An
opportunity to enjoy a “BizCation Voyage” through the heart of Europe gave us
the chance to interact with communities and in so doing, gave us pause to
consider one possible NonStop: Endgame as of right now!
For the past two weeks Margo and I have been
crisscrossing the industrial heartland of central Europe. It’s been a fortnight
of canals, locks, bridges and yes, you guessed it; Europe’s major rivers.
Starting out in Amsterdam, we travelled down the Rhine River for a couple of days
before entering the Main River. From there it was a simple case of entering the
Main to Danube canal with its impressive locks that lifted our craft over the
continental divide, as it was called, but at less than 1,000 feet high
unimpressive to us Coloradans, our travels ended with a couple of days of
floating on the blue Danube.
Our time in Europe saw us interacting with clients at both ends of the journey both of which contributed to us better understanding the current political climate of this part of Europe even as it added another chapter to the adventure that has Margo and me thoroughly engaged in for quite some time now. And did I mention climate? If you missed the news flashes of the past week or so, Europe is hot! Even the political and commercial interests can’t match the heat of the day as the weather has been brutal of late. However, afloat on major rivers as we were meant that there was always some relief from the heat blowing across our vessel.
The picture above was of Margo and me atop a peak looking down on the Danube and the Buda side of Budapest. The last time we were both in this city was back in 2003 when we attended what was then called an ACE customer conference that was put on by ACI Worldwide for its European BASE24 customers. As part of the Insession Technologies team, we participated as ICE and WebGate were making a very real contribution to the BASE24 product line. However, two major world events coincided with this conference, the first being the chaotic scenes in Baghdad’s Firdos Square during the Iraq War as we all watched the television coverage of the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein (April 9, 2003). The second was far more upbeat as on April 12, 2003, Hungary held a referendum on joining the European Union where the proposal was approved by a huge majority of voters – over 80%.
It takes very little by way of inputs to get Margo and me reliving the past, rethinking the events of long ago even as there is always a time to simply stop and look around at what is happening today. Naturally enough, it takes even less time before we look at the prospects for the future and when it comes to HPE, the company and its products and services, it was an awful long time ago that I traveled to Los Angeles to hear then HP CEO, Carly Fiorina, talk at HP World, 2002 (after the Compaq acquisition) to hear that HP was “focusing its energy on reducing the cost and complexity of infrastructure. HP is going to aim its collective resources and talent at reinventing the IT value proposition for its customers and will stake its claim on being the company that offers the best return on IT.” As for today and yes, the future, well HPE is shaking things up and if you have missed the news flashes, reinventing the IT value proposition has taken on a whole new meaning as we get closer to 2020.
Twenty-twenty! And we aren’t just talking about our eyesight either. Although we very well could be talking about it but no, looking back at 2002 who would have thought that two decades later HPE would be working on its rewrite. For anyone who has been to HPE events to hear HPE CEO, Antonio Neri, talk about HPE it’s always about the people, the team and the culture that is front and center of a Neri presentation. And as a starting point, it sets the scene for why HPE believes it can execute on its vision and strategy and why the industry should in turn have confidence that HPE will deliver. There’s a lot being rewritten and fortunately for the NonStop, in the new script there is a whole chapter devoted to NonStop!
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t throw in a few lines from the song by Paul Simon, Rewrite:
Our time in Europe saw us interacting with clients at both ends of the journey both of which contributed to us better understanding the current political climate of this part of Europe even as it added another chapter to the adventure that has Margo and me thoroughly engaged in for quite some time now. And did I mention climate? If you missed the news flashes of the past week or so, Europe is hot! Even the political and commercial interests can’t match the heat of the day as the weather has been brutal of late. However, afloat on major rivers as we were meant that there was always some relief from the heat blowing across our vessel.
The picture above was of Margo and me atop a peak looking down on the Danube and the Buda side of Budapest. The last time we were both in this city was back in 2003 when we attended what was then called an ACE customer conference that was put on by ACI Worldwide for its European BASE24 customers. As part of the Insession Technologies team, we participated as ICE and WebGate were making a very real contribution to the BASE24 product line. However, two major world events coincided with this conference, the first being the chaotic scenes in Baghdad’s Firdos Square during the Iraq War as we all watched the television coverage of the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein (April 9, 2003). The second was far more upbeat as on April 12, 2003, Hungary held a referendum on joining the European Union where the proposal was approved by a huge majority of voters – over 80%.
