It’s
time for your weekend read. And so much is happening for the Nonstop community
that it’s worth considering how well Nonstop Compute offerings remain active
participants in a technology world that is adapting to dramatic changes
happening all around it – change never lets up but this year, we bear witness
to much more than we have seen previously.
Last
year, Margo and I moved home. Not once but twice. A quick sale of our home in
Windsor, Colorado, a small satellite suburb just outside of Ft Collins,
Colorado. Fort Collins being a place where HP once dominated the local
employment scene. We moved our goods and yes, cars into storage. We then
acquired a condo down in Longmont from a member of our daughter’s family. Longmont
is another small satellite suburb bordering Boulder, Colorado, a place where
Insession gained its foothold in the US. We moved some items out of storage
into the condo even as we provided items for our daughters newly renovated
basement.
Addressing
family needs, we then moved to a rental in Panama City Beach while our new home
was built nearby. It’s a hard number to quantify even as the number crunching
continues, but having residences in two cities, far removed, is a blessing even
as it comes with baggage. Literally; items we think we have in one home seem to
always be in the other home. Florida is now our permanent residence and we have
really come to appreciate the change of weather. No more shoveling snow. But
here’s the thing; whether planned or otherwise simply out of happenstance, we
are living in our own hybrid world which has forced adaption in unexpected
ways.
Altitude
differences hit home as we drive the 1650 plus miles. It’s a classic case of
preferring to drive versus fly as we have been using our SUV, shuttling our
goods and chattels between locations. You may wonder about this being the most
intelligent approach, but for those who know us this is just a continuation of
our preference to drive dating back to our routine “commutes” between Boulder
and Omaha, Nebraska. Even when Margo took up residing in Simi Valley,
California, we commuted between Boulder and Simi Valley. A less-stressful 1,000
mile drive we did every other week or so.
In
all situations our residences were neither near to each other nor adjacent in
any manner. However, we not only made the adjustment but we thrived on having
options as to where we would spend time even as we loved to drive – a passion
of ours and one that continues to this day. Furthermore, our lives lead to us
being intertwined with friends in each location where shared passions created
opportunities. Taking a good look at how we have gone about creating the
lifestyle we enjoy today it’s hard to overlook, or indeed ignore, many of the
similarities that exist between the path we chose and the journey Nonstop has
taken.
There
was a time when the majority of Nonstop customers deployed Nonstop solutions
that front-ended IBM mainframes. Yes, they were “in the neighborhood” separated
by feet rather than miles and where access was limited to directly connected
devices. A very big change occurred when Nonstop began supporting Internet
protocols that opened access to Nonstop solutions to a much wider audience.
More recently, such access has moved beyond the classical human interaction to
where Nonstop provides access to intelligent devices, including robots. Today,
the breadth of the neighborhood has expanded to cover the world without
restrictions. Can’t stop; Won’t stop; Nonstop! More than a mantra but an
endorsement of the reality today of the role played by Nonstop.
However,
for many Nonstop pundits and commentators, this represents just a small step in
the journey of Nonstop. In 2025, it appears that the Nonstop team has thrown
open the doors to almost every possible interaction, moving from supporting
classical to more innovative and creative engagements. Hyrid IT is no longer
simply connecting Nonstop to a mainframe but rather, moving to neighborhoods
where the classical exists adjacent to almost every possible service providers,
be they real of virtual, collocated or in a cloud, or looking further afield,
supported by classical processors to more specialized processors including GPUs
and custom chip-sets supporting advanced AI/ML that they make possible the
real-time analysis of cross-enterprise data harvesting.
In
an upcoming article to appear in the December issue of Nonstop Insider (watch
for it when published), I drafted a storyline that has been influenced by the
news coming from HPE about a new alliance combining the adjacent presence of
classical computing with recent breakthroughs in quantum computing. In case you
missed it, and perhaps you might not even be surprised to read about it, then
it shouldn’t come as a surprise to read of a new alliance being created that
unites Nobel Prize in Physics winner, John M. Martinis with HPE, together with
a number of chip vendors creating what the press reported as likely to be a
practical, mass-producible quantum supercomputer:
“SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - John
M. Martinis, one of this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in physics for
breakthroughs in quantum computing, on Monday formed an alliance with
HPE - Quantum Scaling Alliance - and several chip firms to create a
practical, mass-producible quantum supercomputer. As quantum chips are scaled
up, they will need to be intertwined with classical computers for vital
functions such as correcting errors that can disrupt the functioning of quantum
circuits. ‘At this point, we think it's time to switch over to more of a
standard professional model, and that's using very sophisticated tools,’
Martinis said.”
Nothing shouts classical computers
louder than a fifty-year-old and yet, very modern, Nonstop Compute converged
system, came to mind immediately after reading this HPE press release. It’s not
even a competition between quantum and classical but rather a call for
cooperation. The differences may be great but the cooperation could lead to
staggering results. All I could think about was wow - Adjacent Servers? Well …
yes! Intertwined? For sure … nothing yells more loudly about intertwining than
when you have adjacent servers pursuing a common goal.
This is just the starting line,
naturally, and it will take time for enterprises to come to terms of how best
to leverage intertwined adjacent servers to better meet the requirements of
their business pursuits, but it’s bound to happen. Nonstop as it is today, is a
legitimate participant and should be viewed under the lens of how best to
leverage instantaneous across to the world of AI / ML.
In other words, AI/ML is part of the
Nonstop conversation with quantum part of the conversation of blending the old
with the new. Melding transaction processing with quantum driven AI. As 2025
continues to wind down and 2026 looms large, being in the neighborhood suddenly
takes on a whole new meaning. Tentative statements were made by senior Nonstop
managers about the potential benefits from accessing adjacent servers but now,
as news continues to appear of just how diverse these servers will likely
become, the reality is becoming clearer.
Nonstop was never truly an island. It has always enjoyed connections to adjacent servers. Today, however, the breadth of connections is unlimited and the possibilities for Nonstop solutions to modernize around a focus on becoming strongly intertwined has never been more pressing. Even islands have neighbors and all we are really seeing is that the commute between islands is shortening to where, real-time processing is not just possible, but highly probable.
Pilots, PoCs and trials roll-outs will sure to feature in the plans of many Nonstop customers. Intertwining data created on Nonstop with the rest of the enterprise is a natural outcome from the presence of Nonstop solutions actioning the most critical of mission critical applications even as it plays to the strength of Nonstop’s key fundamentals. Its time then to acknowledge: Welcome, Nonstop, to the future. You are standing in it, already! Participation without limits. Yes, truly, with all the adaptation taking place, Can’t stop; Wont’s stop; Nonstop!
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