Pyalla Technologies … NonStop: greater value, less volume!

This month Pyalla Technologies found itself in Europe for most of the month. Conversations spread across a number of countries, all focused on HPE and NonStop in markets where NonStop had once flourished. However, just as has been experienced elsewhere, industry consolidation including aggressive M&A activity has seen some traditional markets for NonStop shrink considerably and yet, as we all heard at European NonStop Technical Bootcamp (ETBC), Edinburgh, HPE NonStop sales management is pleased with how their teams are already exceeding sales goals for the year. Neil Davis, Director NonStop Enterprise Division, EMEA, has already come out publicly with the news that when it comes to his sales team in Europe, “Business for NonStop in EMEA is off to a flying start in 2019” noting as he did that 21 countries took delivery of new NonStop systems.

Returning from Europe and with a number of chores to do, I happened to walk into our garage. With three cars parked inside I noted that the engine capacities weren’t quite as big a displacement as in former years. Indeed, with two 3 liter engines and one 2 liter engine, they totaled less than the 8.4 liter engine sitting at the front of our solely missed Viper SRT/10 roadster. Yet those numbers only tell part of the story. The combined 8.0 liters produced almost twice the horsepower of the Viper with its 600hp V10 “old school” naturally aspirated engine. This got me thinking; stacking up a new NonStop X alongside a Tandem Computers’ Cyclone or even a VLX may catch the eye, but as we have ridden Moore’s Law for as long as we have, the box of integrated hardware and software that is today’s modern NonStop X is way, way more than twice as powerful as the former flagship products.

How many of us remember the Cyclone and how many of us recall the publication, Tandem Magazine? The front page of Issue 1 #6 featured the Cyclone on the front cover with the description, “Big, Fast, Powerful” that was described at the time as being “a fast but expensive system for the mainframe end of the market.” Of course, when it comes to marketing being big, fast and powerful somehow lacked anything uniquely NonStop and in fact, coming out as it did around the same time as equally as big and as expensive systems for the mainframe market from DEC and IBM, together with embryonic messages about data base of record, it proved to be the end of the line for big system powered by custom chips. So much for having the biggest displacement V10 engine under the hood!

Size doesn’t matter anymore. There is no longer any glory or prestige associated with owning a big system as there was decades ago. No enterprise executive stepping onto a golf course tee even discusses how big a data center they have, as nearly all of them no longer parade their guests past walls of glass separating them from the data processing going on behind the walls. However, having said that, the rise of Clouds is casting a huge shadow over everything that pertains to IT and this includes the NonStop community. Even as the first baby steps are being taken to prove virtualized NonStop running on VMware are being taken, it’s clear that NonStop has a future in the world of Clouds though probably at first it is relegated to running just on private clouds. Nevertheless, NonStop in the Cloud is imminent and is a prospect that shouldn’t be ignored and yet, its presence will be selective and likely to be there only in support of databases where the unlimited resources on tap with Clouds can be more prudently exploited.

In the post of July 30, 2019, to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View, Three more wishes coming soon – the path ahead for NonStop the long running posts about what I would like to see happen with NonStop, this preview post includes references to

“In my opinion then we have passed the stage where NonStop as software any longer surprises.

“However, here is where it gets very interesting – the go to market plans and the sales channels. HPE has done a good job with the architecture and the technology but the shift in focus is going to be on selling NonStop far and wide. 

“… look to see NonStop become more deeply integrated with the hypervisors and metal and see the APIs simplified to where NonStop: Without Limits is only a click away!”

If as yet you haven’t read this post you may want to do that by clicking on the hyperlink above. Next month, your HPE NonStop team will be holding a NonStop Partner Symposium where expectations among the vendor community are running high when it comes to knowing more about sales models, pricing and yes, how the NonStop team plans on introducing more of NonStop “as-s-Service”. Almost immediately following this Symposium, the ATUG event will be held in Atlanta and I am more than certain there will be numerous discussions taking place about all that was covered (and not under CDA, of course) such that articles appearing in the September issue of NonStop Insider may prove interesting reading.

Big computers; big automobile engines and yes, to which we can now add, big Clouds! None of this may be big news, mind you and yet, it is really encouraging to see as many discussions as there have been of late about NonStop winning new business, NonStop in pilots virtualized, and yes, vendors promoting their own Cloud offerings with products becoming available as services. NonStop may be off to a flying start, as Davis stated just a few weeks ago, but already we are coming to terms with the many different ways NonStop can take flight and who isn’t impressed with what HPE and the NonStop team have achieved. Perhaps then that is the biggest news of all: NonStop communities around the planet are seeing the NonStop business returning to growth! And with that I will wrap up this month’s update on Pyalla Technologies, LLC, but would welcome your emails at Richard@pyalla-technologies.com not forgetting too that you can follow me on twitter @RichardKBuckle and connect with me on LinkedIn as Richard Buckle.

Richard Buckle
Cofounder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC