Pyalla Technologies … Nonstop: the word is “encouraging!”

Holding the NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2019 (TBC 2019) in the first week of November certainly put the pressure on all of those wanting to provide updates in NonStop Insider following the event. For Pyalla Technologies, we were not exempted from the anxieties over this timing but all the same, it was an event worthy of coverage. Two items stood out: There was a sizable contingent from the Asia region just as there was a sizable presence of first-time attendees. I cannot recall the last time I saw 110+ first timers called to their feet by a first day keynote presenter, but the sight of so many new faces was certainly encouraging. And if there was one single takeaway from the event it had to be “encouragement” – there were just too many signs to ignore of NonStop making headway within IT.

When you pull a full house for lunch and it isn’t even the opening day, then you know that the event proved to be eventful for everyone. Conventional wisdom suggests that the majority of attendees only stay for the opening day keynotes but this didn’t prove to be true this time. Perhaps the most intriguing presentation of the event was that provided by San Francisco FBI Special Agent, Elvis Chan, who entertained the audience with his take on “The Top Cyber Threats for 2019 & Breach Prevention Guidelines.” In his description of the FBI’s Cyber Threat Continuum he called out five categories: Criminal, Hacktivism, Espionage, Terrorism and State-Sponsored. He not only gave examples of all aspects of unwanted cyber intrusions but gave attendance guidance about prevention as well as a list of online resources we should always refer to should we ever find out enterprises being compromised.

When it came to addressing what’s new with NonStop the program went in a different direction to what I had anticipated. In my previous article, published in the October 2019 issue of NonStop Insider, I had remarked on how going into the event, there had been an expectation growing across the community that the NonStop team would be revealing even more about the growth taking place in terms of sales of NonStop. Complementing this topic, there was an equal amount of interest in all things virtualized NonStop (vNS). Turned out that the information provided on both topics was rather light – yes, sales managers present for the event were pleased with their numbers in 2019 even as they contemplated even higher targets being set for 2020 and yes, there were a handful of presentations on vNS – but where the majority of time was spent was in “migration and modernization” efforts under way across all of the NonStop community.

Turns out, not surprising anyone steeped in the history of NonStop, that sales of NonStop mostly referenced migrations to NonStop X of which there were many. Enterprises could still order new NonStop i systems but they were becoming a rarity as almost everyone has deployed or is in the process of deploying NonStop X systems. While this shouldn’t be considered news to those same NonStop followers, all the same it was further encouraging news to hear – we can all wish for the success of NonStop X but there is nothing better than to be given hard data that indeed, migrations were on the rise. When ATC head Franz Koenig took to the stage his message was inescapable – don’t  mix development with deployment; develop with any tools languages or frameworks you chose but deploy on NonStop as today, it’s all possible and the attributes of NonStop can be leveraged operationally quite transparently to the development effort.

Was it just Margo and me who picked up on the numerous references to TS/MP made during this event? There were even numerous positive remarks made about Pathway. For far too long we have thought that Pathway – TS/MP had been hidden away. A technology gem that only needed a little extra light to be shone on this key NonStop middleware offering – you want to discuss in detail the merits of virtualization and containers well, look no further than Pathway. Isn’t any Server Class simply a container? Isn’t the supported NonStop JVMs all simply containers as well (despite the reference to VMs)? Furthermore, when it comes to running a transactional environment, as is more often the case with NonStop deployments, doesn’t the mandate for 24 x 7 uninterrupted operation make it a candidate for deployment within one or more virtual machines? Encouraging signs for NonStop, indeed!

There is a growing appreciation among the NonStop community that in time, NonStop may very well migrate to the intelligent edge just as it may very well anchor the core / cloud. By this, Margo and I would like you to think of planning for movement of NonStop to the intelligent edge to better support transactions at their source (remember, “We at NonStop create data!” according to Mission Critical Systems VP & GM, Jeff Kyle) even as you plan to deploy NonStop SQL/MX in the very heart of your IT centers. The duopoly of OLTP and OLAP as is supported today with NonStop L-Series, whether traditional or virtualized, positions it nicely to best support both models. There will be a lot more written about this in the coming year so perhaps you may want to initiate your own internal discussions on this topic.

While attending the event as well as in the days leading up to its start as well as its final hours, many posts and commentaries were written and published to different social media channels. If you missed any of them, then take a look at the following:

We first wrote of Margo and my expectations that appeared on the NonStop community blog, Real Time View:

Three things we may want to hear more about at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC) event!

You might then have caught our daily updates that were published as articles in the LinkedIn blog, Pulse:

Day One –

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/half-time-day-one-lunch-annual-nonstop-technical-boot-richard-buckle/

Day Two –

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-two-ends-community-networking-takes-over-richard-buckle/

Day Three –

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-three-its-wrap-up-nonstop-tbc-2019-richard-buckle/

More than likely though, you probably have already read the wrap-up post now live on the NonStop community blog, Real Time View –

HPE NonStop team hits the high points at NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC) 2019

One final observation: For those wondering about the plight of vNS; there should be little to worry about. It’s coming! It’s just that it will likely focus on markets apart from migrations and modernization of existing NonStop users infrastructure – the one message that became very clear “HPE will be loath to sell vNS to anyone who hasn’t already invested in (and has in place) the necessary cloud infrastructure; we have heard this before but this now looks to be the reality as HPE takes vNS to new markets!” At least this was the essence of one conversation I had with a well-places sales manager. And it makes sense – no immediate cannibalization of the NonStop base even as it opens up opportunities for selling NonStop to new customers. Margo and my thoughts on this are well – it’s encouraging to see!

Richard Buckle
Cofounder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC