Once again, E-GTUG delivers!

Once again, E-GTUG delivers!

Entering the month of April, the eyes and indeed minds of the HPE Nonstop community were drawn to Munich and the upcoming E-GTUG – European Nonstop Symposium 2026 planned for April 14 – 26, 2026. As the community gathered at the hotel, there were many stories shared of just how apocalyptic many of the journeys turned out to be – measured in days and not hours for many attendees. Perhaps the stories being told took on unprecedented degrees of embellishment but they certainly were worth telling during the several social encounters that followed.

When it came time to kick-off the Symposium, Wednesday morning, 150+ attendees were drawn to the main event room and, as the room filled, once again it became what the planners had hoped for all along, a gathering of many of the most talented Nonstop community members from all four corners of the globe. It’s always encouraging to see that, despite the hurdles strikes, fuel rationing, global conflicts, the community always seems to find a way to symposiums, conferences and events celebrating Nonstop, wherever they are held.

This year the content was quite a reach and a number of themes stood out. We were not surprised to see how Casey Taylor, VP & GM HPE Nonstop, the clear leader in all things Nonstop related, returned to the key message of fault tolerance and resilience. While she would argue that this message has never been sidelined or ignored within HPE, nevertheless it was a huge reminder to the community of what Nonstop is truly all about – supporting mission critical solutions wherever there is an industry vertical where such support is mandatory. The traditional industry verticals supported by Nonstop expanded considerably given the always-on, 24 x 7, operational aspects of a global marketplace.

What is driving the interest today comes back to how the Nonstop team has the language support, delivered tools, utilities and services, all in support of application modernization. There is rarely a discussion TCM has participated in of late where modernization and the ease with which applications can be “modernized” has not been raised. Modernization feeds many discussions from long term applicability and flexibility of an application to the ability to tap the IT software markets for skillsets needed in a modern world.

This is particularly the case when recruiting people with those skillsets as they enter the workplace from universities and colleges. All recent graduates want to use the languages, tools, utilities and services that they learnt in the centers of higher education. Without such support by the Nonstop team, these skilled assets would turn to other platforms to better exercise their skills. Modernization cannot be ignored by any member of the Nonstop community and this has become central to the business execution within TCM.

When it comes to fault tolerance, one key attribute of Nonstop of late has been the ability of Nonstop to run virtually. When virtual Nonstop first appeared (vNS), TCM observed some skepticism. How can Nonstop provide fault tolerance in a virtual world where hypervisors reign supreme? What about performance? What about maintaining the levels of resilience Nonstop customers have grown accustomed to? After initial reservation, a number of Nonstop customers made the move and TCM found itself in the forefront of vNS support.

“Initially, this was all around supporting Nonstop on VMware and this went well. However, as concerns over the costs of VMware let alone the costs of going virtual at all, TCM has been pleased to see the Nonstop team support alternatives,” said TCM’s Any Vasey. “Having been a vocal support of Nonstop for many decades, I was aware that the move to virtualization would come to be given the growing penchant to break the hardware – software umbilic chord.” When it comes to alternates, Nonstop only recently added support for KVM – a well-known hypervisor designed to meet the demands of the high-performance virtualization pursuits of traditional Nonstop customers.

“If you don’t care to pursue the VMware path, you no longer need to when considering your move to vNS,” said Any Vasey. “We have become the experts with KVM.” When TCM was approached to support ITUGLIB – home to contributions of software and documentation from Connect members as well as from HPE personnel – it proved to be a no-brainer to embrace vNS. According to published Connect Community commentary on their web site, “Connect wishes to thank TCM Solutions, the current host of ITUGLIB. TCM Solutions is responsible for setup and management of our Virtual Nonstop, and provides power, bandwidth and on-site management for hosting ITUGLIB.”

Coming directly from a Nonstop community stalwart supporter who was closely associated with this project, Bill Honaker, “When the older J-series hosting ITUGLIB needed replacement, TCM stood up to offer hosting on a server at their site.  The migration went quite smoothly, and we’ve been hosted on a Virtual Nonstop since then.  We wouldn’t be where we are without their strong support… and that continues.”

When it came to supporting other Nonstop vendors, TCM’s choice of KVM for vNS, proved a good fit for supporting XYPRO’s development and test environment. This project has gone well for Xypro. Steve Tcherchian, XYPRO Technology CEO shared the sentiment of Connect when he said, “TCM has been a true extension of our team, consistently providing the expertise, responsiveness, and reliability we need to deliver a best-in-class experience for our customers.”

One of the most important considerations that TCM addresses on a routine basis is how we bear witness to the struggle for human resources. Modernization has taken great strides to ease the transition for new hires out of universities and colleges worldwide. Yet, even as we attend Nonstop customer meetings, each time we observe the absence of personnel we have known for years as retirements begin to bite. This is one issue that will not lessen in the future and it is a fundamental business driver within TCM. The continuous expansion of our own skillsets with the customer installations where we provide key services, is becoming another option to ensuring modernization, virtualization and yes, the inescapable presence of AI, for all Nonstop community members.

E-GTUG 2026 delivered a comprehensive view of the Nonstop global presence. The Nonstop community begins to plan for this year’s Nonstop Technology and Business Conference (Nonstop TBC 2026) where TCM will be supporting as a sponsor. Look for further details in upcoming posts and articles to follow shortly even as we are excited to be making the trek to Orlando, Florida.

It may be a far-off event but it’s also time for TCM to begin promotion of E-BITUG 2027. This event will return to Dublin, Ireland, given the support from the Nonstop community we observed in Dublin in 2025. Whether we see you in Orlando for Nonstop TBC 2026 or in Dublin for E-BITUG 2027, our presence will be visible. To all those who added to their homeward journeys out of Munich, we wish you all a safe and timely return.

Looking forward to seeing you wherever the Nonstop community gathers next. Should that be in London for the BITUG Big SIG, 2026, come see us and don’t forget too, follow us on our LinkedIn group and check out our web site –

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8546566/

https://tcm.co.uk/