ITUGLIB now supported on Virtual NonStop (vNS)

Throughout the history of NonStop, dating back to the earliest days of Tandem Computers, there has been a steady stream of NonStop vendors who have worked behind the scenes to bring numerous tools, utilities, code stubs and more to the attention of the NonStop community. The Connect community’s ITUGLIB is well known as being the go-to destination whenever there is a need for software together with documentation that has been provided by the Connect members.

It has been hosted by several entities through the years, with the team providing technical assistance as needed to ensure ITUGLIB is supported and secured in a manner that ensures NonStop users can be confident in what they access on ITUGLIB. Most recently, it has been the engagement with TCM that has led to some very interesting developments. As the publisher of this bimonthly digital publication, the work that TCM puts in – oftentimes not immediately noticeable by the NonStop community, but important all the same – has brought a freshness to how best Virtual NonStop (vNS) can be leveraged in support of ITUGLIB running virtually.

One of the more popular presentations at the past year’s events and one that again will be featured at the upcoming NonStop TBC 2023 Conference is that given by TCM’s Shiva Subramanian on his journey to vNS. Shiva has been working with the ITUGLIB team since 2021 where he has been helping the ITUGLIB team wherever possible. The timing couldn’t have been better for the ITUGLIB team as this was about the same time as Shiva began his deep dive into virtualization and the creation of his well-attended presentation last year at the NonStop TBC 2022 Conference.

“ITUGLIB has been investigating ways to modernize our hosting and building platforms for years.  TCM, and especially Shiva offered a solution that not only works for us, but also covers most of our costs,” said Bill Honaker of XID Software Inc. the ITUGLIB Technical Team Chair. Prior to the migration to vNS, ITUGLIB was hosted by NSK OpenSource & ATC labs – two machines: J & L series respectively – as a resultant outcome of the migration, it is hosted by ATC labs & TCM (J and L series respectively).  “Shiva worked especially hard to design, acquire, build and run the Virtual NonStop, with full support of the TCM management team. This has enabled us to finally retire our aging NS2000 TNS-J server!”

The success of the move to vNS took a great amount of personal time from the volunteers and that work is very appreciated: Randall Becker of Nexbridge, Shiva Subramanian of TCM Solutions, Jojo Schmitz of HPE, Mike Kilpatrick of NSK OpenSource, and Bill Honaker of XID Software Inc., successfully managed to move all the workloads. “This includes the public-facing Website at ituglib.connect-community.org, and the TNS-X build and test platform to the Virtual NonStop at TCM, as well as a TNS-E build and test platform at the ATC,” said Honaker. “Thanks to all. And thanks, also, to our sponsoring vendors that provided free usage license to the tools we use to manage ITUGLIB!”

This migration has now been completed with the promotion of this transformation will probably happen this week – look to the Connect web site for more details as to when this goes live. And yes, look for the website footer that says, “HPE Virtual NonStop® Server Technology.”

But ITUGLIB is more than just a collection of tools, utilities, code stubs, but as a library it supported open source where code was ported under an open-source license. According to Shiva, “this joint exercise between the ITUGLIB team and TCM helps shine a further spotlight on TCM even as we are finding it is a definite conversation starter with customers who may not be aware that the ITUGLIB open-source products they use are built and tested on TCM’s vNS and the TNS_E at ATC with TCM’s help and contribution.”

Investing in expanding the company’s knowledge and experience with vNS was always the intent, but now TCM can point to an application that is live under vNS. We may have been working behind the scenes on this project but in reality, what can be considered the highlight of this undertaking is that it further emphasizes the wealth of knowledge that TCM has gathered about vNS in general and how the VMware environment is complementary to everything HPE is doing in the vNS space!

If as yet you aren’t familiar with the Connect ITUGLIB web site pages, then follow these links –

https://connect-community.org/ituglib-1/

For information about ITUGLIB, and

https://ituglib.connect-community.org/apps/Ituglib/

to access the library itself.

If you haven’t already penciled in Shiva’s presentation at NonStop TBC 2023 then check the Connect web site for Technical Breakout Sessions at

https://www.nonstoptbc.com/technical-breakout-sessions

Also watch for further updates on dates and times for Shiva’s 50-minute presentation; NonStop, Evolution Through Modernization where you will hear more about vNS and ITUGLIB.