To find out more about our new Shadowbase synchronous replication products, or to discuss any of your other business continuity, and/or data replication and data integration needs, please visit us at www.ShadowbaseSoftware.com, email us at SBProductManagement@gravic.com, or call us at +1.610.647.6250. Hewlett Packard Enterprise directly sells and supports Shadowbase Solutions under the name HPE Shadowbase. For more information, please contact your local HPE account team or visit our website.

 a Joyous Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

The two HPE Discover events have run their course as have numerous regional events extending from Toronto to London to Tampa and beyond.  From all the reports, we have seen it’s very clear that the NonStop community is willing to travel to wherever there is an event focused on NonStop systems. There were reportedly 450 attendees at the 2016 NonStop Technical Boot Camp and after years of uncertainty about NonStop these numbers are encouraging to vendors such as ourselves.

Back in May, 2016, the HPE NonStop team invited DataExpress to participate in the inaugural Partner Symposium. At this we were introduced to the creation of a new HPE supported partner program - Partner Ready for Technology Partner Program – which looks very promising for the future. It is our hope that as this new partner program gathers momentum, NonStop doesn’t get lost in the bigger picture, as the relationship between HPE NonStop and partners is quite different to that between HPE and other partners.

When it comes to NonStop, the NonStop product management and development teams are more dependent upon their partners in terms of providing products and features critical to the commercial success of NonStop. For other products in the HPE product portfolio this isn’t the case. We know that this is understood within HPE NonStop so we will be watching to see how this program unfolds and how helpful it will prove to be to the NonStop vendor community.

As we head into 2017 our DataExpress NonStop (DXNS) product has been validated on NonStop X and it’s now only a matter of time before we see one of our customers migrate to NonStop X. For the moment it would appear that our customers are continuing to pursue upgrades that keep them on NonStop Blade System (Itanium). In discussions with HPE field folks it would appear that this isn’t a situation that will change in the near term, as commercially it’s easier to justify the addition of a couple more blades than it is to undertake a forklift upgrade to an entirely new architecture.

However, even as we are coming to appreciate that it will take time for NonStop X to trickle out into the marketplace, the promise of virtual NonStop (vNonStop) is extremely interesting for a development house like ourselves. DataExpress, as we expect it is with other NonStop vendors of similar size, has always been concerned about the costs associated with each NonStop system purchased and these concerns have led to the price of NonStop middleware and solutions from NonStop partners reflecting the impact of the costs associated with purchasing NonStop systems have on bringing any partner’s product to market.

With vNonStop running on commercial, off-the-shelf hardware, if all goes well for HPE product management, they could have a material impact on the pricing of solutions and middleware offered by the partners in the future.  Equally important to DataExpress is the ability to build out useful hybrid configurations combining NonStop with Linux as DataExpress has products for both platforms and we are anticipating that hybrid configurations will likely have a more immediate impact on the NonStop community than vNonStop, as products to integrate both at the interconnect fabric level have become available. Data Express is particularly enthusiastic about how this will open up even more possibilities for our DataExpress Open Platform (DXOP) products within the NonStop community.

The imminent arrival of 2017 is something we look forward to. HPE is telling the market that NonStop has enjoyed double-digit growth for the past two years and that really is telling a remarkable story of a change in fortune for NonStop. DataExpress still thinks that there is much that needs to be done in terms of marketing and sales, but for now, as 2016 winds down, the most obvious outcome of 2016 is that being a part of the NonStop vendor community, the future looks a lot brighter than many of us thought possible, just a few years ago.
 

This latest version leverages the end-to-end testing environment provided by VersaTest Automator, enabling the coordinated testing of green screen applications alongside other headless interfaces, such as payments networks and back-end hosts. Adoption of this latest version has occurred with companies in various sectors including financial services and retail.  

“Many of today's server-based applications are developed to utilize the sophisticated graphical capabilities of PC's or workstations for user input and display. But, in many instances, the ‘behind the scenes’ applications in very large companies are legacy green screen applications based on older terminal technology, such as the Tandem 6530 or IBM 3270", said Paul Springston, Ascert’s Director of Professional Services. “VTERM eliminates the manually intensive process of testing these interfaces and automates the process. Our customers who have implemented VTERM have been able to recognize significant reductions in testing time almost immediately. This latest version, operating natively within a VersaTest Automator environment, provides them with even greater orchestration capabilities for their complex testing requirements.” 

