ETI-NET now expects migration to NonStop X to start in earnest during 2017!

Last month we wrote that when it comes to the newest member of the NonStop family, the NonStop X systems based on the Intel x86 architecture, ETI-NET’s BackBox has been certified for deployment on NonStop X systems and there have already been numerous BackBox systems shipped as part of the NonStop X offering. Being certified for deployment with NonStop X is certainly an important milestone and like other members of the NonStop vendor community we are expecting 2017 to be a year of small steps for the NonStop users as they begin to evaluate the future contribution NonStop X systems will provide to the running of their mission critical applications. NonStop X is a dramatic break from the past – any change in chip technologies and architectures brings with it short term risk, of course – but all indications suggest that this time, the NonStop development team has done a great job in ensuring that migrations could be undertaken smoothly and with a lot less angst than many had expected.

In the article of last month, we also expressed how to date we had seen no lessening in demand for BackBox just as we anticipate that it is still very early days in the product lifecycle for NonStop X. Even as the NonStop sales teams continued selling Blade Systems featuring Intel Itanium chips throughout 2016, it is our expectation that there will be a shift in the mix of systems sold in 2017, with NonStop X likely to outsell NonStop i systems – we will be watching this closely, of course, but like other members of the NonStop vendor community, this shift in the mix of systems will have positive benefits for ETI-NET with additional BackBox sales more than certain. HPE has sold several new NonStop X systems with BackBox and even one which helped facilitate the migration from NonStop I to NonStop X.

What we expect to see are ETI-NET customers taking advantage of BackBox as they backup the old system and then, with the current business logic moved to the new NonStop X system, restore all of their files directly out of BackBox. It is a scenario, we believe, that will be repeated across the NonStop user base and ETI-NET is in a very good position to facilitate migration to NonStop X systems that is both easy and very straightforward for the customer.

In the coming months we will be supporting a number of Regional User Group (RUG) events around the world. Our plans are to attend the big events including DUST on March 1, SunTUG on March 17, and the pan –European BITUG event from May 9 to 10. This will afford us opportunity to talk with our customers and develop a much better picture of what the outlook for NonStop X migrations might look like for 2017 and into 2018. In addition to the user focused RUG events, we will also be participating in the HPE event for NonStop vendors, the 2017 NonStop Partner Symposium, from March 21 to 23. ETI-NET was a participant in the inaugural event held last year and found the information provided by HPE to be extremely valuable and we can only assume this year’s event will be even better.

Make sure you drop by our table or booth at these events – we would certainly love to see you and hear more about your own migration plans.

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