connect and NonStop is part of Mission Critical Systems, a thriving business unit within the new Hybrid IT organization.

It’s hard to imagine when you look today at the skyline of Sydney that during my youth the tallest building in Sydney was the AWA tower. Taller than the old clock tower of the Sydney GPO, the main post office, now the Westin Hotel – it was a time before the office tower building boom really took off in the 1960s. Today you have to look really hard to even see the AWA tower, but during my stay at the Westin Hotel in January my hotel room gave me the best view I have had of this former landmark in quite a while. In fact, I had almost forgotten about the structure so hidden as it now is behind office skyscrapers that have popped up all around it. It may just be a small footnote in history but it was AWA that manufactured the very first Netlink (formerly, Systems Technology) SNA_Gate (formerly, the 3703)  protocol convertor; Netlink was instrumental in my journey taking a distinctly sideways shift that eventually led to me joining Tandem Computers.

The AWA Tower has now lost its bright red AWA signage. If you see it for the first time you may be puzzled by its presence on a busy Sydney thoroughfare but the art deco design of the tower and the fifteen story building atop which it stands ensured that it would be preserved and remain a reminder of what Sydney once looked like. Its initial task was to ensure ship communication between Sydney and the U.K. could be initiated. However, if the landscape surrounding Sydney’s Central Business District (CBD) on which this tower looked down has changed dramatically so has the landscape surrounding NonStop. Will the passage of time be as kind to NonStop as it has been to AWA?

When you look out over the NonStop landscape today it is very much recognizable even as it’s all about to change. The NonStop systems in production look much like they have always looked, even if the colors have changed with time. Yes, we have seen them colored black, gray, beige, and now as servers mounted in racks, it’s back to black much like you would find in any upmarket hi-fi component rack. In other words, what a NonStop looks like today is vastly different from what it looked like decades ago and yet it is still unmistakably NonStop. The original shared-nothing, massively-parallel, fault tolerant architecture remains and no matter the criticality of the application, when it needs to run without any downtime, NonStop continues to deliver.


Remember this advertisement for the “new” NonStop II? The system advertised here promises “a brand new system which builds on the original and includes an enormous expansion of the system’s potential.” How enormous? “The new system utilizes 32 bit addresses to give the user access to virtually unlimited data space. Up to one BILLION bytes of data per processor under the direct control of the Operating System.” Clearly, well short of the numbers being thrown around today when it comes to storing (and processing) data and where perhaps the biggest disruptor to conventional data center “landscaping” is about to make its presence felt. Data, and more data! 

This advertisement was published in June 1981 (it may have appeared in other publications before that date but not much earlier) and is a reminder of just how much the landscape has changed, but it is of interest in that at the time, there was a heavy emphasis on the hardware by other vendors whereas with Tandem Computers, there was as much attention given to software as was given to the hardware. Both the message of software and the ability to handle virtually unlimited data still resonate with the NonStop community to this day.

Under HPE oversight, NonStop has evolved to where it can be purchased as software only to be run on your own x86 / Ethernet servers. Enterprises who want to continue purchasing complete NonStop systems – hardware, software stack, and even services - can continue to do so, but for others, being able to order virtualized NonStop (vNS) and deploy it on their own hardware, will prove attractive. Even more so contemplating running NonStop applications on private clouds where hypervisors like VMware are standard. The changing priority for NonStop and its shift to being a software solution shouldn’t be a surprise to any member of the NonStop community that has followed HPE for any length of time.

In a July 22, 1991 advertisement in Computerworld, HP said:

“If you’re planning to add a system to handle a new strategic application, call us. We’ll deliver a computer solution that will tackle the immediate task. At the same time, it will integrate with products from other vendors, with other platforms, operating systems and application.  Key to making this work is our broad range of systems software technology.”

