Phone technology and products are constantly evolving. When it comes to NonStop it too continues to evolve and remains in synch with ever-evolving enterprise needs …
Blame it on the isolation. Blame it on social
distancing. Whatever the reason I have been listening to satellite radio a
lot of late as I have been driving all over town doing the family chores. By
way of a brief update, Margo is now well on her way to recovery following her
accidental braking of her leg a few days before Christmas. All the same, I have
been doing double duty keeping the house in order. Then again, irrespective of
who lands a task we are both only too willing to just get things done.
On this one occasion while out and about, as I listened to the Margaretville station, on came the song One Particular Harbor and being the sailor I once was, it always tugs at my heartstrings. However, I almost forgot this verse:
I
used to rule my world from a pay phone
And ships out on the sea
But now times are rough
And I got too much stuff
Can't explain the likes of me
Before
tackling
the topic of can’t explain the likes of me (which I don’t plan to do any time
soon even as I complete yet one more trip around the sun), it’s the opening
line rule my world from a pay phone that,
on this occasion, got my attention. Long before cell phones came onto the
scene, I had an AT&T card that allowed me to use any payphone anywhere
around the planet. And I sure did come to depend upon the presence of these
payphones in almost every country I visited.
Staying in touch with family and friends, let alone
conducting business right out of a phone booth was such a routine part of my business
life that I never gave it another thought, but now, how often do we see
payphones? Remember hotel lobbies where you could find a corridor full of
payphones and during the breaks in meetings and events, there was that headlong
rush to grab an available phone? No longer, it seems although I continue to see
the counters where they used to reside – I wonder what the younger generation
makes of them?
Of course, with the global pandemic, applications like
ZOOM and TEAMS have become essentially modern-day versions of the payphone as
we flip open our laptops and begin conversations from almost any vantage point.
But the bigger question that follows is what’s next? Do we need to be “on the
phone” as much as we appear to be these days? For the NonStop community have we
all made the jump to being available, non-stop?
While driving in Sydney, slowed by peak hour traffic, I
once saw a convertible being driven by a man who had one of those old mobile
phones to his ear when he switched hands just to pick up and answer a second
mobile phone wired to his vehicle. I had to think wow, such an important
captain of industry. Then again, with mobile phones, how many of us now carry
two phones when on the move – separating business from pleasure.
Yes, my hair may be graying, even as the years of
experience I have gained are on the rise. And yet, I am still here looking at
the world of transactions and at the data being created as a result of these
transactions. All of these activities with a NonStop focus, no less. It continues
to amaze me how persistent the NonStop community is even as NonStop continues
to reinvent itself. Once considered little more than another ubiquitous
minicomputer albeit with special qualities, who would have imagined NonStop
would have seen off the stage the likes of Prime, Wang, Nixdorf, Four Phase,
Data General - even DEC?
As I look at the world of transactions and data I
remain very impressed with the investment HPE continues to make in NonStop. In
describing it’s various products HPE called out HPC & MCS as being the
portfolio offering workload-optimized servers designed to support specific use
cases. This is distinct from how HPE describes its Compute organization
where HPE informs us that the Compute portfolio offers both general-purpose
servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers. Yes,
within MCS NonStop is special.
However and this is good news for the NonStop
community, it’s not just that HPE continues to invest in NonStop but rather, it
is investing in a way that ensures relevance in the world of edge to cloud
platform as a service derived business. Should you be looking for a cloud
experience, then look no further than NonStop; virtual NonStop that is where
the database takes the center stage. NonStop SQL/MX Data Base Services (DBS)
has the potential for steering NonStop into having an even bigger presence in
our data centers than many of us anticipated only a short time ago.
“The DBS acronym in the name stands for ‘Database
Services,’” wrote HPE Master Technologist Frans Jongma, in a recent article
published earlier this year. “This is a reference to what is described in the
industry as Database-as-a-Service or DBaaS.” Jongma has a lot more to say on
this topic in an article to be published in the March issue of NonStop Insider
– look for it. You may be surprised at what the NonStop team has achieved with
SQL/MX DBS. And there is even more to follow if you truly are looking for the
SQL/MX Cloud Experience!
The humble payphone isn’t about to make a reappearance
just as the mobile phone we once insisted on installing in our cars. The
technology in support of phone connectivity is moving at a rapid clip – what
comes after 5G, you may be wondering. Do we really want to view Avatar on our
wrist watch? No matter, as today’s cell phones are just another iteration of
computers we have elected to make accessible while “on the go.” Once called
client devices or even user touch points but however you view them, they are an
important link in the chain that brings transactions to NonStop. And yes, as we
all now know, transactions are the important ingredient for NonStop as they create
data.
Excited by what you read about NonStop today? Curious
to see what new applications will leverage NonStop in the future? Will we see
the facilitating of financial transactions be usurped by all types of
transactions that involve the creation of a record – virtual and real? And a
record that is created then saved on NonStop. I have a sense that this
century’s equivalent to ticket processing is about to happen. Just saying. Have
you seen how the rise of QR codes has escalated in the pandemic – think vendors
aren’t modifying their business based on data gathered in real time? Hang on, I
think someone is trying to reach me right now; no, let it go to messaging and
maybe I’ll call.
As I continued to listen to Buffett’s song, it struck
me how well it described future destinations. It wasn’t just about one
particular harbor but rather, that progression from one harbor to the next,
each one presenting an opportunity for safety; for less risk than the previous
harbor. With each harbor visited a continued yearning for more. And perhaps
that’s what NonStop has been providing for a very long time. As it met the
needs of business yesterday and is meeting the needs of business today it
continues to reinvent itself to meet the needs of business tomorrow.
Ever wondered why NonStop truly excelled for as long as
it has even as it continues to remain in the conversation whenever real-time
mission critical transaction processing is discussed? Yes, NonStop will
continue to attract our attention as we move from one opportunity to the next.
As for future offerings then like destinations, even now I can hear the words:
Most
mysterious calling harbor
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair's full gray
And I finally disappear
After which, like Buffett himself sings, even after one more trip around the sun I can only
add, “but not yet!”
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