N2TUG 2024

There already have been a slew of Regional NonStop meetings this year.  On May 2^nd, N2TUG held our 2024 meeting, and just as in 2023, our event was held at the Hurst Conference Center in Hurst Texas, not very far from D/FW Airport.  We couldn’t ignore the fact that NonStop is celebrating 50 years this year, so we took the opportunity to celebrate with our theme of “Golden: 50 Years of NonStop.”

Take note, there is a big event in September to celebrate that Golden Anniversary.  Please see Diane Funkhouser’s article elsewhere in this issue for more details and registration links.  It really looks like a fun night!

Registration is always a time for attendees to renew longstanding friendships!

An even more rare event happened earlier this year, as on April 8, the North Texas area was on the path of totality during this year’s Solar Eclipse.  Hotel costs, as well as a forecast of crowded roads and airports, convinced us pretty quickly we couldn’t choose that day for our meeting, but early May worked out brilliantly.

In great Texas style, we kicked off the day with a breakfast taco buffet at 8.  At 9, President Bill Honaker of XID Software, Inc. took a short walk down memory lane to what being a NonStop customer was like in 1979.

North Texas event had one of the first Tandem customers at Tandy/Radio Shack, as well as one of the founders of the ITUG Users’ Group, Doctor David Mishelovich from the UT Health Science Center whose NonStops were inside Parkland Hospital.  And we had a small collection of memorabilia to view, much of which will be available later at the September event too.  Our audience this year had representatives from 9 current customer companies in financial, healthcare, retail and transportation fields.

N2TUG Kicks-Off with HPE NonStop Sales Director, Karen Ramirez

HPE started off the day’s presentations with Karen Ramirez, HPE’s North American Director of NonStop Sales, and Justin Simmons, Master Technologist.  Karen gave some 2024 Highlights for the NonStop Division and shared a video with congratulations from Antonio Neri, and then Justin covered some exciting NSD Futures.

XID’s Bill Honaker taking notes as HPE’s Justin Simonds provides update on NonStop Roadmap

Our Platinum Sponsor NTI was next on the agenda, featuring Richard Buckle of Pyalla Technologies, who discussed current trends in Business Resilience and Ransomware, and talked about the value that could be found in the large number of skilled NonStop vendors.

NTI Marketing team member, Richard Buckle awarding their door prize.

The rest of the morning’s talks were from 2 of our Gold Sponsors.  Jeff Boyer of XYPRO spoke on Cybersecurity Strategies. Mike Mitsch of ETI-NET talked about innovations that customers are achieving with data backups.

ETI-NET’s Mike Mitsche congratulating door prize winner, longtime advocate of all things NonStop, Mark Chapman

Everyone then had a lively (and filling!) lunch buffet with Steak and Salmon, some great salad and vegetables and a challenging set of desserts to choose from, along with lively conversations at the many tables.

Lunchtime always attracts a crowd and a conversation or two.

That, of course, meant that the next audience was at risk of nodding off, but Richard Conine of HPE took on the challenge of fighting that off.   He skillfully succeeded by exploring some ‘worst-case scenarios’ of cyber security crimes, and served up some suggested strategies to deal with the challenges they presented.

Ed Adams of comforte, our final Gold Sponsor, gave us some highlights of their recent agreement with ACI to use the SecurDPS solution, and pointed out that many PCI 4.0 conversion issues can be addressed by comforte solutions.

comforte’s Earl Humphrey educating attendees on PCI v4.0

Rich Greene of Ascert opened his presentation by sharing that he is a participant in Iron Man competitions, and segued from that to the ‘Power of Preparation’.  In his talk, Rich spoke of preparation in planning and testing of NonStop projects.

Paden Holenstein of Gravic, which this year is celebrating their own 45^th year in business, told of how HPE Shadowbase can help with Digital Resilience and Ransomware recovery planning.  Khody Khodayari of Idelji shared a new direction in server management using AI (in a product they call iManAIge).

Gravic’s Paden Holenstein awarding their door prize winner.

Gustavo Cavazos of NuWave talked about integration of NonStop applications inside your companies and with business partners, using REST as the binding force.  Mauricio Mier from OmniPayments discussed the state of the art in Fintech, describing new ways that their customers can deal with financial transactions more cost effectively.

As usual, many of the partners offered up door prizes, and we had a drawing for the attendees that were representing customers.  NTI, ETI-NET, Gravic, Odyssey, Ascert and Idelji all contributed, and you should find some pictures in this article.  N2TUG really appreciates their generosity, and it was a great way to reward those that survived the entire day of talks! The day ended with networking at the evening reception. There were a couple of hours of beer, wine and unique hors d’oeuvres, in fine Tandem ‘beer bust’ tradition.

During the entire day, the participants had great questions and the speakers fielded them all, which reinforces why in-person meetings are so valuable to everyone involved.  It was a day packed with information, networking and social engagement, and we are already thinking about next year!

A surprise for many attendees – a collection of Tandem Computers memorabilia up for the asking!

We’d also like to thank our Silver and Breakfast sponsor Odyssey, as well as sponsor XID Software for providing Bill Honaker’s time and planning to make the day go smoothly.  We hope to see you and your associates next year at N2TUG 2025!

Hopefully, you’ll be able to attend the 50^th anniversary celebration as well as the Technical Boot Camp in Monterrey this September.  Enjoy the photos provided here and hopefully it’ll help you decide to and make plans to join us!