To find out more about VTERM or other Ascert testing technologies, visit the Ascert Web Site or contact one of the Ascert offices.   

About Ascert:  
Ascert is recognized as a leading provider of premier testing software solutions. Ascert was founded in 1992 to provide automated software testing solutions that help companies measure the performance, reliability and scalability of their mission-critical back-end servers and applications. With over 100 clients worldwide, Ascert's products and services are used at some of the world's most successful companies.   

Protect-X® simplifies many tasks of NonStop Security including Safeguard Users, Aliases and Groups management; Security Hardening; Compliance; OSS security management and OSS effective Access reporting.  Completely browser-based, Protect-X® uses the CSP-Wiki® as a reference guide which contains over 2,000 security hardening recommendations for NonStop systems.  Access to the full CSP-Wiki® is completely FREE to any NonStop end-user. Click HERE to gain access to this incredible resource!

ü  Nothing to Install*;  runs in any web browser

ü  Automatic update feature (user controlled)

ü  Work flows & dialogs to manage Safeguard users, aliases, groups and Safeguard globals

ü  Provides security hardening recommendations based on CSP-Wiki®

ü  Automatic compliance with customizable hardening rule sets.

ü  Manages NonStop security from any web browser

ü  Contains built-in user roles with authorization controls

ü  Handles change control using workflows

ü  Has many live widgets and charts displaying system and compliance status

ü  Self-hosted web application using HTML5

ü  Mobile friendly

ü  Provides full user audit and reports

Season’s Greetings from all of us at Tributary Systems

By Glenn Garrahan, Director of HP Business for Tributary Systems

As we near the end of a very eventful 2016, all of us here at Tributary Systems want to wish those in the NonStop Community Happy Holidays and a wonderful and prosperous New Year.

We just concluded a very successful HP NonStop Technical Bootcamp and want to thank everyone that attended the event and visited Tributary Systems' booth.  The TSI team was impressed by the level of commitment customers have for the NonStop platform, and we are so pleased with the continued product innovations provided by HPE as NonStop enters 2017.

We also want to congratulate HPE NonStop on an outstanding fourth quarter in fiscal 2016, and look forward to many future successes with the NonStop X product line and of course the Virtual NonStop.

Contact Information

ggarrahan@tributary.com or visit our website: www.tributary.com

Tributary Systems, Inc. is a technology solution provider to enterprise computing customers.  Tributary develops and sells data protection, backup storage, virtualization, site-to-site replication and disaster recovery solutions.  Tributary is an acknowledged global leader in providing backup storage and data protection solutions for fault-tolerant, high availability, enterprise computing environments.

Tributary was founded in 1990 and is a Texas based company with its headquarters, development, integration, and test facilities in Bedford, Texas.

Through its channels and direct sales organization, Tributary has served customers worldwide, predominantly in the banking, financial services, retail, telecom and healthcare industries. Tributary is a HPE business partner and OEM supplier, IBM OEM Partner (iOEM), Solution Reseller (ISR) and Business Partner, Quantum® Value-Added Reseller (VAR), and Oracle® OEM partner.

XYPRO announces OEM partnership with HPE Security – Data Security

XYPRO® Technology Corporation, the leading provider of security software for HPE NonStop™ Server environments, today announced a strategic OEM partnership with HPE Security – Data Security, the leading enterprise-class data protection provider.  HPE Security – Data Security now includes the XYGATE® Data Protection software as part of the their HPE SecureData suite.

XYGATE Data Protection (XDP) enhances and optimizes HPE SecureData support for the HPE NonStop Server, allowing full implementation with no changes to applications or to the existing database. XDP intercepts all HPE NonStop file I/Os, seamlessly encrypting or tokenizing data as it is written to disk, and decrypting or de-tokenizing data as it is read from disk. XDP also provides full HPE NonStop scalability, support for all HPE NonStop database types, support for any HPE NonStop supported language, both native and non-native applications and has built in access controls and auditing.

“Having partnered with Voltage Security, and now HPE Security, for over 4 years, we’re very pleased to be able to announce the next step in our products’ integration.  The extensive capabilities of HPE SecureData together with the flexibility and optimization provided by XDP make these two solutions an unbeatable combination for any HPE NonStop customer wishing to protect their sensitive data across the enterprise, and a perfect fit for these two complementary technologies.”, says Andrew Price, VP Technology with XYPRO.

