For those who have been reading my blog posts through the
years perhaps a small celebration is due as this is post #650. Yes, at an
average of 1500 words, it represents 975,000 words. Almost a million and if you
tried to print it all out it would come to roughly 3250 pages. But enough of
this. It may get more interesting of course if you add the number of posts to
our social media, Buckle-Up-Travel, as well as the number of columns in The
Connection and NonStop Insider but, as I just wrote, enough is enough as I am
sure you get the point. Yeah; Margo decided to have a new business card with
the title, Cofounder and Managing Editor as it is well deserved after reading
and editing all of my 1,000,000 words!
Coming at a time when so much is going on with NonStop, not
the least being the renaming to Nonstop Compute, it should be encouraging to
read that so much continues to be written about Nonstop. For our community,
there shouldn’t be any topic left unaddressed. Integrated stack? Yes, covered
that – it’s the true strength of Nonstop after all. Pathway – TS/MP?
Historically, the very heart of Nonstop as it owns the transaction processing
space. Nonstop SQL? A database born out of a need to maintain a leadership role
in Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and influenced by no less than Mr.
Database himself, Dr. Jim Gray, then suffice to say, we have this offering well
and truly covered.
It all sounds good, right? But with what is now happening
there’s no place for complacency. Self-satisfaction is OK but only up to a
point. As complacency so often leads us into the “unawareness of actual dangers
and deficiencies,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, I am becoming
far more cautious about where Nonstop is headed. That is, the product
portfolio, its acceptance among solutions providers and its continued
embellishment by a cadre of middleware and infrastructure vendors suggests all
is well for Nonstop. And yet, as is so often stated in the Star Wars sagas,
especially by StarFighter pilots, “I have a bad feeling about this!”
True, this was a little Hollywood melodrama thrown in to
spice up the storyline but it seemed to always work as it prepared viewers that
something unexpected was about to happen. This is not to say I am expecting
something bad to happen to Nonstop but rather, I don’t think we have seen the
end of news releases featuring Nonstop. For starters, we now have Nonstop
Compute and there are already references to Nonstop Software. Could Nonstop
Network be far behind? All I can sense for now is that there is a lot of
storytelling still to come. From my point of view, such stories will center on
the impact of the Nonstop name change on Nonstop vendors and partners.
Some will have the
wherewithal to weather changes but others, it’s sad to say, may argue that such
changes are coming at a time when an exit from the business may be a good
thing. I came away from the recent E-BITUG conference with an uneasiness about
the future of Nonstop vendors. Having a thriving vendor industry has been
central to the success of Nonstop and to see any future decline is distressing to
Margo and me.
All the pieces are not in place for all to see the
transformation to a modern, open, platform has been executed with highly
visible outcomes. Being able to take a programmer out of college and let him
develop new applications on Nonstop without any awareness of what lies beneath
is a tremendous step forward. Furthermore, to write code and then test directly
out of a public cloud was inconceivable only a few years back. To then be able
to run Nonstop applications in a public cloud – we have been assured of late
that at least one Nonstop customer is now doing this – not just a sign of
what’s to come but rather, a signature on what many consider the future of IT.
Maybe it’s just the influence of the Starship program
delivering new, modern, industry-standard converged systems that has unsettled
me. This is no time to be complacent even as we should congratulate all
involved in bringing the latest offerings of the product portfolio to market.
Well done, team and yes, if you have as yet missed any presentations by Mark
Pollans on this new system rollout then you are in for a treat should you hear
him for the first time. Maybe at TBC 2025 in Houston, right? At any rate, bad
feelings aside and complacency overcome, it is time to enjoy the ride. Starship;
StarGate: Star Trek; Star Wars – these new Nonstop converged systems are not
just for your grandparents any more as this is here and now. At a minimum, it
guarantees Nonstop converged systems availability for the next five years,
maybe a lot longer.
What is also an encouraging development is the creation of
the New to Nonstop SIG – so pleased to see the alignment with Connect on the
presence of this group. There’s a LinkedIn group you can join. The challenge as
I see it is for the information to be shared among all those coming to Nonstop
for the first time and to provide a forum for all products – from the Nonstop
team, the few vendors on the Price Book and inclusive of all Nonstop vendors
who continue to remain independent. Let’s not be complacent here as there is
work to be done, for sure.
How so? This SIG will not survive, in my opinion, if it showcases just a small subset of the vendor community – something that Casey Taylor, VP & GM HPE Nonstop Compute, has championed in her recent presentations. For the boss of Nonstop, she wants the vendor community PowerPoint slide to grow even bigger with each passing year highlighting the arrival of even more vendors committing to development for Nonstop. I have been around user communities since the mid-1970s having served on the user community boards of both Tandem and IBM, and the key ingredient has always been inclusiveness and avoidance of just becoming a private club.
This summer Margo and I have been crisscrossing the country.
Driving has always been a passion of us both. And the mileage we have
accumulated bears witness to that. With hundreds of thousand of miles under our
belt, there is simply no chance to become complacent. Unsafe acts as we so
often see exhibited by others – you know them; multiple lane changes, backing without looking, not using their signals and
yes, going way to fast – are driving habits that can lead to dire outcomes. And
don’t get us started on the drivers who anchor themselves in “the fast lane”
with no intention of moving over come what may.
Maybe all any of us need right now is to kickback and enjoy
a summer break. Let the stress of the day leave us and make the time away from
work a time of renewal. Too often we fill in the summer weeks with a quick,
multi-country visit to Europe with one day spent in each city and this well,
how often do we return and post humorously about how now we need a break.
Nonstop is coming at us fast and heavy with so much on offer; before we stress,
maybe all it takes is a time-out. A time to think of what it is we need to do
next with Nonstop for the payoff we all agree is at hand with Nonstop.
I can save this keeping a brave face – Margo and I are
moving house this summer and in the middle of it all, when we were most
stressed, we bought another car! Maybe, just maybe we should take some of our
own medicine but even with that, we are stepping up a gear prepping for TBC
2025, Houston. Breaks or no breaks, it is just so good to see it all happening
now for Nonstop. Again, congratulations to all those on the Nonstop team who
have worked so hard to make Starship a reality. And with that – Margo and I
look forward to seeing you all in Houston, this September, for the HPE Nonstop
Technology & Business Conference 2025!
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