Real Time View

  Creator: Simon Alvinge  |  Credit: Getty Images / iStockphoto After moving into our newly built home in northern Colorado, we cycled through many Kuerig coffee makers. It took a couple of years and a lot of trials and errors with more than one Kuerig coffee maker finding its way down into storage. Were we insane not to realize it wasn’t the coffee machines as we tried one after the other with no resultant changes in results? Eventually, having called in the electrician, it proved to be a faulty circuit breaker. “When these breakers were first installed there were a number of them that were problematic,” was the only response we were given. For Margo and me, take away our morning coffee and expect unpredictable behavior to follow. In fact, on any given day, it takes us three coffees before we can rationally face the work day. However, as much as we made adjustments to our schedules – a quick trip to Starbucks became the norm – there was always that fear lurking...

It is apparent our future working environments will differ greatly to what we experienced a year or so ago and yet, when it comes to the NonStop roadmap is does look like they know where they are headed! It has been such a long time since Margo and I ventured out onto America’s highways. Looking back through posts to this blog as well as to our social blog, Buckle-Up-Travel, it would appear that it was as long ago as September of 2020. Back then it was just a quick trip to Southern California to catch up with colleagues before heading up Highway 1 to San Jose. For a couple who love to drive and who have crisscrossed the continent many times, it’s been a tough year. Looking for signs that we can hit the road again only to be left with a feeling of being lost and with no idea which direction we should head.   But we cannot complain. When we consider the bigger picture, any inconvenience from not being able to drive is at worst just a minor irritation. For those who would like to ...

Roadmaps always receive a lot of attention whenever products are being discussed particularly among NonStop community members. However, when was the last time we took stock of the bigger picture for HPE NonStop systems? What began with a simple question ended up involving much more than I had anticipated! Conversations, checking under couch cushions, web searches and even visits to the local gas station. For a very long time now I have been using a yellow Hi-Liter pen to record the many North American highways Margo and I have traversed, but as we make plans for further travels this year and begin to think about packing our bags once again, I couldn’t find the marked map! Somehow our filing and retrieval system let us down – no way would we have thrown away that piece of memorabilia? After the conversations had run their course I thought it best if I just get another map and start over, but where to get a map? What I needed was a simple fold-out map of the US and Canada that included a...

  Let’s talk about virtual machines, containers and what’s the attraction for NonStop customers. But first, the big question; with mission critical applications, are they relevant? When it comes to myths and fables there is perhaps none more the subject of speculation than the existence of King Arthur and his fabled magician, Merlin. Modern speculation goes so far as to suggest Merlin was an original “Time Lord” of Dr. Who’s fame. Others suggest he was the model for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gandalf. As for Harry Potter, well it is not so much a case of speculation so much as it’s a case of dropping into a pure fantasy. Merlin even made an appearance in the movies; Transformers: Last Knight. Myths carry with them the expectation that wondrous things occurred and that without their featured characters, societies would have been lost. When it comes to technology there has always been a sense of fantasy and of the unbelievable and yet, here we are entering the seventh decade of commercial IT...

A trip to the west coast that crosses both the Rockies and the Sierras is always fraught with potential disaster but this time, a little snow didn’t deter us and things just went right for us … This time last year I wrote the post, What does Sydney bring to the table … as Margo and I were wrapping up a three month stay in that most magical of cities. We had made it “down under” for the traditional New Year’s fireworks celebration on Sydney Harbor, my daughter’s birthday, and the SIBOS Sydney 2018 financial institution conference. I had also managed to arrive in time for my High School fiftieth reunion even as we found time to visit the farm of my sister-in-law. In other words, this time last year a period of full immersion in all things Australia was coming to an end. But this year, it’s time to head to America’s West Coast. It’s early in the year but it’s an ideal time to spend a few days in Silicon Valley before heading south to tinsel town and to that other big tech cent...

Taken by surprise to see our neighboring city called Severance, Colorado – it brought to mind separations we know all too well … and all good, mind you! When you move to a new town it’s not unreasonable to expect that you will take a drive to see other townships nearby. For Margo and me it took a little longer for this to happen, but eventually we did take the drive that led us onto some previously unexplored roads. Imagine then when just a few miles north of Windsor, Colorado, we happened upon the township of Severance. It turns out the townships of Windsor and Severance are more or less joined at the hip, sharing responsibilities for the Windsor – Severance fire brigade. However, Severance still maintains a separate city police department. Needless to say, I just had to back up to take a picture of the local Severance Police patrol SUV even as many storylines began forming in my mind. As time passed I more or less forgot about this photo until another storyline I was deve...

The view ahead often is only at its best following difficult times and for the NonStop community there is only upside ahead with views to match! With all the talk that followed the recent very severe and somewhat unusual “bomb cyclone” hitting the front ranges in the northern part of the state of Colorado, what is sometimes overlooked is the view you are given once the clouds lift and the sky turns blue. It is as if someone tipped out all the vanilla cream and draped it over the jagged mountain landscape. As chilly as this Saturday morning scene appears turned out to be rather pleasant, with almost no wind whirling through the trees. As for the view, it’s what you see once you crest Highway 36 on your way into Estes Park with views all the way round to Long’s Peak. Being this far back from the mountains and taking in the long view, it was breathtaking to say the least. The photo was captured by our guests for the weekend, Jan and Brian Kenny, who were driving the car behind us...

A flight to Germany continues to be a rare occurrence for me and yet, GTUG held promise of more good news on NonStop so I simply had to go!  It might appear that road trips have been a consistent theme of mine over the past couple of weeks. True, the topic of road trips always is close to my heart as I like getting out onto the highway to simply drive towards the horizon. And yet, it is also highly relevant in today’s technology environment – as much as I enjoy a changing landscape and a changing vista, every now and then the destination is important. Even if the neon sign flashing far out in the distance might only be that of a motel offering overnight accommodation, there is always the distinct possibility that something far more meaningful is being communicated. Margo and I have just gotten back from a brief trip to Leipzig, Germany. Yes, as much as we bemoan air travel we simply had no other option than to head to the airport a couple of weekends ago and traverse a cons...