Gravic, HPE, and a User Present on HPE Shadowbase Solutions at the Connect HPE NonStop TBC

The NonStop TBC 2023 was a great success! Held at the Hilton Denver City on September 12-14, it was an intimate yet energetic affair. We greatly appreciate everyone who made the journey to attend this event and are sorry to hear that some folks had to cancel their travel plans and turn back mid-trip due to the inclement weather. Traveling is not easy, especially for our friends from far-away time zones (who had to endure jet lag and the frustration of canceled flights). It is always great to meet face-to-face, and we hope that everyone who attended left the event with valuable key takeaways and new connections.

Sunday

For those that have not done so, be sure to visit Pike’s Peak on your next trip to the region. A bad picture cannot be taken from the mountain; it has stunning views from every direction. At 14,115 feet (4,302 meters), the peak is incredible. After traveling 19 miles from the base of the mountain, as we approached the peak – it started snowing. Luckily for us, the snow and freezing weather was short-lived. There is nothing quite like traveling the switchbacks without a guard rail and a 2,500 foot drop off…on the return down the mountain, the brakes on Paul Holenstein’s van started to overheat and smoke, so we stopped on our descent often, and actually saw a marmot poking his head out amongst the stark terrain.

Monday

The NonStop Academy hosted several courses throughout the day and the Design Challenge ran smoothly, albeit with a much smaller group than last year. The Challenge involved an HPE NonStop SQL/MP to SQL/MX migration, in which our very own Drew Bauernschmidt participated and completed the challenge leveraging the unique capabilities in HPE Shadowbase to complete the task first. Afterward, the Beer Bust reception was enjoyed by all.

Tuesday

Kristi Elizondo (Connect CEO) opened the floor and welcomed everyone to the TBC.

Next, Mark Pollans (HPE Senior Worldwide Product Manager) introduced Ian Inglis (Manager of HPE NonStop Product Management, in other words, Mark’s boss), who gave an insightful overview of key business trends happening in the market:

1. Regulations
2. Global rate of digital payments
3. Security
4. Driving efficiency and cost

Ian made a strong point that while the cloud enables companies to rapidly foray into new markets, HPE NonStop, especially the virtualized versions, will be “ubiquitous,” meaning available everywhere you need it to be.

Ian then introduced Kirk Bresniker (HPE Labs Chief Architect), who discussed the rapidly expanding interest in quantum computing and the breathtaking advance of AI. Kirk explained qubits and the various mechanics behind how quantum computing works. Kirk also reviewed some of the developments within HPE towards creating guidelines for the “ethical use of AI.” While these guidelines were condensed enough to fit on a single slide, Kirk mentioned that every single word was highly debated and scrutinized.

During NonStop Continues the Journey to the Cloud, five different HPE NonStop developers discussed their efforts and journeys towards porting the HPE NonStop as a software stack that can run in the cloud (without specific hardware dependencies). The group explained undertaking different performance metrics and mentioned they were considering nvRDMA (since, apparently, pvRDMA posed too many performance obstacles).

The NSU40 (NonStop Under-40) SIG Meeting went well. The group expressed how they initially joined the HPE NonStop industry, how to further grow the community, and the plan to have follow-on calls to further drive the NSU40 initiative of engaging additional (and newer) members into the NonStop community.

Wednesday

HPE NonStop Around the World was presented by Karen Ramirez (HPE Director, NonStop North America), Neil Davis (HPE General Manager, NonStop EMEA [Europe, Middle East, and Africa]), and Suresh Menon (General Manager, Data Solutions APAC [Asia Pacific], covering the entire AP+Japan region). The speakers were very informative describing the characteristics of their Geos, providing good insight, activities, and key trends into their representative customer countries.

Neil Davis discussed macro environmental trends developing in KSA (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). KSA is building Neom, a desert city next to the Red Sea. Neil also mentioned HPE’s developments of a Ransomware recovery solution. While Zerto can recover Linux and Windows environments to the last-known-good database write, how does one know if this write is good or bad? Plus, according to Neil, a major Independent Software Vendor (ISV) is now adopting the HPE NonStop. (We are sure that the community is greatly anticipating which ISV.)

Daniel Thiel (Kyndryl) presented TBC2023-CFP5 – Utilizing WebViewpoint Enterprise to optimize 24/7 Operational Model with Reduced Staffing, which reviewed Kyndryl’s usage of WVPe to save tremendous amounts of time and energy. We are also working with Idelji to integrate Shadowbase monitoring into its environment, stay tuned for more developments on this front.

Wednesday evening, a Wreck ’em Rally was hosted, providing a fun icebreaker and team-building activity. The teams had to accomplish tasks to earn tokens, which were in turn used to purchase parts that were added to a remote-control car. The goal was to pop a balloon being towed by other cars, while not having your balloon popped. After an hour or so of preparation and intense activity outfitting our car, our team’s balloon was the very first to be popped in the opening five seconds of the game! While rapid defeat is bitter, we learned a valuable lesson in protecting one’s rear-end, and enjoyed cheering on the other teams.

That evening, the NSU40 Pub Crawl occurred. The party was hosted at the Stick and Feather, an indoor golf simulator with screens, and a BYOB bar. The group enjoyed drinks, snacks, conversation, and of course, watching the various golfing skill levels. Later in the night, a smaller group met at NuWave’s Party Suite and enjoyed a few more drinks and candid conversation.

Thursday

The event wrapped up with a few additional sessions, and a farewell boxed lunch for the hard-core attendees that were still around. We greatly enjoyed meeting with you all. TBC this year was a major success – see you next year at TBC 2024 in Monterey Bay!

Gravic Sessions of Interest:

Please let us know if you would like for us to review/discuss these sessions/content with you and your team:

1. VT4 – HPE Shadowbase: Maximize NonStop Digital Resilience with Data Replication, Integration, and Validation
2. CFP1 – Customer Talk! Major UK Bank Migrates its BASE24™ Application to Active/Active for Continuous Availability
3. TB67 – New HPE NonStop Business Continuity & Data Integration Features and Roadmap
4. VT5 – Ransomware Protection and Data Recovery
5. HPE BOOTH DEMO – Survive a Ransomware Attack! (Featuring HPE Shadowbase)

If you missed a talk, would like more information on anything you learned, or to understand the latest HPE Shadowbase developments and news, then please contact us.

Gravic Publishes Article on Ransomware Protection and Data Recovery

Gravic published the article, Ransomware Protection and Data Recovery, in the September/October issue of The Connection, based on our presentation and HPE BOOTH DEMO at the recent Connect Technical Boot Camp (TBC).

Threats from Malware and Ransomware are rapidly growing worldwide. With this increase in attacks, reliability and data integrity are now at the forefront of business concerns and a primary challenge for businesses to solve. In this article, we review Ransomware detection and recovery architectures, including immutable backups and air-gapped systems. We also review the HPE Shadowbase Ransomware demonstration architecture that assists businesses with thwarting this expanding set of unique challenges and how the solution is evolving. In case you missed our presentation or the HPE BOOTH DEMO at the TBC, then this is a good opportunity for you to learn how to create a Ransomware Recovery Solution (RRS) system.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise globally sells and supports Shadowbase solutions under the name HPE Shadowbase. For more information, please contact your local HPE Shadowbase representative or visit our website. For additional information, please view our Shadowbase solution videos: https://vimeo.com/shadowbasesoftware, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Specifications subject to change without notice. Trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

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