Real Time View

Real Time View
NonStop Story Telling

Siting in a hotel room in London, a weekend of downtime following a period of heightened activity, has me reflecting on the latest gathering of the Nonstop Compute community. I have no real idea of what was the catalyst for the name change – surely, by now you have noticed the S stopped being capitalized – from NonStop, to Nonstop Compute. Any student of branding and yes, that’s a topic of interest to me, know all too well that tinkering with the brand has to have a purpose. Now, before going any further, I have to abide by this new direction for Nonstop. Nothing more to see here or at least, very little to discuss. Moving right along …

Coming away from the June E-BITUG European NonStop Symposium (yes, the capital S was in use at the time of this event’s promotion), I couldn’t help but observe a strong sense of unity in support of Nonstop. There was considerable support from the Nonstop EMEA organization. I just happened to be in the hotel lobby in Dublin when a group photo was being taken and I just happened to be in the right place to leverage the opportunity. The Nonstop EMEA team was a much bigger organization that I had believed it to be – literally dozens of team members. It is clear that the HPE organization has gained a stronger belief in the NSC product portfolio and is throwing more of its weight behind the team demonstrably with a lot more funding.

Branding news; organizational news, but then too there was product news. Starship has been circling around many conversations among the NSC community. Over the past couple of weeks, we overheard that Starship has seen a number of models being identified. Mostly speculation, as the next numbers in line, following the models NS4 and NS8 it seemed only logical that this latest updated line of converged systems would include a 5 and a 9. We now have seen the unveiled servers as the HPE Nonstop Compute NS5 X5 and NS9 X5.

For the majority of the NSC community, the extension of the NSn Xn line of converged systems coming at a time where less than two years ago all pre-announcements indicated a major move to virtual systems. Nonstop Compute going to all-software option was going to be real. Fortunately, the NSC community became active and in the customer interviews that followed, there was almost no support of an all-software direction for the NSC product line. As an option, sure, but not as the principal product offering. HPE leadership then demonstrated their full commitment to the NSC community and changed course.

Spending time this weekend in London, mulling over all that was said at E-BITUG has led me to be encouraged by what I saw and heard. The only variable I view as requiring a re-address has to do with the NSC support of the NSC vendor community. I don’t expect anything dramatic to occur in the near term but the NSC leadership needs to pause, take a look around, and wonder whether driving away a considerable number of viable vendors who continue to invest their own nickels and dimes on the NSC product portfolio is a smart thing to do. I think not.

Recent awareness of further consolidation through active M&A actions throws a light on the potential that vendors not matching the requirements of these M&A activists will simply walk away from further investments in NSC – a possibility that will result in a limitation of the options / choices available to NSC customers. And this is never a good development. While I am enthusiastic about all things Nonstop related and I like what I see occurring within the NCS organization (particularly at the global sales level), I have to believe that the senior leadership will not let this continue without further reexamination. Hopefully, all NSC vendors will return to a level playing field and be given every opportunity to promote their products unhindered by the NSC sales teams.

I truly don’t want to sound like a broken record on this topic, returning time and time again to the same topic, the issue of fairness. However, what we see here today runs contrary to the very basic understanding of what Nonstop means to the community that being the presence of options and alternatives. After all, having a choice simply cements the longer-term viability of Nonstop in the minds of all community members. As we see the SIG, New to NonStop gain momentum, it’s important to me that they become fully versed in all products available from the Nonstop vendor community. They need to be encouraged to check out everything least they gain just one view of this thriving community and hopefully, at this year’s E-BITUG, some traction developed that will lead to greater engagement with the Nonstop vendor community.

There will be more community events taking place throughout the year, culminating in the annual HPE Nonstop Technology & Business Conference 2025. From the viewpoint of my clients, this annual event is always an exciting time that gives them an audience – the NSC customer – where their message can be delivered unfiltered and without caveats. With new NSC products, greater engagement with the NSC community with a bigger global sales team and clearly a greater commitment to Nonstop by HPE, it will be an exciting time. In Houston, Texas, next door to HPE HQ.  It should prove to be further evidence that NSC is clearly in good hands.

We continue to get deeper into 2025 and Margo and I would like to encourage you to keep supporting our social media dialogues – posts, commentaries and articles. As you might surmise, there will be a lot further coverage on the above topics with greater reporting on what is likely to prove interesting to the NSC community. For now, let us encourage you to start by checking out these channels:

For the Nonstop community there is Real Time View blog –
https://itug-connection.blogspot.com/

For our social connections there is Buckle-Up-Travel blog –
https://buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/

For the Connect Community publication, there is Real Time View column –
https://connect2nonstop.com/

For updates on Facebook, there is now a Real Time View group –
https://www.facebook.com/groups/145269955527534

For commentaries on LinkedIn, there is the Real Time View group –
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1878133/

See you all in Houston – and yes, drop us a comment on any post you see where you become inclined to join in on the conversation!