It takes very little by way of inputs to get Margo and me reliving the past, rethinking the events of long ago even as there is always a time to simply stop and look around at what is happening today. Naturally enough, it takes even less time before we look at the prospects for the future and when it comes to HPE, the company and its products and services, it was an awful long time ago that I traveled to Los Angeles to hear then HP CEO, Carly Fiorina, talk at HP World, 2002 (after the Compaq acquisition) to hear that HP was “focusing its energy on reducing the cost and complexity of infrastructure. HP is going to aim its collective resources and talent at reinventing the IT value proposition for its customers and will stake its claim on being the company that offers the best return on IT.” As for today and yes, the future, well HPE is shaking things up and if you have missed the news flashes, reinventing the IT value proposition has taken on a whole new meaning as we get closer to 2020.
Twenty-twenty! And we aren’t just talking about our eyesight either. Although we very well could be talking about it but no, looking back at 2002 who would have thought that two decades later HPE would be working on its rewrite. For anyone who has been to HPE events to hear HPE CEO, Antonio Neri, talk about HPE it’s always about the people, the team and the culture that is front and center of a Neri presentation. And as a starting point, it sets the scene for why HPE believes it can execute on its vision and strategy and why the industry should in turn have confidence that HPE will deliver. There’s a lot being rewritten and fortunately for the NonStop, in the new script there is a whole chapter devoted to NonStop!
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t throw in a few lines from the song by Paul Simon, Rewrite:
I'm
workin' on my rewrite, that's right
Gonna change the ending
Throw away the title
And toss it in the trash
Gonna change the ending
Throw away the title
And toss it in the trash
There comes a time when all parties recognize that a major sea-change is under way. There is considerable talk among industry watchers about pivot points and disruptive technology. However, there is a reason why such phrases are being used just as there is a reason IT vendors are becoming more selective in the technology investments they are making. The smartphone and the advent of the cloud have both proved to be extremely disruptive and yes, the need to address today and tomorrow in a financially responsible manner has IT pivoting towards Hybrid IT – IT has to embrace the new even as it continues to run today. You may be tempted to dismiss this as marketing hyperbole or even cliché but for the NonStop community, we are all witnessing a time when we have to rethink what NonStop really is all about – what is a NonStop solution going to look like in 2020?
While there has been much excitement in the movie industry over the global success of the latest superhero movie Avengers: Endgame, it is a reminder that in all things there is an endgame that has to play out before everyone lives happily ever after, but in IT, this isn’t quite the case. Endgames come and go as the cyclical nature of technology sees the underlying tectonic plates fracture and disappear. But it is clear to many members of the NonStop community that an endgame is in sight for NonStop. In time, the traditional hardware offering will lessen in significance as NonStop itself becomes an attribute of something much bigger. You may even think of it as a new beginning for NonStop – certainly, the “rewrite” has still to define the special role NonStop will play in a world where everything runs 24 x 7.
On this note, if I was to speculate then in my opinion, NonStop support of applications running 24 x 7 remains its biggest feature. Forget about the hardware redundancies, the dual paths, the electrical separation / isolation and yes, the underlying infrastructure as a whole. Reliability of the systems, whether packaged as a private or public cloud or simply a server, will reach a point where building these systems is well understood across the industry but the software? Enabling your Java or Perl or C/C++ code to run fault tolerantly (and there will be faults as after all, hypervisors are software, you know), still has tremendous advantaged not the least being that your data center manager can sleep at night. Yes, here’s the new script – click the icon that says 24 x 7 and you call up an underlying process that is fault tolerant, courtesy of NonStop! That’s it – as a developer you no longer are aware of NonStop and need no special training to leverage. Wow! Or better still, cool!
There is an ending for NonStop as we know it, but there is also the coming of a NonStop that we will all understand but is one where the special magic has been hidden behind the veil. There is a script emerging too and it’s positive. The smartphone and the cloud may have proved to be disruptive but think of NonStop as your “antacid” solution! Suddenly, the costs we associate with NonStop disappear – everyone can exploit the reinvented IT value proposition and isn’t that what we all want to see. About the cost attribute, much will be written between now and 2020 but already, the consumption pricing models under consideration are beginning to have an impact on the NonStop community. The sea change is taking place – do you see it and have you trimmed your sails? Perhaps it really was the influence of the time we spent in Europe, but as we thought more about NonStop then imagine it, NonStop for Everyman!
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