TIC Software – for NonStop it is time to REST and prepare for Virtual

There were many presentations provided by the HPE NonStop team during 2019 that stimulated considerable discussion, but perhaps the most engaging conversation occurred at this year’s Technical Boot Camp (TBC). The presentation was NonStop – The Art of the Possible, given by head of the NonStop Advanced Technology Center (ATC), Franz Koenig, who was also tasked to give insights into the future of NonStop. Among his many slides on the topic was a slide, What we hear from CIOs and among the items listed was one that caught our attention: High productivity of staff. No steep learning curve!  This was followed by Quick and easy access, integration and composition of services and data together with Leverage common technologies and standards.

In other words, Franz was drawing attention to new ways to consider development in ways that might cultivate and attract younger IT professionals. This was not entirely surprising, as, when it comes to development, NonStop today supports many modern middleware framework and languages. It was refreshing and illuminating, though, when the presentation turned to the paths toward the business outcome and value of both modern architectures and microservices. Of interest, was emphasis on APIs and REST, which, here at TIC Software, has been part of our consistent focus. “We are seeing a rising trend across NonStop users adopting and evaluating the use of REST APIs,” said Phil Ly, TIC Software President. “In particular, with NonStop as a REST client accessing cloud services (e.g., Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce) or API Gateways (e.g. Mulesoft and Google Apigee).”

And if your focus is Google or if Apigee is new to you, check out our latest update on Apigee available now on the TIC web site –

http://blog.ticsoftware.com/index.php/accessing-google-apigee-api-a-lightwave-use-case/

It is the business of TIC to focus on REST for two very important reasons: it lessens the appearance of NonStop as a rigid and proprietary platform, and, to reference again Franz Koenig’s presentation, it opens up the conversation to younger IT professionals with regard to both onboarding and productivity on the NonStop. “We have helped many clients implement successful REST projects using the LightWave REST suite together with the technical consulting services we provide.” It is not surprising then to note that as a result of the presentation given by Franz, many senior management at companies with NonStop presences are looking to the vendor community for help to bring their own IT staff working on NonStop into the modern development era. For many of these senior managers, it has been both a rewarding and surprising experience to learn that the NonStop can indeed be leveraged to meet today’s more popular development environments and methodologies.

There was also considerable discussion at recent NonStop events about virtualization. The NonStop team is already shipping a Virtualized Converged NonStop system, the NS2, and we already have clients exposed to virtualized NonStop (vNS) operating system and stack. “We have worked with one client on a NS2 and we are very excited about this system’s performance and potential,” added Ly. “At this time, we believe that vNS will continue to be a major trend within the NonStop user community and TIC is planning on providing new solutions and services based on virtualization in 2020.” It is also the belief of TIC that vNS may open the doors to new users and new applications, and in so doing, increase NonStop’s global business presence.

One last item that also generated considerable discussion among those attending Regional User Group (RUG) events, including TBC 2019, centered on the concerns of some attendees over the “graying” of the NonStop work force. Even as we are all witnessing the popularity currently being enjoyed by the Under40SIG, t’s still hard to ignore that more needs to be done to convince IT leaders that NonStop is as modern as any platform in the data center, and that it can leverage the skills of the younger generation of IT professionals. “For the past two years, we at TIC have been creating more user awareness of the need to address this perception,” said Ly. “To better address these issues, we are providing services to help clients plan and train new personnel on NonStop, and we see this as a business opportunity that will continue to grow in 2020.”

Should you need to know more about our RESTful API, and how best to leverage it for better productivity within your IT organization – or want an update on the services and training we provide – please take this as an invitation to reach out to us. We would be happy to discuss these opportunities with you, and how they will create an immediate business impact, as well as start your organization on the path toward modern solutions (like virtualization) on the NonStop!

Call or email us; we would be glad to hear from you!

For inquires:

Ryan Ly
TIC Software
60 Cuttermill Rd.
Ste. 412

Great Neck, NY 11021
516.466.7990
ryan_ly@ticsoftware.com
www.ticsoftware.com (TIC Company Site)
http://blog.ticsoftware.com (TIC Talk Blog)