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  Attending one event in person and then catching content from a second held virtually proved challenging - First day - ATMIA US Conference 2021, Las Vegas Greetings from the road, once again! Last week we drove to Las Vegas where it all seemed so strange to be participating in an industry event that wasn’t associated with HPE. Up until 2020 we had always scheduled time to be in Las Vegas for HPE events so it was good to get back to the place. Whether they were the HP Technical Forum (HPTF) events – the events that replaced the ITUG Summits of years passed – or HPE Discover simply being with the community was always an experience in itself. However, on this occasion, Margo and I turned up for the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) US Conference. While our primary focus was on the ATMIA event where I was attending in person and yes, it was held in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino (and Conference Center), we also had to interact with our colleagues who were participating in this year...

  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...

Continuing to provide superior products for forty five years may not sound all that big a deal but it is. For the NonStop community it means that an architecture and a technology is as relevant today as it has ever been in the past. As the renewed interest in attending events picks up steam it is worth just a moment to reflect on how far we have come. Margo and I are only a few weeks away from attending the ATMIA US Conference 2021 in Las Vegas. Yes, our first in-person major event. We have chosen this event as it is the main event of the year for the ATM Industry Association and looking back at the history of NonStop to when it was simply called a Tandem Computer, the relationship between NonStop and ATMs is hard to miss. When there is so much conversation about the chicken and the egg it would appear that hitting the market at roughly the same time, NonStop and ATMs proved that timing is everything. We will be busy in Las Vegas as the ATMIA US Conference will take place in the Mand...

The chance viewing of posts and tweets led me to an analyst report that suggested hardware vendors were going to shift their business model. What could this mean for the HPE and the NonStop community? Reading posts and commentaries on social media channels has become routine for Margo and me. For the better part of a decade, we have spent time checking out the popular sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. However, one post to LinkedIn we missed until we saw promotion of it elsewhere but after reading the post, it made us think more on where NonStop may be headed. The post was by T.C. Janes and it promoted a McKinsey & Company report, Hardware’s business-model shift: Finding a new path forward . Janes was Client Chief Technologist where, according to his LinkedIn profile he was “Responsible for understanding and quantifying my client's technology portfolio, strategizing across all HPE Centers of Excellence to address their business/technology challenges, aligning current/future HPE s...

Critical infrastructure has always been a priority for society but when it comes to technology critical infrastructure, October 1987 and Black Friday remains a lesson on just how well NonStop can scale even in the darkest of hours. The completion of new infrastructure projects is always an exciting time. When it comes to linking two estranged parts of Sydney, it meant life could blossom on its North Shore. History will recall that Jack Lang, Premier of the state of New South Wales, missed his big opportunity to cut the tape and to be officially part of the legacy of Sydney’s most iconic landmark as he was upstaged by a sword-wielding protestor on horseback, Captain de Groot who charged the tape ahead of Lang. Given the one-off occasion this happened to be, there was no chance at all that history would ever be repeated. With this in mind, I had an occasion this past week to recall the music of New Zealand’s well-recognized rock group, Split Enz and, in particular, the lyrics from one ...

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 ...

Demolishing buildings may be happening all around you and for some enterprises, taking the wrecking ball to their IT data center may be in the cards. But the cloud experience is making sure hybrid IT prospers and with it, NonStop systems as well … During a trip back to Australia with a short stay on the state of Queensland’s famed Gold Coast, it was simply amazing to see the transformation of the skyline of Surfers Paradise. It was my longtime favorite holiday destination as a teenager and with memories of the many multi-story rentals that rarely rose to ten stories, to stay in a recent addition that towered 104 stories above that famous surfing beach was simply amazing! However, back down at street level it was almost as amazing to witness the continuous demolition activities underway as that skyline of my youth was being systematically reduced to rubble. Replaced with skyscrapers lauded for their modernistic approach to design – all glass and shiny chrome girders! However, it’s not...