I’ve Always been a “Car Nut”!

Like so many other “Baby Boomers”, born in the mid 1950’s, I’ve always been fascinated by the automobile, particularly Detroit Iron of the mid 50’s through the early 70’s, the fin and muscle car eras. Thanks to generous parents and grandparents, I got my start with a nice collection of Matchbox die cast car and truck models that got a lot of use on dirt roads plowed in our lawn back in New Jersey.

As I got older, I switched from toy cars to real ones, and in 1978, just out of college, I bought my first “Special Interest” car, a 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T. This purchase allowed me to interact with other car aficionados, enter car shows, and become a member of a car club dedicated specifically to the restoration and preservation of Chrysler cars and trucks. It also kept my interest in cars alive during the admittedly bleak, at least for performance type cars, 1980’s and 1990’s.

As the new century dawned, I found my interests shifting from the older cars to newer models, with better all-around performance than could be had from now 40 year old cars, so I sold the Coronet, and bought a 2008 Corvette Z06, and then augmented my collection with a pair of the retro Dodge Challengers, a 2016 Scat Pack Shaker and a 2017 Hellcat. Oh well, once a Dodge man, always a Dodge man….

That’s the Hellcat in front, with the Shaker behind.

So what’s this have to do with NonStop?

Maybe more than I realized. People are passionate about their cars, and enjoy socializing with other like-minded individuals to talk about their favorite cars, share information, tips, and techniques for maintaining their machines. There are nationwide clubs for almost any car you can name, from popular cars like Ford Mustangs and Shelbys, Chevrolet Corvettes, Camaros, and the aforementioned Chrysler products. But there are also organizations dedicated to more obscure, at least from the general public’s viewpoint, cars, some which have been out of production for decades. Some marques that come to mind include Studebaker, Packard, Hudson, Nash, Kaiser-Frasier, even Graham, Hupp, and Crosley.

Now on to NonStop – it is amazing to me that the same kind of enthusiasm many have for automobiles is shared by thousands of folks (mostly customers!) worldwide for an over 40 year old computer platform that is nearly unknown, unless there’s the rare outage, to the general public. Yet, when I bought my first Dodge back in 1978, NonStop servers were already deployed, protecting mission critical data.

Think about how many user groups worldwide, run by volunteers, are organized to share their knowledge and insights on their preferred enterprise platform. In fact, BITUG (British Isles Tandem Users Group) is scheduled for May 9th, and GTUG, in Leipzig, Germany, follows a week later. The NonStop Partner Symposium is scheduled for July, followed in November with the NonStop Bootcamp here in Northern California, which is the “capstone” for the year. In 2017, there were over 300 attendees at Bootcamp, from HPE NonStop, partners, and most importantly users, and that represented an increase over 2016, especially with customers. 2018 should be even better…..

Here’s a list of Users Groups compiled by Tandem World (http://non-stopworld.com/TandemUserGroup.html) it’s impressive!

For the Americas:

CTUG             Canadian Tandem Users Group

NCTUG          Northern California Tandem Users Group

SCTUG           Southern California Tandem Users Group

PNUTS           Pacific Northwest Users of Tandem Systems

DUST              Desert USers of Tandem

RMTUG         Rocky Mountain Tandem Users Group

DRTUG          Dallas Regional Tandem Users Group

MCTUG         Mid-Continent Tandem Users Group

TUMS             Tandem Users of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Area

MSTUG          Mid-Southern States NonStop Users Group

MRTUG         Midwest Region Tandem Users Group

NRTUG          Northeast Regional Tandem Users Group

MATUG         Mid-Atlantic Tandem Users Group

ATUG             Atlanta Tandem Users Group

SUNTUG        Florida Tandem Users Group

Internationally we have:

ITUG               International Tandem Users Group

RTUG             Russia Tandem Users Group

FINTUG         Finnish NonStop Users Group

VNUG            Viking NonStop Users Group

ITALIATUG   Italian NonStop Users Group

GTUG             Germany, Austria, Switzerland Tandem Users Group

FTUG              France Tandem Users Group

NLCUG          NonStop (Compaq) User Group Nederland

BITUG            British Isles Tandem Users Group

OZTUG          Australian Tandem Users Group

Dance with the one who brung ya…….

That’s an old saying which in our case means “Don’t forget the base!”

These grassroots organizations have and continue to promote HPE NonStop worldwide, we here at Tributary Systems, along with all the other NonStop partners, owe these folks a debt of gratitude, from Tandem, through Compaq, HP, and now HPE. Their support has made it possible for the evolution of the platform and the establishment of the many ancillary partner organizations, providing products, support, and services that enhance the NonStop customer experience.

Everyone will necessarily agree that new customers with new applications are extremely important to the future of the NonStop business. HPE in general and NonStop in particular are enmeshed in major organizational changes, including in some cases replacement of critical management. As this happens I urge the NonStop organization to devote as many resources as possible to insuring that established customers don’t leave the platform. Interaction with the user groups, especially by NonStop personnel has proven to be a cost effective method for maintaining existing relationships.

Anyway, that’s our take this month, 2018 seems to be shaping up as a year of challenges for the NonStop platform, but with dedication and hard work by HPE NonStop, the user groups, partners, and customers, it may be a pivotal year after all………..