No
sun on the Rockies, not even the light of day
I feel that old cabin fever coming on
It won't be long before my ship comes in
Gonna sail right out of Colorado
Songwriters:
Clint Patrick Black / James Hayden Nicholas
I am a
storyteller. As a storyteller, I am also an observer and as an observer I am yet to
say that I have seen it all. Quite to the contrary, I am convinced that there
is still much more to see and when it comes to IT, each and every time I
speculate that a new dawn has come it seems that such an observation is only
ever short term as with one dawn appearing over the horizon there is always
another, and another, about to appear. Such is technology that nothing lasts
forever to quote a popular song.
I chose the
photo above for its symbolism. Hard to escape? It’s a lighthouse. It may be
decorative but they illuminate the location just as effectively. Dropping our
gaze to the dock we see that there’s a warning: Snakes and Alligators. Who
remembers that popular IT developers’ observation noting how, with all that was
taking place around them and so quickly, they readily observed how they were up to
one's a** in alligators. The lighthouse might be doing its job above
water; what lies below however needs to be considered.
Margo and I
have enjoyed some downtime and it has been time spent at sea. It’s something
that we seem to be regularly doing at this time of year. Each time, it is the
ship that has proved to be the destination as the ports of call have become a
blur. New locations, new cultures, new acquaintances. After a while they seem
to be less important. What we have discovered is how the perpetual motion of
the surrounding seas has produced a sense of inevitability such that, no matter
what we do, there is a need to accommodate an ever-changing vast landscape. Or,
more precisely, a vast seascape.
When it comes
to 2025, the vastness of IT is inescapable. The choices on offer have become
mind-boggling. With experience we may avoid the rocky shores and the pitfalls
that lie behind hidden reefs fully aware that change can still bite us no
matter what precautions we take. For the HPE NonStop community, 2025 may
provide the ultimate watershed moment. After fifty years of continuous
contribution to IT in ways almost no one predicted, the commencement of its
fifty-first year will be one where major decisions are going to be made.
A new line of
NonStop systems is almost upon us. Starship will arrive with both high-end and
entry class models. They will continue to provide enterprise IT with the only
fully integrated, fault tolerant computer on x86 even as they retain the mantle
of being the highest level of fault tolerant availability for continuous
computing. This mantle of being the ultimate in levels of availability on offer
remains unchallenged within the IT industry.
Starship
remains a bare-metal offering that arrives from the factory fully integrated
and tested. From the metal up through the OS and the infrastructure stack – the
level of cooperation between “layers” remains unmatched. With Starship,
anticipate performance improvements across the board. More memory, faster
ethernet, and much more. It is clear that with 2025 and the commencement of the
fifty first year of NonStop the legend of NonStop continues and everything that
worked in the past will continue to work going forward.
From the
presentations provided in 2024 and following conversations that grew out of
events and conferences, the surprise here is that there isn’t a major surprise.
The NonStop community enjoys one of the most predictable technology projections
in all of IT. Starship was in a way expected. The processors continue to get
faster; memory continues to be less expensive and there is more of it;
connectivity ramps up to formerly unimaginable levels. What was once viewed as
amazing is now viewed more often than not as legacy. This linear trajectory of
one new NonStop system after another for five decades each new model optimized
for the importance of the day, has been the singular definitive
signature of the legendary NonStop system.
All of this
is not a surprise to those who have followed NonStop. What now remains for the
community to recognize – and a key to further adoption of NonStop industry wide
– is the refocus by the bigger HPE on partnerships. Expanding the NonStop
ecosystem is among the most important aspects of NonStop’s plan for industry
expansion. And for good reason. For fifty years, it was solutions’ availability
that sold NonStop and as markets change so too has NonStop adapted.
Partnerships
bring the beam of the lighthouse directly onto the true capabilities of
NonStop. Under the torchlight, IT can see how beneficial the traditional
attributes of NonStop remain when paired with solutions that matter in an
always-on world. Breaking into manufacturing has opened the eyes of solutions
vendors. Will this translate into breakthrough opportunities for other
solutions vendors focused on different market verticals? It is highly likely by
the way the NonStop teams are conducting themselves that we will see another
major industry vertical – maybe two – embrace NonStop.
And why?
Cloud repatriation is well under way within numerous enterprises. The shine is
becoming absent from many public cloud offerings. In it’s purest form, NonStop
is and has always been a cloud-in-a-box. Surprised? It’s being a cloud-in-a-box
that has provided the level of fault tolerance that ascended above all other
options. Dig deeper and your surprise will diminish – this is what is NonStop!
The cloud experience in a box right on the floor of your data center. It never
faulters and it never outgrows your solution as the cloud-in-a-box that
supports fault tolerance also happens to be key to the massive scale-out NonStop
delivers.
Partnerships! Vendor ecosystems! GreenLake! Yes, GreenLake. It may be just one more option for NonStop and it provides a level of partner independence enterprises have been looking to the NonStop team to deliver. Not surprised: NonStop customers driving software decisions! Rather than enterprises buying off NonStop, now these same enterprises have NonStop buying into enterprises. Surprised?
Probably better expressed as a change of direction - the NonStop team may want you to pick software from a price book but it is the NonStop customer who ultimately sets the direction for a GreenLake sale. I have to admit this is a surprising but
simultaneously, a beneficial unexpected outcome from NonStop participation in
GreenLake. Such a transition will also encourage a visible expansion of the
NonStop partner ecosystem as these new partners have a more rapid entry
opportunity with less expensive price points.
I cannot help
but recall the Australian movie of some time back, Under the Lighthouse,
Dancing. While writing this post and contemplating the importance of
lighthouses and their ability to both warn through highlights as well as
illuminate safe passage, when it comes to NonStop such lights shine on what is
obvious to the NonStop community. The plot of this film is not what was obvious
– it would have been good to hear one of the actors say, this is the way.
But no; nothing more was required. What is simply inescapable whenever you are
in the presence of NonStop customers anywhere in the world is how lucky they
consider themselves to be.
Dancing?
Singing? Laughing? Perhaps not in any visible way but you cannot escape the
thought, as you interact with NonStop community members, of just how, with the
arrival of NonStop, their ship really has come in and they view their fortunes
aligned with how well their ship has sailed out of mediocracy and an overhyped
rocky shoreline that experienced sailors have avoided for a very long time.
Possibly, as long as fifty years. Let the legend live on and yes, sail on
NonStop and enjoy the next fifty years!
Comments