On
looking back to all that transpired at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp, there
was much to excite the NonStop community …
Seems
more than appropriate to kick of this latest post with observations about
shorelines that recede and lights that dim. We have just pulled out of Sydney’s
Circular Quay as we start a very brief long-weekend voyage to Tasmania. I have
written about Australia’s southernmost state on more than one occasion, but one
sight has always intrigued me – Port Arthur. It was the extreme final
destination for those Australia’s convicts who misbehaved in Sydney cove to
such an extent that they had to be expelled from the more civilized penal
colony along Sydney’s shores.
As for the voyage itself it will follow almost the same course as the yacht fleet that will depart Sydney on Boxing Day (December 26) to race down Australia’s eastern coastline, across the Tasman Sea and up the Derwent River to Hobart. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is one of the premier yachting events on the blue water racing calendar and the fleet’s departure is among the great water spectacles of all time. I have watched the start of this race only once before (1974) and raced down the coast, but only as far as Flinders’ Island so I always have more than a passing interest in this famous race each year. Some may argue that there are better tests of man versus the open ocean and the classic Fastnet race covering a similar distance may offer a similar challenge, but for me, there is nothing quite like the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race for good old fashioned theater, full of drama and suspense.
With the smell of salt air strong on the breeze, stories of sailors and their battles with the sea and with the lights of Sydney fading in the distance, it’s appropriate that my thoughts turn to NonStop. It’s as if we are letting the old NonStop go as we begin a new adventure with a NonStop offering so much more than we could have imagined just a short time ago. Gone are the ties to the hardware that dominated the NonStop roadmaps for decades and indeed gone too are the ties to any hardware at all! All eyes are now firmly looking ahead as the full extent of the capability that comes with the L-Series operating system taking hold. Yes, it’s a brave new world we are entering and the lights that are diming behind us may be soon forgotten by a new generation of NonStop developers.
HPE NonStop held its NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC), an event that by any other name still smells like an ITUG Summit of times past. All the key elements were present – HPE NonStop executives and managers, a strong NonStop vendor community supporting an exhibition hall and a sizable number of NonStop users. Was the count accurate? One email I received as the event unfolded suggested there were one hundred first time attendees! If this turns out to be accurate then that is a very positive sign for the NonStop community as, after all, not only are NonStop systems transforming but the NonStop community is also going through a transformation – just look at the Under 40 SIG activities! Who could have guessed NonStop was attracting a next generation of supporters.
Among the many highlights of TBC, it would be hard not to begin with the breaking news that after so many years of commitment to all things NonStop, we have to finally say good-bye to Randy Meyer. While I am not sure of the exact timing as I think Randy arrived at NonStop after I had left NonStop Product Management for Insession, it does seem that Randy has been associated with NonStop like, forever! He has assured the community that he will be present for a little while longer to ensure handover goes smoothly and who will he be handing the controls of the NonStop organization to? Well, not unexpectedly, Jeff Kyle. As a community we should all be thankful for the stewardship of NonStop by Randy for so many years as there had to be many times when Randy could have called time on NonStop by simply saying, it’s time!
In front of more than 400 members of the NonStop community, three announcements struck a chord with all those in attendance. Perhaps most importantly of all – and yes, strongly rumored to be a possibility for some time now – the lights will be finally going out for the NonStop i family of systems together with the J-Series OS. Orders for both the 2300 / 2400 racks will be accepted only through to October 2019 while the more powerful 56000 blades can only be ordered through July 2020. Yes, finally the inventory of Itanium chips looks to be thinning to where supply chains are simply drying up. Not surprisingly, really, as they have been around for quite a while. But what this means that NonStop i is no longer strategic in any sense of the word and enterprises need to begin planning for the replacement of existing NonStop i systems with the latest products on offer from the NonStop team.
No worries about supporting the NonStop i systems already in place, as existing practices of HPE will be maintained. That is, the HPE NonStop team will be providing support for the hardware for an additional five years beyond the sales deadlines. So in all actuality, there will be close to seven years of NonStop i systems driving mission critical solutions before they bid farewell to our data centers. On the other hand, NonStop supporting the Intel x86 architecture means that NonStop not only will ride the Intel x86 architecture roadmaps for a very long time but just as importantly, all the new stuff NonStop users want from NonStop development will only be found in the L-Series OS. And clearly, the NonStop we are sailing towards is going to take many forms and in so doing, find new homes in lots of new places.
