TCM: Your knowledgeable NonStop Super User!

References to sporting teams and real visualization of what competition looks like have been a hallmark of recent TCM articles. Perhaps it was the image of the poster from Ghostbusters that caught your eye more so than a snapshot of rugby players even if the team featured was from Scotland. Our reference to the film The Equalizer conveyed a similar message as we covered the topic of being competitive, capitalizing on opportunities and finding the gaps or openings appearing in the marketplace.

For all of 2021 to date we have been involved in helping our NonStop community clients navigate perhaps the most difficult of times as a result of the global pandemic. As some industry analysts have described what has transpired for industries with which we are aligned is that the global pandemic ushered in a period of accelerated transition. Plans that were put in place covering the next couple of years needed to be executed in a matter of months.

What we observed as the driver fueling this acceleration is the explosion in usage of online retail and of the e-commerce market in general. All those online orders generated financial transactions which in turn created transportation documentation. There is no hiding that this is the sweet spot for NonStop as its scalability and indeed its availability attributes are proof that NonStop is the system of the times. We hear the talk on a regular basis; invest in NonStop or look elsewhere. Ultimately, the risk / reward ratio simply doesn’t pan out when the situation calls for more of the same and yes, with caution being exercised on all capital expenditures.

Our NonStop customers also faced significant upgrades to NonStop – the hardware, the OS and much of the middleware stack. It is this combination of hardware and software that makes NonStop unique and while the upgrades were in line with HPE’s goal of ensuring NonStop remained a modern product suite, it also brought with it demands of IT that were as unexpected as they were urgently required. However, even as our NonStop users adjust to a changing landscape, the arrival of new products and solutions targeting the NonStop platform are proving challenging for even the most talented NonStop teams.

It might be a moot point to talk of these NonStop users deploying a complex mix of thirty and perhaps as many as forty third party products. Whether it’s in support of accelerated development, ease of use or even tighter integration with other systems, these third party products all need to be evaluated and then implemented. In times when so much is being written about hybrid IT and the Digital Transformation (DX) that kicked off in earnest during the lead up to the global pandemic, here at TCM we are finding ourselves quickly becoming essentially super users.

This is not a reference to logins or ids but rather an accurate depiction of the knowledge we have gained this past year with the many products deployed across our clients’ NonStop community. These NonStop users individually may be knowledgeable in a dozen or so products but the likelihood that they have seen almost all of the products on offer from the NonStop vendor community would be an unlikely proposition. It has become an almost daily occurrence to take a phone call from a NonStop user asking us about the pros and cons of a particular product as it applies to usage in their market.

The value TCM is now bringing to our NonStop users is that yes, we have seen that product and yes, we know how best to configure and deploy. We even have insights into which NonStop partner products work in some markets as well as the markets where they may not provide an equivalent value. With such a breadth of exposure it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any NonStop user that we view ourselves as a super user covering the interactions of almost all the NonStop vendor product portfolios wherever they are encountered, anywhere in the world.

Fortunately, what hasn’t changed is the relationship we have with the HPE sales team. Developed over years of cooperation, the HPE sales team knows we have access to personnel who have seen it all. “As super users given how we manage NonStop systems every day, we are exposed to everything about how might our NonStop users upwards of forty product work together reliably and effectively,” said TCM CEO Daniel Craig. “This wasn’t something we achieved overnight but is a testament to the many years we have been working alongside our NonStop customers and HPE.”

In times like this where we have all had to make adjustments due to the global pandemic even as we have had to accommodate explosive growth of transactions as they relate to e-commerce, we are watching our role becoming even more important. “As HPE NonStop adds even more products to its product portfolio – look at what’s happening with NonStop SQL for instance,” said Craig, “our NonStop clients appreciate that they can leave it up to us to make it all happen!” We may not be the super user you immediately think of when it comes to the management and oversight of your systems but then again, our breadth of coverage can make the case that this is what we have become in 2021.

Given our total appreciation of all that NonStop can deliver today and our understanding of what would likely work best for you, should you have a situation where you need to talk to someone, TCM would be only too happy to take your call.

Contact TCM at: nonstop@tcm.uk.com