HPE BackBox H4.09 release now available!

Partnerships have been a cornerstone of HPE NonStop systems’ success through the decades. In the early days of NonStop it became obvious that NonStop systems were sold jointly with large solutions partners. These vendors were responsible for creating numerous solutions that went on to dominate select markets. From stock exchanges to healthcare to banks and retailers – these markets all benefitted from deploying NonStop systems.

NonStop customers depend upon many parts that work well together to support their mission critical applications. There are so many NonStop customers today to warrant continued investment in NonStop and HPE has not shied away from so doing. Moving to the Intel x86 architecture, turning to InfiniBand for support of dual connectivity fabrics and as of late, support for virtual machines highlight the strength of HPE’s commitment to NonStop. Today the ecosystem of middleware and tools vendors supporting NonStop is very important..

When it comes to data and in particular, ensuring the data created on NonStop is always available, the NonStop team turned to ETI-NET for its BackBox (BB) product suite. What HPE was looking for was a robust cost-effective solution to meet the most basic of needs that being, to backup and then subsequently restore data. Physical tape drives together with large spools of tape have been relegated to little more than a footnote of IT technologies as today, tape controllers (VTC) and the tape drives themselves have been fully virtualized. As such, it has become easy for HPE to add inclusion of BB within their own NonStop systems’ product offerings.

Looking across the spectrum of partners NonStop development have turned to there are many that operate in what can only be called a close working relationship with HPE. In so doing, they are investing their own funds into products that otherwise NonStop development would have to pursue. The HPE commitment to NonStop is strong but for the NonStop community, there is a preference for all HPE development funds to be spent on the OS kernel and adjunct products. Including  ETI-NET BB frees up crucial NonStop development funds that allow NonStop to remain the most available platform on offer today.

It was only a few months ago that ETI-NET released version E4.09 of BB. As we wrote in that update to the March 2021 issue of NonStop Insider, ETI-NET – BackBox E4.09 release now available with full support of QoreStor™ with BB Version E4.09 support of QoreStor™ has been included and is one of many updates included with this release:

A new Datastore type (QoreStor™) is now available for the embedded dedicated QoreStor™ server. The new Datastore type automatically creates storage pools based on data management policies by naming them according to the naming convention.

For QoreStor™ Datastores or for Winstore storage set as Rapid CIFS (QoreStor™), all virtual volumes belonging to a given volume group are automatically stored in sub-folders named to match the specified volume group.

VTC Management Console displays now QoreStor™ server node with parameter settings for configuration and replication.

Improved the event list and associated messages forwarded to NonStop EMS to include QoreStor™ events.

QoreStor™ VM system clock and time zone are automatically set up to match the VTC time parameters.

New and improved access control using User Management interface feature to allow setting up customized permissions and creating profiles with associated roles.

SecurID is now supported (MFA) by Sign-In screen to allow authentication by security token (PIN), when required.

Implemented a batch Datastore password-change program (OBB004/ OBB004B) that validates the access to Datastores.

With this latest update to the May issue of NonStop Insider, ETI is pleased to announce that the HPE version H4.09 will be available in the near future. As a HPE partner, this means that NonStop customers will be able to acquire this latest release of BB directly from their NonStop sales teams. “We understand the significance of this latest release becoming available through NonStop sales,” said ETI-NET COO, Sylvain Tétreault. “The benefits are twofold in that it keeps the list of vendors present in the data center manageable even as it brings in much needed features none more anticipated than BB’s support for the QoreStor™ (QS) product offering from Quest.”

Of importance too for our NonStop customers is the relationship we have developed with PointNext – HPE’s technology services organization that aims to accelerate digital transformation around hybrid IT and intelligent edge computing. “This relationship with PointNext is key for us as they do all the HPE BackBox installations. We view them as that part of ETI-NET that is customer-facing and this gives us greater global reach,” said Tétreault. “They are well trained and do a great job in installing HPE BackBox and with training the customer.” The relationship between ETI-NET and PointNext isn’t just limited to post sales installation and education as we have seen them proactively helping out the NonStop account teams during presale situations and they are comfortable enough to make configuration recommendations or propose services they deem important for a good customer HPE BackBox implementation.

No one wishes for disasters to visit any of our NonStop customers but it seems of late that disasters manmade and natural are occurring with more frequency than in the past. Having a strong plan in place to protect data and to do so whereby backups of all critical data don’t become onerous is key to any enterprises recovery plans. This is the strength of ETI-NET and as such, has helped to cement our partnership with HPE and the NonStop team. However, should you have any questions about this HPE BB / QS product offering that will go FCS in a matter of days, and you would like to know more about this HPE version H4.09 of BB, don’t hesitate giving us a call or sending us an email.

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