About XYPRO Technology Corporation

XYPRO® Technology Corporation was founded in 1983 to provide consulting services and software products to companies who manage and transport business-critical data on a large or very large scale. Committed to developing mutual respect and accomplishment, XYPRO delivers products and services that help people comprehensively enhance their professional lives and that help companies improve their competitive edge via greater efficiency.

About HPE Security – Data Security

HPE Security – Data Security, is the leading data protection provider, delivering secure, scalable, and proven data-centric encryption, tokenization and key management solutions, enabling our customers to effectively combat new and emerging security threats. Our powerful data protection solutions allow any company to seamlessly secure all types of sensitive corporate and customer information, wherever it resides, while efficiently meeting regulatory compliance and privacy requirements.

XYPRO Technology Corporation

comForte - Key Dates that Impact Data Security in the Payments Industry Part 2.

This is the second post in our two-post series on what you need to know about seven important dates in the payments industry.

In our first post regarding those key dates, we covered:

·         The U.S. Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) Standard

·         The National Automated Clearing House Association’s (NACHA) Same-Day Automated Clearing House (ACH) Payments Requirement

·         The Compliance with Court Orders Act.

In this post, we look forward to the future dates for:

·         The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) v3.2 Requirement (8.3.1) on Multi-Factor Authentication

·         PCI DSS v3.2 Requirements (2.2.3, 2.3, 4.1) on Upgrading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Encryption

·         The European Commission Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2)

·         The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Read the full story

Nobody really seemed to know how long it had been.  Could nobody really put their finger on how it ended?  Did it simply fizzle out or was there a big bang?  The closest recollection….’sometime in the 90’s when they were still Tandem’.  But on September 29^th on another beautiful Georgia day, the Tandem User Community from the Atlanta area converged and convened ATUG 2.0.

My name is Dale Van Stratten, I’m with XYPRO Technology and I look after our customers in the Eastern US and Canadian Territory.  This responsibility includes attending regional TUG meetings within the territory and trying to better understand our clients wants and needs.  These TUGs include, OTUG (Ohio), SunTUG (Florida), MATUG (Mid Atlantic, DC area), the newly reformed NY/NJ TUG (you can figure that one out), NENUG (NE NonStop Users) and finally CTUG (Canadian).  That’s a whole lot of TUG’n.  That’s also a lot of speaking with customers and prospects and a great way to share information, some new and some refresher.  In short, it’s a great information exchange.

In the early years there were TUGs everywhere.  I remember Denver, Washington State, Omaha…. all having TUGs.  Many of you reading this can probably remember an old TUG group gone, but certainly not forgotten.  I also remember ATUG.  Atlanta/Columbus combined cover a lot of territory.  The area is also home to at least eight NonStop Accounts with several others having operations or personnel in the area.

The new phenomenon in group meetings are ‘MeetUps’.  You can Google them or you can access their App for iphone to look for MeetUps in your area.  I’ve attended several technologies based meetups.  Generally, these sessions consist of an evening meeting with a speaker/or vendor and perhaps a sponsor buying Pizza….  These are short meeting groups or club type of events.  Meetups are great for local clubs (like the Des Moines Weather Club or Rock Hounds of Laramie).  TUGs on the other hand are multi-faceted.  They bring a variety of processing ideas and needs together.  They are a great way to socialize with your peers and likewise socialize ideas.

ATUG 2.0 started like everything else starts, with a seed (I was going to say kernel).  A simple discussion or plan in which we were trying to bring some customers together for an event in Atlanta.  It’s sort of like inviting a few friends over and the next thing you realize,  you’re having a party.

You’ve probably heard the story about ‘Stone Soup’.  A small village is on hard times and food is scarce.  A stranger wanders into town and starts making a pot of soup with just a stone and water.  One villager brings a carrot. Next villager brings a potato……  before you know it the entire village is sharing a wonderful cauldron of soup.  Everybody brings something to the party.  ATUG was like that…..It simply started as a discussion with HPE’s Nelson Alvarez about a customer meeting.  Then it became an event.  Next, The Home Depot stepped up and offered their facility and catering services for the meeting.  Then HPE said they would come.  Vendors said they would come and present.  Most importantly, the NonStop customers said they would come….

