It is apparent our future working environments will differ greatly to what we experienced a year or so ago and yet, when it comes to the NonStop roadmap is does look like they know where they are headed!
It has been such a long time since Margo and I ventured
out onto America’s highways. Looking back through posts to this blog as well as
to our social blog, Buckle-Up-Travel, it would appear that it was as long ago
as September of 2020. Back then it was just a quick trip to Southern California
to catch up with colleagues before heading up Highway 1 to San Jose.
For a couple who love to drive and who have
crisscrossed the continent many times, it’s been a tough year. Looking for
signs that we can hit the road again only to be left with a feeling of being
lost and with no idea which direction we should head.
But we cannot complain. When we consider the bigger
picture, any inconvenience from not being able to drive is at worst just a minor
irritation. For those who would like to hear more news about Margo and her
broken leg, it’s all good news with only a minor limp and the need for a cane when
negotiating stairs or uneven surfaces being the only reminders of the fall she
took mid-December last year.
Apart from that unfortunate accident, we have come
through the global pandemic without incident and we have both been vaccinated,
so spirits are lifted and it’s only natural that we should start out this post
with a few remarks on travel.
What is perhaps more relevant in these pandemic times
is the changing employment landscape. For the past two weeks we have been
reviewing submissions to the upcoming May issue of NonStop Insider even as we
have written articles and commentaries that you will be able to read shortly.
What has stood out is just how well we have performed working remotely and for
many of you, a greater appreciation for the “gig society.”
Will we all want to return to full and gainful
employment? While doing background reading for one commentary, I came across an
interview with JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon. It appeared in the Wall Street
Journal in early May and later appeared in the CNBC financial news
channel.
While Dimon sees the changes in the way business is
conducted, he says he is “about to cancel all my Zoom meetings. I’m done with
it!” Dimon followed up this initial candid outburst with “We want people back
to work, and my view is that sometime in September, October it will look just
like it did before. And everyone is going to be happy with it, and yes, the
commute, you know people don’t like commuting, but so what.”
Yes, so what?
Well, Mr. Dimon, that “so what” for Margo and me has less to do with the
commute – yes, I continue to descend the staircase each morning to my office –
as it brings back into focus the need to talk business. To discuss technology
and the implications that have arisen as we all adjusted to the new normal and
yes, to explore how best to innovate with the products, services and tools at
hand.
Not for us is it
time spent watching television although I have to admit, a couple of hours of
an evening watching Outback Truckers was about all it took to drive me back
downstairs to my desk. No, it’s taking the time to correspond with you all and
to keep the tweets and posts honest when it comes to enterprise IT.
Here in Northern
Colorado we have been spared much of the tragic circumstances that have
overtaken a number of you. Reading the news of a morning had me wondering how
we were going to recover from this global pandemic. The word work has now taken
on new meaning as it would seem fewer and fewer of us want to work or so the
data suggests. And by not working, being entertained has become a priority.
However, even
here, there has been an impact on transaction processing as there has been an
explosion of online betting services across the US continent. Not sure how many
bets generate financial transactions that pass through a NonStop system but I
suspect someone is bound to educate me on this latest trend to have an impact
on society at large. “We want people back at work,” said Dimon, but you have to
wonder. For a company the size of JP Morgan, how many employees will heed the
call?
If you have been
reading my posts of late you will have read of how I have been reluctant to
follow Dimon to say, “Sometime in September, October it will look
just like it did before.” In covering the industry for the past year, plus, the
message I am getting is that no, it will not look just like it did before.
Rather, for some, the working remotely will continue
indefinitely. For others, it will be relocation out of central business
districts – perhaps working from drop-in offices filling in empty space at the
local mall. Not everyone will have the luxury of cancelling their Zoom
meetings.
As a community, NonStop users and partners alike have
viewed regular gatherings at events regional and international as being a part
of their continued education in all things NonStop. Whether it is attending a
local RUG meeting or the big one, the annual NonStop TBC, more information
about NonStop is communicated than via any other means. You just have to be
there if you want to be prepared for what’s coming from the NonStop team.
It’s probably unfair to say that as a NonStop
practitioner, you will be lost if you miss any of these events, but if you are
looking for a sense of where the NonStop team is taking NonStop, you won’t hear
from them unless you attend virtually or in-person.
As for Margo and me our return to in-person event
participation begins this June with the ATMIA US Conference in Las Vegas. And
yes, we are committed to attending, in-person, this year’s NonStop TBC event in
Denver.
What might we miss out on hearing? The NonStop team has
already announced the updates to the NonStop hardware; the new NonStop NS8 X4
(and sibling, NS4 X4) have become available from what we are hearing. Perhaps
more? What is clear is that the NonStop team is aggressively pursuing a roadmap
that from where we sit, such clarity strongly suggests that they know where
they are headed.
Then there is the NonStop SQL Cloud Edition attracting
attention as it is a worthy contender for major database support separate from
running any applications. There has been at least one major roll-out of a
virtual NonStop (vNS) deployment on hardware other than HPE and with even more
talk about cloud experiences, we are anticipating seeing other enterprises
attracted to this solution.
Perhaps it’s not what is being talked about that might
generate a conversation or two. What do we expect to hear about NonStop out at
the edge? Will there be smaller, mini-clouds out at the edge where a virtual
NonStop is deployed to handle transactions closer to where they are initiated?
Will there be tighter integration between NonStop and HPC’s Apollo whereby AI
models deployed on Apollo will be actionable by transactions on NonStop and
where both processors are on the same interconnect fabric?
On the other hand, perhaps what we should be talking
about are those new solutions targeting NonStop as their platform. If I am to
bet on a football game or a car race then I sure wouldn’t be too amused if that
bet was lost due to an outage. And my team or car then subsequently won!
If I am to drive my hybrid car half way across the
country, I sure would like to know the hotel booking service I chose actually
got me that room for that price and that I was still able to get loyalty points
as well. In other words, even as it looks like more of the same, there are new
transaction sources appearing as a result of the global pandemic.
For now Margo and I have a pretty good idea where we
will be heading. We have a good idea too who we will be meeting once we pull
out from our driveway. When it comes to NonStop however, how certain are we
that we truly know where HPE is taking the product and what investment
priorities have been established. Do you really want to know?
Then join Margo and me at an event near you and
hopefully, as this year plays out, we will be able to gather for an adult
beverage or two and exchange views on all that we hear from the NonStop team.
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