However, before getting too deep into discussions about the many bays and ports that will become likely candidates for harboring future NonStop systems, there were two additional items covered at TBC worth mentioning. Yes, the just-delivered NS2 systems – the virtualized NonStop reference architecture systems as I like to view them – will be delivered with the newer Gen10 ProLiant processors a development not entirely unexpected by the community following numerous HPE presentations about Gen10 ProLiant at events where members of the NonStop community had been present. Currently, NS2 ships with Gen9 ProLiant servers. Not surprisingly, Intel is doing a lot more with HPE to the benefit of the NonStop community and I am pleased to see that taking place as Intel continues to set the pace when it comes to processors.
However, what may prove more interesting to the NonStop community is the extension of NonStop Dynamic Capacity (NSDC) beyond the just-delivered NS2 to include the largest member of the NonStop X family. This capability is now available for the NS7 – move from 2 cores per CPU to 4 cores (and yes, from 4 cores to 6 given how “the NonStop OS is fully aware of, and can make automatic use of up to 6 cores”) - “with a single command; no application outage to go up or down in cores!”
In so doing, enterprises with NS7 systems deployed can increase capacity for temporary peak workload periods for just one day or even a whole month! Black Friday or Mothers’ Day causing problems? No worries! If the month of December is always a horror stretch for many in IT, then again, no worries! If you want more capacity for longer periods then perhaps you need to upgrade your system as this is just the equivalent to Indy cars “push to pass” buttons reserved for use only on special occasions.
With the lights of the NonStop i family of systems fading in the distance and more capabilities being delivered for those systems where the L-Series is deployed – that is, traditional and virtualized – the NonStop team also announced that there will be support to help all enterprises migrate to L-Series. This will come from many sources with HPE Pointnext very much in the equation as will NonStop solutions architects, many of whom we know all too well. But in a further demonstration of the NonStop teams newfound willingness to partner the NonStop team will be working with a select group of managed services providers to ensure the entire planet is adequately covered. Working in this manner and with coverage as extensive as it likely will become, HPE is ensuring there will be few missed opportunities for NonStop X and Virtualized NonStop.
There were events and meetings held in Australia that I needed to attend, and that meant that I was unable to be at this year’s TBC – a first miss in a very long time. However, by all counts it was a very well run show. Didn’t the NonStop team give the NonStop community something like 50 + presentations over the three days? The NonStop vendor community stepped up as well providing another 20 presentations – how many presentations did OmniPayments give, for instance, the neat thing being that OmniPayments featured a number of real world users. And did you hear how NTI has ordered a lot of Virtualized NonStop licenses? More about these and other announcements I will have to leave to other posts, but for me, it’s all an indication of just how well-received by the NonStop vendor community this new NonStop has become. The old is beginning to fade from sight. Farewell NonStop and yet, aren’t we all proud to be able to say, welcome! New NonStop! Your lights are shining brightly …
As for the voyage itself it will follow almost the same course as the yacht fleet that will depart Sydney on Boxing Day (December 26) to race down Australia’s eastern coastline, across the Tasman Sea and up the Derwent River to Hobart. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is one of the premier yachting events on the blue water racing calendar and the fleet’s departure is among the great water spectacles of all time. I have watched the start of this race only once before (1974) and raced down the coast, but only as far as Flinders’ Island so I always have more than a passing interest in this famous race each year. Some may argue that there are better tests of man versus the open ocean and the classic Fastnet race covering a similar distance may offer a similar challenge, but for me, there is nothing quite like the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race for good old fashioned theater, full of drama and suspense.
With the smell of salt air strong on the breeze, stories of sailors and their battles with the sea and with the lights of Sydney fading in the distance, it’s appropriate that my thoughts turn to NonStop. It’s as if we are letting the old NonStop go as we begin a new adventure with a NonStop offering so much more than we could have imagined just a short time ago. Gone are the ties to the hardware that dominated the NonStop roadmaps for decades and indeed gone too are the ties to any hardware at all! All eyes are now firmly looking ahead as the full extent of the capability that comes with the L-Series operating system taking hold. Yes, it’s a brave new world we are entering and the lights that are diming behind us may be soon forgotten by a new generation of NonStop developers.
HPE NonStop held its NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC), an event that by any other name still smells like an ITUG Summit of times past. All the key elements were present – HPE NonStop executives and managers, a strong NonStop vendor community supporting an exhibition hall and a sizable number of NonStop users. Was the count accurate? One email I received as the event unfolded suggested there were one hundred first time attendees! If this turns out to be accurate then that is a very positive sign for the NonStop community as, after all, not only are NonStop systems transforming but the NonStop community is also going through a transformation – just look at the Under 40 SIG activities! Who could have guessed NonStop was attracting a next generation of supporters.