So what made ATUG a success?  Several factors each brought by a different villager to the party.  A huge thanks to The Home Depot for their help with the facility and catering.  The facility and your support was incredible!  A big, big thanks to HPE for all their support getting the message out as well as providing content.  Another thank you goes out to all the vendors who supported the effort with their messages and content.  Finally, a big thanks to all the NonStop Users who attended.  All in all, we had a big party and all of the villagers agreed the soup was great!

The Home Depot has already said that they would host next year’s event.  We’ll be looking for additional Customer and Vendor Support as we begin to plan our event for 2017!  Feel free to contact me directly if you would like to help make the soup next year.

Some of you may have attended the product launch of comForte’s new enterprise tokenization solution whilst at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp in San Jose in November.

The product launch presentation was entitled ‘Enterprise tokenization and encryption with SecurDPS’ and was held by Henning Horst, Senior VP Security at comForte.

In his talk Henning explained how the proven SecurData tokenization product has been enhanced to extend the industry leading application integration capabilities to other platforms in the enterprise.

These changes now provide a comprehensive suite of capabilities that extends tokenization from the NonStop platform to a complete infrastructure.

With these expanded capabilities comForte has decided to rename SecurData to SecurDPS for Data Protection Suite.

But before we look at what SecurDPS stands for and what it does, let’s step back for one minute and ask ourselves a key question.

Why is protection of data at rest so important and why should you care?

Read the full story

Today, comForte announced that it is working with IBM to bring out a new version of IBM MQ on the HPE NonStop Platform.

This will allow customers currently running IBM MQ on both the NonStop X and NonStop I platforms to benefit from the additional capabilities IBM MQ v8 delivers.

Read the full story

March 17, 2017 7 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tampa Airport - Westshore 4500 West Cypress Street Tampa, FL 33607

The video is now available for you to download.

Learn how to use REST APIs to integrate your NonStop systems with modern devices like tablets, cell phones, smart watches, and even the Amazon Echo

You can dress them up, wrap them in modern interfaces, and attempt to resuscitate the “ancient” software engineers who still know how to maintain them. But decades-old legacy systems remain difficult if not impossible to upgrade to or integrate with the modern services required by today’s enterprises.

Note: The Availability Digest’s Managing Editor is an ancient software engineer.

“The Continuing Struggle with Legacy Systems” reviews examples of legacy hardware and software that still inhabit prominent real estate in the data centers of governments, financial institutions, and other industries. As acknowledged barriers to modernization and innovation, they yet remain in many cases just too expensive or too business-integral to replace.

In addition to “The Continuing Struggle with Legacy Systems,” read the following articles in the Availability Digest’s December 2016 issue:

Digest Managing Editor Speaks About Staggered Systems – Dr. Bill Highleyman spoke recently at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp about “Staggered Systems for Improving Mission-Critical System Availability.” The presentation will appear in upcoming Connection issues as a two-part article, co-written by Dr. Bruce Holenstein, President and CEO of Gravic, Inc. “Staggered Systems” exposes a fallacy in standard availability theory and proposes Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) as a better availability measure than Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTR). Fair warning: There is some math! But those who cringe at the sight of availability calculations will be able easily to understand the concepts.

Google Will Help You Manage the 2016 Leap Second – Need help in addressing your systems’ reactions to the upcoming leap-second addition on 31 December? Google to the rescue. Its NTP servers and “smeared time” technique are available to you at no cost. Simply configure your network settings to use time.google.com.

The High-Availability Design Spectrum – Part 1 – In his book High Availability IT Services, Dr. Terry Critchley lists 23 areas that can have an impact on the availability of IT business services. In this multipart series, and with Dr. Critchley’s permission, we publish his observations.

@availabilitydig – The Twitter Feed of Outages - Our article highlights some of our numerous tweets that were favorited and retweeted in recent days.

The Availability Digest offers one-day and multi-day seminars on High Availability: Concepts and Practices. Seminars are given both onsite and online and are tailored to an organization’s specific needs. We also offer technical and marketing writing services for a variety of industries as well as consulting services on risk assessment and system architecture. We ghostwrite for others and have years of experience in writing patent disclosures.

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 787 members and counting. Follow us as well on Twitter @availabilitydig.
 

Learn more about Vincent and NuWave's commitment to expanding their team over on their website.

Find out more about us at www.tandemworld.net