In times when it seems defining what’s coming
next has become a sport, it’s even more important to stress what NonStop means
for uptime whether total outages or simply brownouts!
Stepping into the
garage and checking on our hybrid powered vehicle, it’s always good to see that
it is fully charged and ready to go. Margo and I are now onto our second
plug-in hybrid vehicle and it’s encouraging to see the range of our second
generation extended beyond the original 12 to 15 miles to where it’s now more
than 35 miles. Doesn’t sound like a lot but in the world of plug in hybrids,
relying solely on electric power isn’t what it’s all about – electric power
augments a traditional combustion engine thereby considerably increasing the
savings in fuel costs. We have enjoyed fuel consumption dropping to where on
one occasion we eked out almost 80 mpg on a trip from Windsor, CO, to Dallas, TX.
Seeing the vehicle
fully charged is a not too subtle reminder that I too am fully charged. I’ve
never been one for the glass half empty expectation. For me, it’s always been
about expectations of more to follow. By this I mean, as a community NonStop
users and vendors have known for a very long time that the NonStop systems
provide an unfair advantage to those who implement mission critical
applications on NonStop. Unfair in the sense that there’s really nothing more
to do to ensure maximum uptime whether planned as in an upgrade to a key piece
of software or even the hardware itself, or unplanned. NonStop, doesn’t stop!
There has been a lot
written about the “New Normal” or perhaps the “New Abnormal.” There’s even an
article I have read that discussed the “Not! Normal.” At this time I have
written posts and articles on all three of these declarations so it’s not
something I want to revisit at this time. However, it is worth noting that in
continuing to qualify normal, it is with considerable regret that there’s
little chance that we will see a return to the old ways, whatever we want to
call normalcy, we all enjoyed just a year or so ago. Whatever we will face in
the near future will be very different from those times now receding quickly from
view and becoming nothing more than a page in our history books.
It is worth noting too
that business has become even more sensitive to outages than in the past and
that there is just as much written about brownouts as there is about outages.
In this context, in case you missed the inclusion of brownouts in assessing
true availability, it is a reference to the inability of the system and the
application to adequately handle unanticipated transaction spikes. SLAs are
typically written around an expectation of a certain range of acceptable
response times but when subject to these unexpected spikes, response times’
blow out to where for all sakes and purposes, the system and application look
like they are no longer working.
All of which is to say
that these systems cannot scale-out without the user taking a hit. Scalability
is once again on the radar screen for most companies and the inability of their
systems to scale-out has suddenly become an issue. If you cannot scale out to
handle spikes then you degrade your recorded levels of uptime. A response time
of thirty minutes truly is akin to a system outage and is beginning to be
reported as such. And it’s being recorded as part of the metrics included in
modelling of unplanned downtime.
It is not every day
that I reference IBM funded research in a post for the NonStop community. In
this case, though, it seems appropriate. IBM funded Forrester to survey
business to better understand “The Real Costs of Planned and Unplanned
Downtime.” It was commissioned in August 2019 so it’s a pretty accurate
reflection of what is now happening. The tag line that followed this heading
simple read, “accelerate recovery with new technologies.” No reference to fault
tolerance or even continuous availability as we know it within the NonStop
community, but all the same, it’s not a bad attempt to highlight what ails
business today and for a quick summary of key findings, the chart Forrester
provides is worth taking a look at:
How about that opening at the top of the key findings?
Planned and unplanned downtime is common within organizations. Really? Outages
just have to be accepted as part of the new normal for data center operations.
Surely not! Now there’s an observation that many in the NonStop community will
definitely treat as the New Abnormal. With NonStop it’s as if the rest of the
world, IBM included, still hasn’t read the memo – when it comes to running
mission critical applications, choosing a fault tolerant system like NonStop
means you don’t have to be a light sleeper always having one ear listening for
that dreaded call-out phone call.
But then again, this isn’t normal at all for the
NonStop community and it’s worth stressing. NonStop is more than just fancy
redundant hardware. It is the collection of hardware, software stack and the
application all working together that ensures NonStop alone satisfies the IDC
AL4 criteria whereby there is no observable outage for any user. None! NonStop
truly does deliver zero downtime and just as importantly, with its ability to
scale-out to better handle unexpected transaction volume spikes, imperceptible
brownouts. So, when Forrester asked the question, “If your organization
experienced close to zero downtimes, what technology benefits would you expect
to see?” there were some interesting responses.
“When asked about the benefits of experiencing close to
zero downtime, 50% of IT professionals indicate that it would allow them to run
maintenance more frequently, addressing a top challenge for planned downtime.
Forty-six percent of IT leaders indicate that less downtime would mean faster
data recovery, addressing one of the top challenges of unplanned downtime.”
With no indication by Forrester that this was all doable today with NonStop, it
is so humbling for the NonStop community that such big percentages of those
being interviewed were already dealing with serious issues arising from their
inability to deploy systems and applications without facing some serious
downtime. Not being able to run maintenance online while all else continues to
be running is definitely not the normal for NonStop customers.
As Forrester concludes its findings it provides in its
summary something NonStop users are all familiar with even as it isn’t
something that concerns them. However, it’s something they need to be much more
aware of from the standpoint that it’s a big item to champion within their IT
organizations. Forrester’s findings? How about:
“Unplanned downtime is
unpredictable and it creates extra costs for organizations. From a technical
perspective, IT leaders are concerned with the data recovery process during
unplanned downtime. From a business perspective, IT leaders are concerned with
the overall loss of revenue caused by unplanned downtime.”
Phew! As a community, NonStop users certainly are
dodging a lot of bullets here. We cannot stress this enough. There’s no better
solution for accelerating recovery than NonStop and why? It’s fault tolerant
through and through and it’s happening transparently to the end user. They see
nothing and when they see nothing, there’s none of those dreaded nightly calls
to senior IT management. There is always the consideration of business
continuity planning involving secondary and even tertiary sites but that too is
so much easier to accomplish with NonStop with the assistance of knowledgeable
partners with a plethora of product offerings.
As Tim Dunne, NTI’s Senior Vice President Worldwide
Sales, said in NTI’s article in the May, 2020 issue of NonStop Insider, NTI
watching what’s changed: the need for social distancing and what hasn’t changed:
the need for business continuity -
“The focus on Business
Continuity remains as strong as ever and for good reason; no business wants to
be offline as the world of business becomes a fully online business. As an
industry we can debate whether it’s happening in the data center, out on the
edge, or even whether it is driving business to the cloud, but the bottom line
remains.
“It’s all about maximum
uptime and this calls for an all-inclusive approach to ensuring there are more
than one data center, cloud or service provider on the ready and fully capable
of taking over the operations should anything happen.”
NonStop taking outages? I don’t think so! NonStop users
needing to consider ways to accelerate recovery? Again, no sir! It’s all in
hand. And with this I just have to add one final note – I am fully charged-up
on this topic and it’s one we all need to champion whenever we are given the
opportunity to speak up. And make sure we conclude every conversation with NonStop,
a resounding No! to outages, planned or unplanned.
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