Sporting contests provide opportunities; but there is no gain if you drop the ball!

When it comes to the game of rugby each team goes into a game with a plan, but after the game has commenced, it’s all about improvisation. How best to react to the unexpected. The opposing side most likely changed up their game plan once they have come to terms with what you are intent on pursuing so for teams to win in rugby it’s all about applying pressure and exploiting weaknesses. For the past couple of months rugby has been the focus of considerable attention here in Europe as the Six Nations Championship has been fought out across playing fields from Scotland through France and onto Italy. Could these countries be joined by Romania at some point? Georgia, perhaps, who have been playing rugby since the 1930s?

When it comes to today’s competitive business landscape, it’s enterprises that know their mission and have embraced a strategy and yet, can pivot quickly whenever they need to innovate to win big. There will always be surprises; who could have imagined there being a global pandemic, a shortage of processor chips or even a disruption to the supply chain following the temporary closure of the Suez Canal? Time and time again, missed opportunities become the fodder of journalists and business school professors. For the NonStop community, this is well known and there remains little that can compete with NonStop systems when it comes to transaction processing.

For TCM, we have been at the forefront of helping the NonStop community capitalize on opportunities. Whenever such opportunities arise, be they market or technology driven, TCM has been willing to work with the NonStop community to ensure NonStop customers are never at a disadvantage, no matter where these opportunities take them. This was the focus of the latest article published in the March 2021 issue of NonStop Insider, Who you gonna call?

When we talk about the spaces-in-between we are addressing the many gaps that are common place in today’s technology. We may even call them grey areas, where the path forward isn’t clear. They may not be apparent at first but when we begin the process of integrating NonStop applications with other external applications it doesn’t take too long before someone in IT asks the question: How do we do this? Whether it is looking to normalize the way data is backed up from many different systems or simply looking at accessing a microservice via a popular API, there are learning curves many IT organizations experience difficulties addressing.

An obvious play on the popular phrase originating in the movie, Ghostbusters, it certainly conveys an important message for the NonStop community. What is more important is the growing acceptance of the many NonStop vendors providing everything from tools and utilities to solutions that members of the NonStop community interface with on a regular basis. Perhaps as many as a dozen or more – sometimes as high as twenty five! It is not uncommon for large enterprises deploying multiple NonStop systems to face the uncomfortable position of not knowing “who has the ball?” When talking about the many gaps that are common place in today’s technology we can extend this to include the many gaps in NonStop vendor ownership when it comes to problem resolution.

The HPE NonStop continues to provide winning technology but its introduction of both virtual NonStop alongside of traditional NonStop is leading to the development of new game plans. When should a task be performed on a traditional NonStop system and when should it be performed within a virtual machines where NonStop resides are questions that are beginning to be asked. When running virtual NonStop there is the potential to encounter even more vendors. HPE doesn’t propose to know all the vendors in the mix nor does it propose to support all the many combinations of vendor software just as individual NonStop vendors may not be familiar with products in adjacent market segments.

This may be new territory for many NonStop users but it’s a territory that is familiar to TCM. Being independent from, but widely supportive of the many vendors who compete for opportunities to add value to the NonStop product portfolio, TCM has at hand knowledgeable consultants who can step in and ensure any gaps that open up between products can be addressed and quickly resolved. When such consultants may not be onboard, TCM certainly knows how to find them and to ensure no NonStop customer is left wondering where that ball has gone.

In business there will always be surprises but the NonStop community shouldn’t be surprised to find that as the complexity of NonStop ecosystem increases and as the ability of the enterprise to field its most competitive solutions their maintenance will demand even greater reliance on vendor support. TCM sees its role in providing insights into the way combinations of NonStop vendors’ software can be best utilized to achieve the competitive advantage enterprises seek and then be in a position to resolve any problems that might arise as being core to their business. Going forward, this is a role that can only get bigger as success for NonStop will attract even more vendors to NonStop systems.

In rugby, there are always surprises, of course. There were many pundits who didn’t count on Wales showing up for the contest even as others were surprised when the much-fancied Irish found it tough going. Then there was Scotland running up the score against Italy. Winning the final rugby contest with France meant Scotland ensured that Wales came out the winners. Rugby isn’t about alliances of course, unlike the NonStop vendor community which has been seen to cooperate. And this is where vendor like TCM, who has visibility over a broad band of offerings , can help enable those enterprises relying on NonStop systems to provide the competitive offerings that ensures their future business success.

Having read this and recognizing that your own situation might be in need of a team familiar with filing in the gaps that lead to a levelling of the playing field then please let us know. As we noted in our last article, if you happen to encounter a situation where the ball has been dropped then you will now know who you are going to call. TCM is only too happy to hear from you.

Contact TCM at: nonstop@tcm.uk.com