Data, data, everywhere; information? Who do we turn to?

 

I have been a story teller for a very long time. I continue to tell stories, it is something I like to do. When it comes to IT and the ever-changing IT landscape there really is no end to the stories that can be told. While I am not up to the standard of ancient Greeks who wove a moral into nearly all their stories, all the same, I have never been at a loss to highlight something positive about NonStop and in particular, the strong bonds that continue to bind together the many participants that make up today’s NonStop community.

If as yet you haven’t read the September – October 2021 issue of The Connection you may have missed reading my article, Data; it lives and it grows – with NonStop SQL, data truly has found a home. In that case you have missed my opening observations on IT and data -

In the Information Technology (IT) world where the majority of us within NonStop community work, our reliance on data cannot be underestimated. Whether it’s a simple request, “Show me the data” or perhaps something more compelling with “What does the analysis of the data tell me” business has come to rely on data unlike in any other era. Without data, we couldn’t possibly plot a course to the International Space Station or, perhaps more commonly accessed by us, navigate our way home. Simply put processing, without data, might be viewed as just marching in place.

This could be viewed as the long way around to just stating the obvious; we call it IT but we are all in this together – data processing. As much as I write about data there is still that sense that whatever steps we take to turning data into the information, the need for faster and better business insights just isn’t satisfied as fast we create the data. Moreover, for the NonStop community there is still an understanding that it’s not good to connect NonStop to the outside world where something happening out there degrades the fault tolerance of NonStop.

“The M3 Competition already proved itself a bit of a bummer,” wrote journalist Conner Golden in the November 2021 issue of Motor Trend. Of course, being an owner of the previous generation of an M4 Competition, this caught my attention. Golden was quoting feature editor Scott Evans who added, “its infotainment system Kafkaesque.” It’s amazing what you can pick up on when you step outside the field of IT, although I have to admit, cars and IT are on an intersect not just because of the potential for V2V communications and driverless engagement but as a result of modern cars being highly dependent upon software.

But is it Kafkaesque? Now Kafka was best described as a Bohemian writer back at the turn of the twentieth century. When it comes to describing something as Kafkaesque you may be surprised to read that Kafkaesque is characterized by nightmarish qualities, absurd bureaucracy, and unnecessary and illogical circular reasoning. And yet, despite this, Kafka has now entered our language in a very positive manner. While it is now an open source project overseen by Apache this wasn’t always the case.

It may further surprise you to read that it all started with LinkedIn – 

Yes, Kafka wasn’t branded as such because of the chaos that so often appeared in the writings of Kafka as it was about the writer himself. Seems as though the art of storytelling continues to resonate with all developers and embracing “a system optimized for writing” certainly resonates well with me. What brought Kafka to our attention is the many promotional posts and tweets promoting many NonStop vendors solutions that embrace Kafka, a fully distributed event streaming platform. It is as if every major NonStop vendor has a solution, even if their approaches differ wildly.

It was at this point that I just happened to be listening to the radio – yes, remember the humble radio? – when the words of the song by former Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr, just happened to be broadcast - 

I don't ask for much, I only want your trust,
And you know it don't come easy.

That pretty much sums up the dilemma facing many NonStop users. That’s right, they don’t ask for much even as they exhibit concerns about how difficult it is integrating NonStop into a modern, open source, data streaming world. And yet, at its core the better implementations all rely on a proven methodology, Change Data Capture (CDC). If the solution under consideration is leveraging CDC then you are almost "home and hosed" [Ed: that is, for Aussies, Kiwis and Brits, "achieving victory or success, or certain to achieve it" particularly when it pertains to assessing performance of cricket teams] and given the strength of the vendors, trust becomes a given.

One such vendor is Striim, providing Scalable Low-Impact Real-Time Integration for Kafka. The way Striim sees the opportunity to integrate with Kafka –

The Striim platform enables you to integrate, process, analyze, visualize, and deliver high-volumes of streaming data for your Kafka environments with an intuitive UI and SQL-based language for easy and fast development.” And there you have it – supporting easy and fast development; the goal today of everyone in IT development.

Striim has been a longtime proponent of CDC just as before them so too was GoldenGate. But dating back even further it was NTI that pioneered CDC on NonStop and with the just announced DRNet®/Unified for HPE Customers, NonStop users can rely on a solution that takes data replication to new heights. If you have already deployed DRNet® you have the pieces in place to integrate with Kafka. In case you missed the most recent product updates featuring DRNet®/Vision and DRNet®/Open, you may have missed reading of how -

DRNet®/Vision integrates with any JDBC compliant database as delivered with DRNet®/Open but includes support for integration with any JSON data consumer including Kafka, Splunk>, ELK and many more. Whereas DRNet®/Open supports integration on a record to record basis, DRNet®/Vision ensures enterprises have visibility to all actions taken on data. In so doing, the history of data created on NonStop can be fully leveraged by any of these JSON data consuming product offerings.

What DRNet®/Unified for HPE Customers represents is that NonStop users can turn to NTI for one model, one technology, one product providing unified single source solution that includes support for Kafka and my own personal favorite, Splunk>. To read more about the level of integration now possible when utilizing all of the features included in DRNet®/Unified for HPE Customers, follow this link - https://network-tech.com/products

If you have not had an opportunity to visit the NTI web site then coinciding with the commencement of NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2021 and to more comprehensively describe NTI the company and DRNet® the product, you should familiarize yourself with the latest updates. You may find more than a few surprises in so doing!

Whether you turn to Striim, NTI or even XYPRO or Infrasoft, among others, the story line here is that with time, almost all major NonStop vendors will offer a feature that supports integration with Kafka and just how easy it becomes will depend upon the choices made. Having written this, the bigger picture here is that when covering the topic of today’s modern NonStop so much is taking place that it is very important the community stays current with what is being delivered.

We have all seen tremendous inroads into modernization from a developers perspective with DevOps support and to hear NonStop team members talking of AI/ML, Swarm Learning and yes, Kubernetes (make sure you tune in next week to the presentation on this topic by HPE Master Technologist Justin Simonds), there is little holding back NonStop systems from enjoying greater participation in your enterprises’ IT infrastructure.

In telling this story I am not ending with a moral as the Greeks tended to do. The mere fact that so many vendors are providing support that is as current in technology terms as they are doing and yes, Kafka is simply one example, should be encouraging news for all NonStop users. And if you want to hear the breadth of coverage then absolutely make sure you participate in the upcoming NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2021 (#NonStopTBC21). I will be in attendance and maybe we can catch up virtually or after the event should you have any questions. You know, with all that is on offer today, all aspects of modernization just has to be easy; easier than you may have otherwise thought possible!