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From BITUG BIG SIG and onto TBC 2026 TCM supports the Nonstop community
TCM
Andy Vasey
From BITUG BIG SIG and onto TBC 2026
TCM supports the Nonstop community
It came as no surprise to TCM to read in local publication of how “Scotland is rapidly emerging as a premier hub for the next wave of sustainable, AI-ready IT data centers. Driven by its cool climate, vast renewable energy capacity, and government support, the country is transforming into a cost-effective powerhouse for digital infrastructure.” When you combine the presence of Green Energy, Natural Cooling and a government with supporting policy favorable to data center construction, it leads to the obvious question. Why didn’t we think of this earlier?
Aside from comments made by Elon Musk, it would seem a more practical option than say, launching data centers into space although, doubting the sheer force of someone like Musk might be inadvisable given his global status following the IPO of SpaceX. For the Nonstop community the issues to do with data centers, AI-centric or otherwise, remain more down to earth with Nonstop systems upgrades to the latest additions to the Nonstop family of systems as the NS9 X5 and NS5 X5 systems gain wide acceptance within the Nonstop community. Temperatures might be cooling for some but with these Nonstop systems, the potential they provided is adding heat to numerous discussions across the community.
Perhaps none is more relevant than the prospect of looking to services providers to manage the entire IT portfolio, including these latest Nonstop systems. There’s certainly a lot of attraction in assigning responsibility for all systems to a single vendor, but is that necessarily a cool idea? Consider this a part of a relentless drive for operational efficiency even as for some, it is normalizing a dangerous trend of “the consolidation of disparate IT services under a single, generalist Managed Services Provider (MSP).” This was the observation of Andy Vasey, TCM Specialist. “The ‘one-stop’ model is intuitively compelling, promising an end to the ‘vendor sprawl’ that has historically plagued large-scale organizations,” offering as it does “the seductive simplicity of one contract, one point of contact and one bill (that) ostensibly streamline accountability.”
And yet, generalist providers often lack the technical intimacy required to manage the nuanced subsystems of Nonstop. “Generalist administrators are trained on monolithic or microkernel operating systems where failover is typically managed at a cluster or hypervisor level with heartbeats and automatic restarts,” said Andy Vasey. The downside of handing over management to generalists is that comes time to review achieved performance, generalists often ‘game’ the metrics that most matter to Nonstop managers. “Whereas a specialized MSP treats every second of system availability as a potential catastrophe, utilizing chaos engineering and proactive load testing to identify vulnerabilities before they manifest as customer-facing emergencies,” according to Andy, “this is unknown territory for generalized MSP operatives.”
These observations and more are covered in a new white paper by Andy Vasey, “Is your ‘One-Stop Shop’ Managed Service Putting your HPE Nonstop Environment at Risk?” available shortly for downloading from the TCM website.
The data center may not be in space or even in Scotland, as much as we endorse a stronger Scottish presence, but nothing cools a Nonstop system operation than mishandling by poorly trained staff. This is where TCM is building expertise and with the growth in Nonstop customers, the feedback provided to date supports the value proposition of continuing reliance on specialized MSPs such as TCM.
One development that may be new to members of the Nonstop community is the availability of the product TCM Optimizer+ even as it’s proving popular to those now familiar with its capabilities. The design center of TCM Optimizer+ targets the performance, configuration and overall health of the Nonstop integrated hardware / software / solution stack. It provides insights into complex system metrics, independent validation for infrastructure investments, and translates technical metrics into non-technical, business-focused reports.
Among the key features and benefits of TCM Optimizer+ are:
- System Health Assessment: Scans systems to identify performance bottlenecks and potential configuration issues.
- Business-Centric Reporting: Converts deep technical telemetry into clear, leadership-friendly reporting that justifies IT and infrastructure investment.
- Independent Assurance: Provides an objective, external validation of system health, training, or tooling upgrades
- Trend Analysis: Tracks improvements in system efficiency over time to optimize secondary storage, backup infrastructure and resources
The resultant information provided in the reports generated by TCM Optimizer+ become a useful tool in addressing any shortfalls that might be detected – either configuration, operationally or even counter to expected business outcomes. To find out more, just follow this link that will take you to the TCM website for more information on TCM Optimizer+
https://tcm.co.uk/optimiser/
The awareness of the pitfalls that come with seeking generalized MSPs as well as having an opportunity to converse with TCM about the value provided by TCM Optimizer+, there’s no better platform than Nonstop community gatherings. Whether global or regional, whenever the Nonstop community comes together, the networking opportunities that arise where customer success stories circulate, the Nonstop community is well-served by events held worldwide.
Most recently, the OzTUG, CTUG, BITUG, MexTUG, NYTUG, N2TUG events collectively have seen attendees come from all countries, regions and globally. Not forgetting too that the biggest event to date for 2026, E-GTUG, where the community turned up in numbers to make it a celebration of all things Nonstop in beautiful Munich, Germany.
As for the BITUG BIG SIG, according to TCM’s Collin Yates, “as a long time BITUG Committee member (current Treasurer), I am concerned about how viable it is becoming to maintain hosting in-person events like BIG SIG. Perhaps a different location other than London would be an option – as we look at whether ‘London’ (and the high cost of putting on events in general), has slowed the growth in event attendance. Having said that, it is the likes of Nonstop vendors where our special thanks need to be expressed as they continue to support us financially to allow these events to take place, especially Dublin next year.”
Even as HPE announces record revenues and adds to its projections for the remainder of 2026, the Nonstop community clearly is suffering from major-city inflationary trends. This has not gone unnoticed by BITUG committee members nor the management team within Connect and addressing this changing climate that impacts events worldwide, is a priority for them as the work for the BITUG community continues in preparation for next year’s e-BITUG in Dublin, Ireland. In the meantime, will we see you in Orlando, Florida for the Nonstop Technology & Business Conference 2026 where TCM will be participants as Platinum sponsors? One thing we can assure you all of, it will not be cool in Orlando as we look forward to seeing you all.
