Real Time View

A short stroll past bank branch offices in New Zealand had me thinking about the role of services in support of NonStop systems and in NonStop migrations … This past week it’s been all about working from a unique location. Yes, for a couple of days we have been all at sea, so as to speak. With the need to be in Auckland for a couple of days followed by a day in Wellington, Margo worked out that we could sail to NZ, stop by both places and then return to Sydney. We also threw in a visit with former Connect board member, Alan Dick, who even today continues to work on issues of advocacy with long time NonStop supporters Bill Highleyman and Bill Honaker as well as with another strong advocate for NonStop, Randall Becker. We spent a leisurely day with Alan whose tenure with the board dates back to the time when ITUG elected to participate in the creation of the Connect worldwide community. Indeed, at the time Margo was Vice President Alan was there to offer wise council during the per...

From products, hardware and software, for the NonStop community conversations turn to solutions and staffing as services! Looking out over this vista in Utah’s Capital Reef National Park I immediately thought of the saying “between a rock and a hard place.” Can’t imagine why this came to me, but then again, the barren landscape stretching to the horizon was certainly not a pleasant place in which to become lost – the river beds are mostly dry, with the vegetation providing little by way of shelter. No, best to take it all in from alongside the roadways that run across the ridges! If you have ever traversed Utah state highway 24 to the junction with Utah state highway 12 and then continued on to pick up US highway 89, you would see some amazing sights. And yet, as this picture captures so well, the desolation that you would face, should you leave the well-travelled highways that traverse the park, would definitely place you between a rock and a very hard place! These past few ...

It is becoming all too clear. For the NonStop user the world is changing rapidly as we move to hybrid IT and look to a virtualized NonStop. Where will find the help we will more than likely need? Only this week I was visiting our new off-premise storage facility where we are now storing vehicles we can no longer accommodate on-premise, at our home. The company command center – yes, our faithful RV that many of you have seen at recent RUG events, our motorcycle, our trailer and even our fifteen year old Corvette “track toy!” It is not a cavernous storage facility by any means but it does come heated and with a number of different power outlets including one 30amp circuit which should be enough to keep the command center’s refrigerator working and the drinks chilled. Now, all we need is a couple of chairs and we have a new weekend retreat! Well, perhaps not … Fortunately it is all rather simple and we don’t need to have someone present looking after the facility. There is a mana...

As often as we hear, “open to the elements” and we cringe, for NonStop users, open is a good thing – but it’s even better with help from service providers … Well, the weather isn’t doing us any favors even if it is nowhere as bad as what we are looking at for the US Mid-West and East Coast It’s SuperBowl Sunday and with the venue being Minneapolis it’s safe to say it’s really, really, cold. Thank goodness the venue will be inside a dome, but just making the trek from car to stadium will be a challenge for many. Forecasters are telling their audiences that frostbite will set in within 30 minutes so spectators will need to be careful. And yet, it is football after all and many a time we have seen games played in atrocious conditions inside of stadiums open to the elements. We want to be close to the action sometimes and feel as though we are truly involved in the game, but there are limits after all. On the other hand, more clubs are spending the billion dollars it takes to b...

HPE Discover 2016 was the “big-tent, marketing event” we have come to expect. Hearing HPE CEO Meg Whitman introduce Home Depot onto the stage as a NonStop user was great! With uptick in interest in all things NonStop (including HPE IT) we're going to need a lot more help from services providers … A year may not be a long time between HPE Discover events and then again, when you also factor in Boot Camp having been only half a year ago, it continues to intrigue me how HPE has picked up the pace so dramatically. Often relegated to being old-school or even a leftover from a previous era, it’s all too easy to denigrate a company that’s been in business for three quarters of a century, but this is far from being an accurate depiction of HPE today.  The breakup of the former HP into the two companies, HPQ and HPE, was executed extremely well such that today HPE is single-mindedly focused on the needs of enterprises everywhere. Furthermore, the decision by HPE to spin off its...

A chance forced detour out on the highway reminded me of just how important good service is - for the NonStop community there are many options when it comes to service and I suspect there will be even greater demand for services in the future. Think for a moment about Hybrids and NonStop as Software!   Driving the many miles we do, attending one conference or another, we probably spend more time in car service bays than most. Throw into the mix the need to accommodate extreme temperature changes that living next to the continental divide creates, and the expenses climb steadily through any given year. Seeking the assistance of service managers isn’t restricted to where we live either, as we have been forced, on occasion, to pull into garages all across the western states of America. Service, particularly when it comes to cars, is something Margo and I know a lot about. As much as it really hurts to own up to such familiarity with car service centers across the country, it’s ou...