The Big Slice … or, “How can I do it better?”

It is safe to say that for many companies that make up the Nonstop Compute (NSC) vendor community, travel is an ever-present necessity. That necessity is born out of the need to observe and recognize changing NSC customers’ requirements. It’s a never-ending learning exercise framed by the awareness born out of years, if not decades, of services experience. For as long as TCM has been actively engaged with the NSC community, it has been a learning exercise.

When we elected to be present among the major user events worldwide, we at TCM made the commitment to travel to Australia for OzTUG – a commitment to time spent in airplanes perhaps for periods longer than we are used to – it set TCM up for a productive first half of 2025. The fact that we were well-received by the local Australian community was reward enough for the distances we covered. However, it was just a start to what has transpired and yet, with travel comes experience and with experience, as we all know very well, comes knowledge.

It was more recently that we packed our bags and headed to Canada for CTUG. Like Australia, this was unfamiliar territory for TCM and yet, as the reach of TCM and the expectation that customer support could be addressed on a global basis, it was important for the Canadians, just like the Australians, to witness firsthand our commitment to their marketplace. Given the number of NSC senior management present for CTUG, it was also an opportunity to demonstrate the commitment by TCM to support NSC customers wherever they happen to reside.

There is now very few TCM customers that can be considered local, as almost all of them have operations scattered across the planet and with the high penetration of the financial industry as is the case with NSC solutions, together with the active M&A activities we see almost daily, TCM is becoming more sensitive to the need to think globally. It is imperative to all members of the NSC vendor community to think in a similar manner, but for TCM, the sense of urgency is palpable.

The old adage of “The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘We’ve always done it this way’,” a reference to Admiral Grace Hopper’s admonition that there comes a time to simply let go of past practices, internally TCM has begun to address a similarly important question. “How can I do it better” has become a theme within the dialogue occurring of late. TCM has been in business for thirty years – Providing mission-critical HPE NonStop solutions since 1996 – the anniversary of such coming up real soon, but what constituted best practices at the end of the twentieth century rarely satisfy NSC customers today.

Systems, software stacks and solutions have all moved and in so doing, have necessitated a rethink at TCM and the prospect of TCM being able to do better can best be described as a commitment to work even more closely with the HPE team and its partners. TCM remains an independent NSC vendor only too willing to work with every NSC vendor but the shift in focus by the NSC team to better address new customers and solutions, what we can do better is to provide increased specialization through greater focus on what is working best for the NSC community.

With the E-BITUG European NonStop Symposium that just wrapped up a matter of days ago, this was very much at the heart of presentations delivered by TCM. None more so than the session jointly given by Danial Craig, TCM’s Managing Director and TCM’s Andy Vasey. With a heading “TCM Insight, it’s good to talk” perhaps it was better to include a reference to the subtext, “The Big Slice.” In an entertaining introduction, Danial Craig walked the audience through the pitfalls of golf – playing despite striking the ball only to see it slice away far from its intended direction.

How to correct it? There was much that could be attempted but apparently, with more attempts came little success. It was only after a sustained period of coaching, of listening to those who had succeeded in correcting this primary fault for many who play golf, did an improved strike of the ball take place. Now, the game of golf doesn’t necessarily translate well to business – greens that are missed, bunkers that are found and water courses consuming too many golf balls – the clear message from Danial Craig was all about how could he do better.

In the second part of the presentation, we heard from Andy Vasey was how, with the TCM InSight product, the NCS customer can indeed find out how they could do better. Through a series of dashboard displays and reports, delivering on the classic traffic light format of green for good, red for bad and orange for, well, room for improvement, TCM readily affords all NSC customers an opportunity to think more deeply about how continuing to do things as they have always done may not be beneficial in today’s modern world of hybrid IT.

How to eliminate the slice? It takes work. It takes observation by experts. It takes analysis. It takes the desire to implement recommendations. This is a demonstration of what TCM InSight provides. Looking past the dashboard, reports go to TCM’s experienced staff for deeper analysis and further examination of all the inputs before recommendations are provided. When addressing the big slice, according to Daniel Craig, there was no thoughts about abandoning the game of golf but rather, with clarity, putting into practice what was recommended.

There may be frustrations along the way. This was highlighted by Andy Vasey. In his explanation straying far from any golf references he suggested that to pursue the recommendations of the TCM team often led to hard choices being made. It was as if the observations with how families packed their dishwasher – the choice between letting the structural engineer or the racoon on meth have at it – may have been an extreme example but with it, the implication referenced by Admiral Grace Hopper, yes, there is always the opportunity to do it better!

There are still additional user group events and conferences to come, but for TCM the big one will be this year’s TBC – the HPE Nonstop Compute Technology and Business Conference 2025 – to be held in Houston September 16 – 18. For TCM it will be yet one more long-haul flight but with an opportunity to see many more members of the NSC community and in the full knowledge we can do even better, we will be there! Will we see you participating? And maybe, just maybe, you can gain a few tips from our Managing Director, Danial Craig.

nonstop@tcm.uk.com   www.tcm.uk.com