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.
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.
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!
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!
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