Skip to main content

Remember those times when Cross Pens and Pencils ruled the roost!


 Anyone who was in IT in the late ‘70s knows all too well how IT managers wore pocket protectors and flashed their gold Cross Pen and Pencil sets. Long before Walmart and Costco there were several club-like discount stores where you could shop for deeply discounted Cross Pens. At one time Margo and I even bought deeply discounted Montblanc Meisterstück fountain and ball-point pens. Margo still cherishes hers but somehow in my travels of the ‘90s I managed to misplace my set.

The significance of the presence of gold Cross Pen and Pencil sets weren’t so much about status or even leadership as much as it was about culture. They signified a sense of belonging to a profession where it wasn’t about slide rules and scopes as much as it was about drawing flowcharts and transcribing intent onto coding pads. You just had to have a good pencil and then the pen played a role in documenting a cover sheet.

Perhaps it is simply too much time spent on Zoom calls or maybe the gaps in between Zoom calls when looking at our screen we begin to reminisce about the times before the global pandemic. As of right now it seems that there is a lot going on that is pushing the practices of the last two years into the background and yet, even with the return to in-person events, we still haven’t warmed to the idea of returning to our cubicles any time soon. Successfully working from home has changed everything. For some the flexibility it has afforded them, more time with the family whereas for others it simply has led to significantly improved productivity.

For NonStop users, sales folks across the NonStop vendor community have learnt a new set of skills even as they have worked even harder to maintain relationships fostered over many on site visits and the occasional fine dining experiences. Even the occasional business golf game has lessened in importance when closing a deal. And let’s not forget that yes, sizable deals continue to be made despite the limits of Zoom calls and that ever present mobile phone. As for the NonStop user community, vendors today seem to be graded on ease of support access whereby they can reach a knowledgeable support resource in an instant.

While the NonStop community would truly like to see a greater investment made by HPE in the marketing of NonStop there has been some positive movements on that score. We continue to see the support by senior NonStop managers of events worldwide whether virtual or in person. We are warming to the HPE Community blog and we have many digital publications focused on NonStop that we can turn to at any time. Then there are community Tech Forums that organizations like Connect foster with all the signs pointing to even more to come. 

And then there is the cloud, the cloud experience and even the cloud that comes to you. It seems that one of the biggest take away of the past two years is just how omnipresent the cloud has become. Real investments are being made in ensuring data and processes on NonStop systems can readily access services provided by cloud service providers. Our Zoom calls may be supported out of a cloud, but more importantly, the data created on NonStop is being required to find ways to be ingested into the cloud. With as much focus as there has been of late on data distribution, transformation and integration you would think that this has been happening for a very long time.

In recent talks with my clients it has become very clear that two things are heavily influencing the decisions that they are making. When it comes to investments in support of the future direction of NonStop, it is all about hybrid platform deployment. It will be about lash-ups between the hybrid participants. It’s also about turning the attributes of availability together with massive scale-out capabilities to the benefit of the business. By this they mean that their solutions need to run on NonStop and Linux / Windows even as they ratchet up their focus on making sure apps continue to run and data stays where it’s meant to stay.

In a world that values insights and where voluminous amounts of data need to be analyzed even when we know it has to take place in real time, the task is better suited to highly optimized platforms. So much so that it brings us back to a better understanding of the potential that comes with marrying a NonStop system to a Cray. Whether traditional systems lashed together in a rack or simply running virtual over a hybrid server farm with cloud-like experiences, NonStop does transactions as Cray does analysis. 

In the coming months I expect we are going to hear a lot more about the symbiotic nature of such lash-ups. There is the ever present concern over the preferred network fabric, in duplicate, but even here there are initiative within HPE itself that may shine a light on the practicality of looking at NonStop in this manner. HPE’s move to partner with Striim offers one bright spot but even the recent announcements by NTI of greater support for integration is proving a viable solution. And just look at what IR is stepping up and doing when oversight of such lash-ups is needed!

