A Social Media “Highlight”

The above was an exchange on Twitter that simply cannot be ignored. With all the talk about APIs and the advantages that APIs bring to developers, it is worth noting that a lot of work has to happen behind the scenes. Inside the data center! As you might know, it pays to follow HPE Influencer, Keith Townsend (aka @CTOAdvisor on twitter), who has a company that builds out the hardware infrastructure many of us take for granted.

In the update provided as part of the Pyalla Technologies article there are references to other items appearing on social media, but this particular post is worth calling out because of the observation, “At the end of an API, someone has to build the data center.” By themselves, APIs don’t give us carte blanche to go develop without an appreciation of all that is behind the API, not the least being the options we chose as to where we run the services supporting the API.

Today, HPE delivers a very modern package with NonStop. Whether your choice of NonStop is in support of mission critical transaction processing or to provide an always-on database in support of SQL if you aren’t keeping up with all that has happened with NonStop of late you may be missing out on the best possible server offering of all! NonStop is modern and yes, NonStop supports many important APIs. Furthermore, in case you missed it, HPE’s commitment to support of the Cloud Experience includes NonStop.

“Companies like API-ready OmniPayments who are rolling out their own global Payments-as-a-service depend on the stability of good data center implementation,” said Craig Lawrance, Director, Starkspur Consulting Services. Craig is well known to the NonStop community and provides services to a number of NonStop partners. “Cloud growth shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.”

If you have as yet not heard the keynote presentations by the NonStop product managers, missed reading any of their recent posts to the HPE Community Blog or skipped key presentations by folks like Justin Simonds, Franz Koenig or Frans Jongma (to name just a few) then maybe it is you who isn’t modern. It’s definitely not NonStop. Availability of APIs is now increasingly intertwined with the message of modern.

There was a time when industry analysts proclaimed that any application entering production immediately becomes legacy. Indeed, this maxim has undergone an update; a modern application ceases to be modern once it enters production. Modern is not a fixed or permanent label – modern keeps evolving and what we might think is modern today may not be modern tomorrow. That is just the lifecycle of IT we all experience – yes, modern isn’t what modern was.

Highlighting that at the end of APIs are the systems that support them, as @CTOAdvisor addresses, means that some parts of any solution need to be timeless, after a fashion. Who wants to get down on hands and knees, swapping out boxes, every weekend? It is with this capability that data center managers appreciate what NonStop brings to the discussion. After all, there is a lot more we all prefer doing on a weekend than uncrating boxes holding tech that on seeing the light of day loses all semblance of being modern!