DataExpress – HPE Discover and N2TUG events reveal renewed emphasis on Hybrid IT and this calls for NonStop community to look to “Open!”

The turnout for this year’s HPE Discover 2019 event in Las Vegas proved illuminating for many – as the lights dimmed prior to HPE CEO Antonio Neri’s taking to the stage, the photos we have been given suggest that it was a bumper crowd present for his keynote address. As we were later advised, HPE staff were turned away at the door to allow more HPE customers to be seated. While this is just one example of the support for HPE and its extensive product portfolio, it is still good news for the NonStop community as it reinforces the message that HPE remains a major presence in enterprise IT. While there were many messages provided by HPE, the company remains very focused on simplifying Hybrid IT and once again, demonstrated its commitment to the world of information processing being Hybrid for many years to come.

It was with real interest too that DataExpress followed the news that HPE would be pursuing an agenda such that by 2022, every product in the company’s extensive product portfolio will be made available as a service to be consumed by HPE customers any way they want. In other words, just as we select options to watch television – be that from a cable company, a satellite provider or a streaming service – so too will HPE customers have choice when it comes to accessing HPE products.  While it’s true to say that this left many HPE customers scratching their heads, (so we have been told), wondering of course what the impact might be on their IT organization, it is still a message that will be hard to ignore. However, it does open the conversation about just what products will become important to HPE customers over time and if HPE delivers on the ease with which HPE customers will be able to move applications between traditional systems, private clouds and any number of public clouds then it will bring into sharper focus the need for open solutions.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to DataExpress as, like a number of NonStop vendors, DataExpress has complemented its DataExpress NonStop (DXNS) product line with DataExpress Open Platform (DXOP). Of late, it has been interest in DXOP that has fueled recent enhancements to the product and although we are following with interest HPE’s plans to deliver everything as a service, in the intervening years we expect our existing DataExpress customers to exercise a fair degree of caution before taking advantage of “everything-as-a-Service!” While we understand that HPE’s own IT organization is successfully pursuing something similar as it modernizes its own infrastructure, for the most part NonStop users move forward more slowly.

The message of Hybrid IT also reflects how the world is very much “Always On; Always Connected” and it was good to see this message taking center stage at the NonStop booth at HPE Discover. In many ways, it is the need to include security that still resonates with both our NonStop and Open Platform customers. As DataExpress CEO, Billy Whittington, noted in the most recent post to the DataExpress blog, Cloudless skies are being predicted, but for DataExpress it doesn’t matter – files still need to be moved!

“We honestly don’t believe our NonStop customers will convert to any “a-a-S” in the near future.” It isn’t so much a case of any uncertainties over the technology but rather, “security is the paramount reason for caution – our DataExpress customers are even reluctant to share information on files they move so having them moved into or out of clouds seems a lot scarier than embracing any edge solutions.” On the other hand, our DataExpress Open Platform (DXOP) customers may have a different view of these options than do our DataExpress NonStop (DXNS) customers and “we already have one of our large DXOP customers asking us for a quote to put one of their systems ‘in the cloud’” added Whittington.

In the coming months you will be reading a lot more about DataExpress and security. “We have always been about managing the secure movement of files,” said Whittington, “but today, even as we have always been about security in file movement, the attention being given to security is letting us explore new options which we are now addressing. It was interesting to note, too, that at the recent N2TUG event in Dallas, while the topic was very much centered on meeting the needs of DevOps on NonStop, security came up in almost every presentation.” Events like the recent ETBC, Edinburgh, together with HPE Discover 2019 and N2TUG all have one thing in common. In the support of Hybrid IT, NonStop will not be standing alone, off to one side. Rather, NonStop will be integral to enterprises IT’s transaction processing and in so doing, be adjacent to a Linux or Windows system and that scenario plays well for DataExpress.
Should you have an interest in easing the manner in which you securely move files between systems present in Hybrid IT, we would be only too happy to discuss how DataExpress best addresses the business requirements of your enterprise today – just reach out to us by phone or email. We would really like to talk to you about meeting your business needs!

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