You would think that you would have to be present at a major event to find out more of what is happening with today’s modern NonStop systems. To hear first-hand how well NonStop is aligning itself with the bigger HPE and how it has moved so quickly into the fray with regard to vertical solutions as a service such as what we are seeing today with NonStop and Payments Solutions as a Service. But no; with our tradition of community events being the gathering place for the NonStop community, going virtual helped to keep the messages be communicated and going in-person will simply reinforce much of what we have already heard these past two years. We are entering another strong period in the history of NonStop with significant upside growth potential. Have you bought the latest NonStop X4 systems yet?

Working from home now means there is no place for the trappings of our community. No need to bond over pens and pencils and pocket protectors and perhaps less of a need to head back out into the world to join in-person events. And for many, having the choice is a meaningful option that allows them the opportunity to mingle with the NonStop community on their own terms. I think that the benefits that I have seen is that with working from home there has been a lot more time afforded us to simply think about things. Yes, I still have those gold Cross pen sets but they are tucked away somewhere.

And yet, as a new batch of gels and felt pens and planning notebooks arrived this week courtesy of Amazon, it reminded me in many tangible ways, that as IT professionals the NonStop community relishe discussions on all things NonStop whether over Zoom or in-person. Either way I am out here and open to both so perhaps shortly you will see me on an exhibition floor or in a screen window of a Zoom call but either way, it will continue to be always focused on NonStop. 

Will you be just as excited by all things NonStop in 2022?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If it’s June then it’s time for HPE Discover 2021.

  For the NonStop community there has always been an annual event that proved hard to resist; with changing times these events are virtual – but can we anticipate change down the road? Just recently Margo and I chose to return home via US Highway 129. It may not ring any bells, but for those who prefer to call it the Tail of the Dragon – 318 curves in 11 miles – it represents the epitome of mountain excitement. For Margo and me, having now driven the tail in both directions, driving hard through all these turns never gets old. Business took us to Florida for an extended week of meetings that were mostly conversations. Not everything went to plan and we didn’t get to see some folks, but just to have an opportunity to hit the road and meet in person certainly made the 4,500 miles excursion worthwhile. The mere fact that we made touring in a roadster work for us and we were comfortable in doing so, well, that was a real trick with a car better suited to day trips. This is all just a p

Three more wishes coming soon – the path ahead for NonStop.

So, another three years have passed by and I find myself writing a preview of what I will likely focus on in eighteen months’ time – my next three wishes for NonStop! It wouldn’t be fair on my family if I said 2019 had been a routine year for Pyalla Technologies. It started with the return flight from Sydney, Australia, and continued with three separate trips to Europe plus a lengthy road trip to Las Vegas for HPE Discover 2019 combined with stops in southern California and participation in N2TUG back in Texas. The miles have added up but all the while even as the adventurous life continued to unfold, there was so much news coming out of HPE that scarcely a day passed without a discussion or two over what it all means. Margo and I have our roots firmly anchored in NonStop, dating back to Tandem Computers where Margo had risen through the development organization all the way to the COO role under the stewardship of Bill Heil when Bill headed the NonStop Software BU. As for me

ACI Strategy - it's all about choice!

I have just returned from spending a few days in Omaha attending the annual ACE Focus meeting. These two day meetings provide more in-depth technical coverage than is usually found at the regular ACI user events, and ACI customers have been coming for more than a decade to hear the messages directly from company executives. The picture I have included here is of the venue of the Wednesday night social event – a reception held at a local sports bar called the ICEHOUSE. And I found this extremely ironic as my own involvement with ACI came through my association with the ICE product. For most of the ‘90s, ACI had been the global distributor for ICE and then, as we began the new millennium, ACI purchased Insession, creating a separate business unit that it named Insession Technologies. For nearly six years, as part of ACI it enjoyed a successful partnership with the NonStop community and had provided a number of solutions in communications, web services, and security. But the decision in l