Among the many highlights of TBC, it would be hard not to begin with the breaking news that after so many years of commitment to all things NonStop, we have to finally say good-bye to Randy Meyer. While I am not sure of the exact timing as I think Randy arrived at NonStop after I had left NonStop Product Management for Insession, it does seem that Randy has been associated with NonStop like, forever! He has assured the community that he will be present for a little while longer to ensure handover goes smoothly and who will he be handing the controls of the NonStop organization to? Well, not unexpectedly, Jeff Kyle. As a community we should all be thankful for the stewardship of NonStop by Randy for so many years as there had to be many times when Randy could have called time on NonStop by simply saying, it’s time!
In front of more than 400 members of the NonStop community, three announcements struck a chord with all those in attendance. Perhaps most importantly of all – and yes, strongly rumored to be a possibility for some time now – the lights will be finally going out for the NonStop i family of systems together with the J-Series OS. Orders for both the 2300 / 2400 racks will be accepted only through to October 2019 while the more powerful 56000 blades can only be ordered through July 2020. Yes, finally the inventory of Itanium chips looks to be thinning to where supply chains are simply drying up. Not surprisingly, really, as they have been around for quite a while. But what this means that NonStop i is no longer strategic in any sense of the word and enterprises need to begin planning for the replacement of existing NonStop i systems with the latest products on offer from the NonStop team.
No worries about supporting the NonStop i systems already in place, as existing practices of HPE will be maintained. That is, the HPE NonStop team will be providing support for the hardware for an additional five years beyond the sales deadlines. So in all actuality, there will be close to seven years of NonStop i systems driving mission critical solutions before they bid farewell to our data centers. On the other hand, NonStop supporting the Intel x86 architecture means that NonStop not only will ride the Intel x86 architecture roadmaps for a very long time but just as importantly, all the new stuff NonStop users want from NonStop development will only be found in the L-Series OS. And clearly, the NonStop we are sailing towards is going to take many forms and in so doing, find new homes in lots of new places.
However, before getting too deep into discussions about the many bays and ports that will become likely candidates for harboring future NonStop systems, there were two additional items covered at TBC worth mentioning. Yes, the just-delivered NS2 systems – the virtualized NonStop reference architecture systems as I like to view them – will be delivered with the newer Gen10 ProLiant processors a development not entirely unexpected by the community following numerous HPE presentations about Gen10 ProLiant at events where members of the NonStop community had been present. Currently, NS2 ships with Gen9 ProLiant servers. Not surprisingly, Intel is doing a lot more with HPE to the benefit of the NonStop community and I am pleased to see that taking place as Intel continues to set the pace when it comes to processors.
However, what may prove more interesting to the NonStop community is the extension of NonStop Dynamic Capacity (NSDC) beyond the just-delivered NS2 to include the largest member of the NonStop X family. This capability is now available for the NS7 – move from 2 cores per CPU to 4 cores (and yes, from 4 cores to 6 given how “the NonStop OS is fully aware of, and can make automatic use of up to 6 cores”) - “with a single command; no application outage to go up or down in cores!”
In so doing, enterprises with NS7 systems deployed can increase capacity for temporary peak workload periods for just one day or even a whole month! Black Friday or Mothers’ Day causing problems? No worries! If the month of December is always a horror stretch for many in IT, then again, no worries! If you want more capacity for longer periods then perhaps you need to upgrade your system as this is just the equivalent to Indy cars “push to pass” buttons reserved for use only on special occasions.
With the lights of the NonStop i family of systems fading in the distance and more capabilities being delivered for those systems where the L-Series is deployed – that is, traditional and virtualized – the NonStop team also announced that there will be support to help all enterprises migrate to L-Series. This will come from many sources with HPE Pointnext very much in the equation as will NonStop solutions architects, many of whom we know all too well. But in a further demonstration of the NonStop teams newfound willingness to partner the NonStop team will be working with a select group of managed services providers to ensure the entire planet is adequately covered. Working in this manner and with coverage as extensive as it likely will become, HPE is ensuring there will be few missed opportunities for NonStop X and Virtualized NonStop.
There were events and meetings held in Australia that I needed to attend, and that meant that I was unable to be at this year’s TBC – a first miss in a very long time. However, by all counts it was a very well run show. Didn’t the NonStop team give the NonStop community something like 50 + presentations over the three days? The NonStop vendor community stepped up as well providing another 20 presentations – how many presentations did OmniPayments give, for instance, the neat thing being that OmniPayments featured a number of real world users. And did you hear how NTI has ordered a lot of Virtualized NonStop licenses? More about these and other announcements I will have to leave to other posts, but for me, it’s all an indication of just how well-received by the NonStop vendor community this new NonStop has become. The old is beginning to fade from sight. Farewell NonStop and yet, aren’t we all proud to be able to say, welcome! New NonStop! Your lights are shining brightly …
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