ETI-NET customers take first steps to embrace the new NonStop

It would be hard for ETI-NET to ignore what has occupied the attention of many within the IT industry of late – the revelation and subsequent fall-out that came with the issues surrounding Meltdown and Spectre. It began with news on January 3, 2018, that “side-channel security vulnerabilities involving speculative execution were publicly disclosed by processor manufacturers (Intel, AMD, etc.). The security vulnerabilities, commonly known as Meltdown and Spectre, allow private data to be read. The servers running BackBox are affected by these security vulnerabilities no matter the operating system deployed.

Here at ETI-NET we produced a support note and if you have as yet not seen this note, then call or email us for more information about the actions you should consider taking to ensure you aren’t exposed any further. This revelation set a somber tone for the year and even as it surprised many of us, when it comes to the underlying metal and microcode, it is a reminder than we need to be on guard, 24 x 7! On the other hand, we see so much that is positive about the coming year that we anticipate enjoying yet another great year for ETI-NET. What has led us to this conclusion? Simple; all the work done by NonStop development is beginning to see the light of day even as the first tentative steps are being taken by our NonStop customers to embrace new ways to run NonStop workloads.

Apart from this support note, ETI-NET also was pleased to be able to announce the release of BackBox latest H version. In our promotional emails we highlighted how, “This new version includes new features and functionalities, an updated user interface and lots of back-end improvements, such as LARGEBLOCK transfer support and iSCSI option for physical BackBox.” Just as importantly for our customers, it reinforces our policy of ongoing support for all NonStop systems, irrespective of what new product line HPE NonStop brings to market.

As a side note, it is always interesting for us here at ETI-NET to note that with each new product introduction and with each new disruptive technology delivered, the needs of business vary little – you still need to back data up and you still need to have plans to recover information should disasters strike. We have seen more than our fair share of natural disasters this year be they storms, fire, earthquakes (and tsunamis) and mudslides. Combine this with erroneous broadcasts of alarms that panic everyone and you have a perfect list of reasons why you need to take steps to ensure your business is properly protected. ETI-NET has made the investments in backup technology that many NonStop users depend upon today and we will continue to invest even as HPE rolls out more NonStop systems.

When we look around our community of NonStop users running BackBox today, we are beginning to detect two distinct trends. In one respect, what we see is more or less what we had expected so we are happy to see that we are in a very strong position to help our NonStop customers. When it comes to virtualized NonStop (vNS) and the support of NonStop workloads running on virtual machines, we believed that adoption by our customers would be a very slow and yes, very methodical, process. However, with the planned support for VMware and the creation of the Converged Virtualized NonStop systems, HPE is making the right moves to meet the needs of those who will be the early adopters for this new way to run NonStop. And with vBackBox, we are in place to move with our NonStop users. News is coming to us that there are NonStop users with BackBox who are planning to introduce vNS for development and testing and will also be using vBackBox and that is pleasing to hear – it isn’t a lot of NonStop users, mind you, but it represents a very good start where such a break from the past is involved.

On the other hand, there is also no discounting the fact that there are NonStop users who are moving to NonStop X and this is certainly gathering more momentum by the quarter. Like everyone else, we see advantages in moving to the L-Series operating system as it opens the door to many more options than NonStop users ever had in the past. The really big news here is that NonStop has embraced hybrid IT and recognized that the NonStop user community needs options and with what has been introduced, the choices available to today’s NonStop users are ensuring that CIOs everywhere can rely on NonStop to support whatever configurations they settle on for their data centers, whether they continue with traditional approaches or opt for more modern approaches that include SaaS and clouds!

If you would like to know more about ETI-NET, BackBox or vBackBox then don’t hesitate in reaching out to us as we would love to talk to you about your needs and how best ETI-NET can help you. ETI-NET will have a major presence at upcoming RUG events including the March 2^nd SunTUG Summit in Tampa, Florida, the May 9^th BITUG BIG SIG in London as well as at the May 14^th – 16^th GTUG “European NonStop HotSpot Conference.” If you are planning on attending any of these events then plan too on stopping by our table for further updates on all that we have in plan for BackBox and vBackBox. Don’t forget either that we will be participating in many events worldwide so if you need to talk to us, there will be plenty of opportunities to do so – again, feel free to contact us at any time.

Said Hini
said.hini@etinet.com (514) 663-0501
http://etinet.com/