Real Time View

It was inevitable as it was obvious. An evening walk with my grandfather. He had spent the past fifty years working with technologies and, given as it was 2074, the technology changes he had witnessed could only be described as dramatic. Walking from his office I caught a glimpse of framed emails he had kept as artifacts from his earliest days in IT; a rare sighting by any measure. As a new hire fresh from college, he had joined HPE, as it was called in those years. Following a series of mergers followed by a number of spin-offs, it was hard for me to visualize what it must have been like back then. “What you think of today as technology didn’t exist back then but circumstances changed and ambitions exploded,” he said. “I recall clearly when individuals wrestled total control of tech away from state-supported institutions as the idea governments could foster any level of cooperation needed to break through barriers.” Quickly revisiting the past and stories that I’ve heard before,...

Many road warriors we know all too well expect that when they head to the airport to board their flight and attend to business they will then return home safely. It happens all the time. For anyone that has walked through an airport of late there is no doubting that the desire to get back out into the world has returned. Gates are packed with check in and security lines back to their former slow crawl patterns. What is not expected is to see planes parked at the gates, along taxi runways and worse. Who knew that a simple computer glitch could take down the air traffic control network across the United States? When news of a glitch spreads it almost never turns out to be a minor irritation. Of late we have read about such glitches affecting  banks, trading houses and more – so much so that for the community at large, it’s become almost a case of well, here we go again. But bringing air travel to a halt, that’s a glitch on a completely different plain! Everyone it seems is left hur...

I have just added another post to our social blog, Buckle-Up, that was the last of ten posts retelling stories that first appeared in Speed News, a digital publication of the track club to which for the better part of a decade Margo and I belonged. The title of the post was Retiring from HPDE and for those not familiar with the HPDE programs they were all about H igh P erformance D river E ducation and catered for those car enthusiasts who prefer to experience speed on tracks rather than on streets. When it comes to the subject of retirement nothing tugs at the heartstrings more firmly than thoughts of lazy days spent on a tropical beach, beneath a palm trees, sipping on a fruity cocktail. However, for most of us, those tugs on the heartstrings are only part of the story as there is a lot more that influences us than the quiet life. When it comes to the IT industry and, particularly when it comes to all those dedicated to support of the HPE NonStop ecosystem, is a quiet nap even in ...

Clouds go offline; data centers are compromised; critical infrastructure is held to ransom. Thank goodness for today’s modern HPE NonStop systems that we can run any which way we like! “Crash your car?” “What?” “Would you like me to crash your car?” You can imagine the look on my face as this dialogue continued. True, my hearing may not be as good as it once was and true, the cars I drive are low and working any sort of credit card reader through a car’s window can be problematic but seriously, crash my car? As it so happened to be on this occasion the attendant at the car wash was only asking me whether he could “cash my card?” He happily took my credit card, inserted it into the machine and we were on our way. For any member of the NonStop community, the above exchange might arouse a wry smile or two but it continues to be crashes of another type that only create a shaking of the head. In this day and age, surely systems shouldn’t be crashing for any reason especially those we in...

For the NonStop community, we know what looks good may not only be deceptive but borderline dangerous; mission critical applications are best served by HPE NonStop systems! There was a time not too long ago, when my appearance took on a distinctly “Steven Spielberg look”. Right down to the glasses I wore and to the cut of my hair and beard. With hindsight, the similarities became clearer whenever Spielberg was giving an interview – we shared numerous mannerisms. Without making too fine a point of this, there are photos taken of me during the 2004 Cannes Film Festival that Margo and I swear were on-sold to newspapers. Picture this, walking with Margo towards the red carpet when out of nowhere two young scantily clad ladies on rollerblades swung up to me, grabbed an arm each, turned me to the side when cameras began to flash. Holidaying in Maui, one family followed me practically everywhere I went, taking happy snaps at every opportunity. Goodness knows what now hangs on the walls of t...

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...

Three years have come around rather quickly this time but it’s still worth thinking further ahead when it comes to our wishes for NonStop in 2023! Celebrating each New Year comes with a lot of obligations. It’s not just a case of staying up late to enjoy the fireworks, although, I have to say, I haven’t managed to do that very often – my trip to Sydney to see its firework display being the most memorable exception. Then there is the mandatory popping of champagne corks and celebratory hugs, and more, and it was only a few years ago when Margo and I took to the streets of Key West to witness its approach to welcoming the New Year, where we were quickly educated about crowd control. However, perhaps entering each New Year is even more memorable because of the tradition of making a wish. Whether it’s embracing a new diet, spending more time at the gym or simply deciding to spend more time outdoors, each of us makes a wish / resolution of one kind or another. Having written thi...