Almost thirty years ago, HP was admonishing the IT world that compatibility and integration were key to deploying new systems and once again, this same message is taking center stage with the new HPE. Whereas NonStop move to being a software solution may have caught some members of the NonStop community off-guard, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see HPE giving the NonStop team that all important hand-up that has lifted it from out of being part of a pure hardware / platform play. When we discuss changing landscapes and the emergence of Hybrid IT, it’s worth noting that the products HPE includes as part of this transforming strategy have roots in developments that date back decades. No surprises here that NonStop supports vast amounts of data even as it continues to build on its original fault tolerant architecture or that HPE knew that providing a broad range of systems software would be key to adding clouds into the mix with traditional systems.

The landscapes of some cities have changed dramatically over a short period of time – think of London or Singapore or even Shanghai. On the other hand, Sydney’s cityscape is changing rapidly but even so, it pays homage to its past with everything from full restorations to façade architecture of which our Westin Hotel on Sydney’s Martin Plaza was a fine example. However, the landscape of IT is changing even faster and at a pace that sometimes it’s difficult to comprehend what is being deployed. Users’ needs keep expanding even as the customer experience becomes more demanding but through it all, the architecture and technology of NonStop prevails and the audience they serve – those customers who just have to complete their transactions – remains the same as it always has despite the many changes to the manner whereby they interact with the enterprise.  

The passage of time has been very good for NonStop and is yet another endorsement on just how well architected NonStop has proved to be – well thought-out and well-built structures do stand the test of time and who knows, with another 500 posts to this blog possible, what will the then-new NonStop look like? One thing I am pretty sure will happen is that in 2024 we will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of NonStop (nee Tandem) and who would have thought about that back when NonStop II was announced! Can you see NonStop as part of your data center landscape? Don’t be surprised if your competitors are already onboard as in 2019 the structures may have changed but what constitutes NonStop will still be supporting real-time mission-critical applications, no matter the audience!          

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If it’s June then it’s time for HPE Discover 2021.

  For the NonStop community there has always been an annual event that proved hard to resist; with changing times these events are virtual – but can we anticipate change down the road? Just recently Margo and I chose to return home via US Highway 129. It may not ring any bells, but for those who prefer to call it the Tail of the Dragon – 318 curves in 11 miles – it represents the epitome of mountain excitement. For Margo and me, having now driven the tail in both directions, driving hard through all these turns never gets old. Business took us to Florida for an extended week of meetings that were mostly conversations. Not everything went to plan and we didn’t get to see some folks, but just to have an opportunity to hit the road and meet in person certainly made the 4,500 miles excursion worthwhile. The mere fact that we made touring in a roadster work for us and we were comfortable in doing so, well, that was a real trick with a car better suited to day trips. This is all just a p

Three more wishes coming soon – the path ahead for NonStop.

So, another three years have passed by and I find myself writing a preview of what I will likely focus on in eighteen months’ time – my next three wishes for NonStop! It wouldn’t be fair on my family if I said 2019 had been a routine year for Pyalla Technologies. It started with the return flight from Sydney, Australia, and continued with three separate trips to Europe plus a lengthy road trip to Las Vegas for HPE Discover 2019 combined with stops in southern California and participation in N2TUG back in Texas. The miles have added up but all the while even as the adventurous life continued to unfold, there was so much news coming out of HPE that scarcely a day passed without a discussion or two over what it all means. Margo and I have our roots firmly anchored in NonStop, dating back to Tandem Computers where Margo had risen through the development organization all the way to the COO role under the stewardship of Bill Heil when Bill headed the NonStop Software BU. As for me

ACI Strategy - it's all about choice!

I have just returned from spending a few days in Omaha attending the annual ACE Focus meeting. These two day meetings provide more in-depth technical coverage than is usually found at the regular ACI user events, and ACI customers have been coming for more than a decade to hear the messages directly from company executives. The picture I have included here is of the venue of the Wednesday night social event – a reception held at a local sports bar called the ICEHOUSE. And I found this extremely ironic as my own involvement with ACI came through my association with the ICE product. For most of the ‘90s, ACI had been the global distributor for ICE and then, as we began the new millennium, ACI purchased Insession, creating a separate business unit that it named Insession Technologies. For nearly six years, as part of ACI it enjoyed a successful partnership with the NonStop community and had provided a number of solutions in communications, web services, and security. But the decision in l