Real Time View

  Over a morning cup of coffee I read an article promoted on Facebook. Or, was it Twitter or perhaps LinkedIn? Can’t quite recall right now, but it matters little although at a guess it must have been an article related to the cloud experience or perhaps even platform-as-a-service (Paas). The article took me to yet another web site and while the story itself and the attraction it held for me are not all that important what struck me was just how reliant we have become on social media to help us navigate the news – technology or otherwise. For the past few days Margo and I have been heads down finalizing the September issue of NonStop Insider. With this issue going live we have successfully completed five years of publication and the sixty issues that can be accessed online contain a wealth of information on all things NonStop. Naturally enough, over that five years period there have been numerous changes to NonStop and these can all be seen as the editorial direction evolved right ...

  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...

Predictions! Vision! Schedules! All have been subject to change; impacted by the spread of COVID-19. Read how HPE investments in NonStop have helped NonStop to better pivot into support of core and edge initiatives …   I have to say I am not sure whether we have seen our eleventh snow storm of the season or whether it’s a continuation of the ninth. For the past couple of weeks snow has been falling on most days but perhaps more disturbing for someone who grew up close by to the beaches of Sydney, Australia, was the bitter cold that draped its arms across it all. Living in Colorado you would think we are used to the cold, but not really. We have our days, of course, but watching the thermometer drop below -20 Fahrenheit is always cause for alarm. There were no concerns over whether we had enough food and drink at hand as COVID-19 has made us cautious about our supply chain – trips to the grocery store were all to do with ensuring we always have a month plus of everything we needed...

Whether you are familiar with a bugle playing Taps or The Last Post, either way, finally, the sun is setting on 2020! Bring on 2021 … When we first talked about taking a break during the 2020 Christmas to New Year holiday season, we had no intention of including breaks of any other kind. But then, Margo and I were unaware that lady luck would intervene and not in a positive manner. Whereas we had been checking out locations from Key West to Palm Desert (where we have previously spent the holidays), we are now reconciled to the simple fact that we will be spending time on the couch. For those who follow Margo and me on social media channels you will have read of how Margo broke her leg in a bad fall while heading downstairs to our bar. I would like to say that a drink had been involved, but no, both of us had refrained as we were entertaining neighbors that night and it was Margo who was leading them downstairs where she had laid out a buffet that had taken all afternoon to prepare. W...

We have now heard that the easy stuff has moved to the cloud but that leaves 70 percent of apps and data where they have always been. What does that mean for NonStop solutions? I was sitting inside the house for the past couple of days, avoiding breathing in the outside air, as the sky has been a source of constant smoky haze. Living in Colorado, we often refer to the end of summer as the beginning of the bushfire season and it hasn’t disappointed us this year. It’s awful and for anyone with allergy problems it is a time to hit the antihistamines hard. On the other hand, our friends in California are facing an even more problematic circumstance – should we stay or should we go. To think that the governor is calling for Aussie firefighters telling all and sundry that they are the best in the world! Put me in the category of agitators extolling the virtue of pulling out all the eucalyptus trees growing in California. Perhaps the Aussie firefighters are that good because they face horrifi...

A drive alongside of Colorado’s front ranges had me thinking more of hybrid IT and of possibilities for greater participation of NonStop in what is yet to come … With some ability to get around, but still with the need to wear masks entering any state or commercial building, we have taken plenty of trips of late between Ft Collins and Boulder.  However, it was something Margo and I talked about, as we drove to Boulder, that captured my imagination and for many reasons – the cornfields were high and behind them were the Rockies. Look, “cornfields; with a side of mountains!” Who wouldn’t want to take in this view every chance they had?   Given my imagination all I could think of were "clouds; with a side of NonStop!" Just as the scenery would have been incomplete without the mountains to add depth and contrast, so too it is when we cover the topic of clouds without talking about NonStop! No hybrid IT deployment can realistically be considered complete without the presence of No...

One thing that has accompanied the global pandemic is a complete rethink of where our applications and data reside. NonStop remains “in the house” supporting “workloads close to the data.” With the global pandemic continuing to dominate headlines it’s hard not to think that the sky is falling. Perhaps Henny Penny was right, after all. Fortunately, nursery rhymes can only take us so far, but tragically there are many friends who really did have a piece of the sky fall on their heads as the world seemed to collapse around them! But what to do as we live, entertain and work all while practicing social distancing? Surely, there is stuff that needs doing! Can we take this time to clean the house? Change-up the look of a room or even change rooms so that the underutilized rooms become home offices?   In the Buckle’s residence, there has been a flurry of activity to do with furnishings and decorations. After three years of living in our Northern Colorado home, there were just a...

Call it good planning or call it serendipitous but whatever the call, sometimes it just pays to be in the right place when news breaks. And this was the case as HPE Discover Virtual Experience reached out to us all! It was late 1984 and I was returning to Sydney from a trip to Australia’s capital, Canberra. At that time I was working for Nixdorf Computers where I was managing the organization responsible for the introduction of Nixdorf’s Plug Compatible Mainframe (PCM) – the 8890. Having checked in early for my return flight I ventured into the Ansett Golden Wings lounge to relax. Ansett Airlines was the second national carrier alongside Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) and whereas Ansett eventually failed as an ongoing airline, in the early 1990s, TAA was gobbled up by that flying red rat, QANTAS. For many of my friends in America, what then happened may hold little meaning but it so happened that I was in the right spot at the right time to meet the most gracious crickete...