Tandemworld eNewsletter for Feb 2014

BrightStrand International continues to deliver NonStop Services to its customer base. Its consultants have the skill and experience that make it the premier service deliverer in the NonStop sector. Services are tailored to individual customer needs to reduce costs and risk whilst getting the best from the environment.

Also by working closely with customers BrightStrand develop products to address customers’ needs, such as BrightStrand Netbatch/DR. This is a product that allows the customer to create a simple, automated disaster recovery solution for the HP NetBatch environment and incorporate it into an overall Disaster Recovery Plan.

All, or some of these elements can be brought together in a Fully Managed Service that can be tailored to the particular needs of the customer – including remote bridging, hosting or operations support, adding further value to the BrightStrand quality services.

Call Dave Stewart today on +44 (0)7831 775115 or email him on dstewart@brightstrand.com for more information.

Cloud Computing is everywhere these days and it does not stop at NonStop. Are you wondering how to make use of Cloud technology in your HP NonStop system environment? Is your CXO talking about 'everything is Cloud from now on'? How can you bring NonStop into play?

Click HERE to read the Opinion Paper 'Business is heading to the cloud' written by Richard Buckle, CEO of Pyalla-Technologies.

Also on this topic, READ Thomas Burg's and Vadym Shkil's The Connection article 'Cloud-enabling NonStop systems: Why you should care'. In this article, the use cases mentioned above are discussed in more detail and comForte's cloud demo is highlighted.

DeviceAuthority D-FACTOR™ is a versatile, high performance authentication engine that is purpose-built for seamless, cost-effective mass adoption, addressing the ever-increasing security needs of the internet connected world. With D-FACTOR™, DeviceAuthority has tightly coupled its patented dynamic device key generation and device authentication technology with industry-proven security standards, and a flexible, high performance services-oriented architecture to deliver the industry’s first device-centric authentication engine for secure access to mobile and online applications.

Purpose-built for security-conscious enterprises and online service providers, D-FACTOR™ is ideal for organizations that are looking to implement more reliable online or mobile application security without undermining their users’ experience. D-FACTOR™ turns the device itself into a powerful authentication factor, delivering sub-second device authentication without requiring anything else for the end-user to have, know or do. D-FACTOR™ authentication enables customers or administrators to authorize and link specific devices to accounts and prevent fraudulent access from unauthorized devices.

Download Product Brochure

If you would like to receive a free copy of the 'HP NonStop for Dummies' book please pre-register by following this link … http://www.comforte.com/ns4dummies

For those who follow postings to my social blog, Buckle-Up-Travel, you may think that Margo and I have a magical, Disney-like, fairy Godmother who at some point, and for goodness knows what reason, granted us a couple of wishes. The palate of colorful cars now in our garages was something neither of us could have imagined in our youth. In stories dating back to antiquity, in times of crises our heroes and heroines have happened upon characters who magically produce all they need at the time. In Biblical times, King Solomon was granted his wish choosing wisdom that, in time, proved invaluable.

Our family really likes cars even as it likes variety – and the cars in our lives are constant sources for material that regularly makes its way into blog postings and group commentaries. It hasn’t been through the granting of any specific wish but rather a little laziness mixed in with frustration that led to our family becoming reluctant to simply trade away cars we liked. However, there is some sanity in what we now have and there were elements of a plan all along. If only I could remember what that was; rationalizing our living situation and having just one residence did play a part, I’m told.

Making wishes has been a part of my blogging life for several years now. Having roots dating back to when I too was a Tandem product manager, it has always been my goal to stretch the limits of what shows-up on roadmaps. Sanitized as they must always be, left me wanting to say more and to point to what may happen two, three years out even if I had nothing tangible to reinforce such speculation. Danger lurked should I have been that cavalier, of course, and I was often reminded about staying focused on where revenues would be derived rather than portraying a fantasy world nobody could buy!

Times have changed, of course, and now I blog for a living. No such constraints entangle me anymore and I can speculate as much as I like. However, tying such speculations back to something that exists remains important as no amount of storytelling can keep you interested if you cannot see the connections – as I often state, connecting the dots is as important as ever when it comes to imagining good things to come. For almost a decade now, I have been blogging about my wishes, each time limiting myself to just three wishes as this seems to be the stock-in-trade number used by all the fairy tales’ magical characters and the latest set of wishes has made its appearance on the NonStop community blog, Real Time View.

In the post of February 14, 2014, Yet three more wishes! I build on the two previous posts on this subject and connect the current set of three wishes back to all the wishes that came before. If you have as yet not read the former posts, then check out firstly, the post of February 12, 2008, "My Wish" for NS Blades and then the post of February 13, 2011, Three years on, and three more wishes! There’s also now a tab on the right hand side, under Labels, called Wishes to make it even easier to navigate to these posts – yes, there’s four postings so grouped, as last year, I posted an introduction to what I was thinking of wishing for in 2014 with the post of July 19, 2013, Are our wishes still important?

Astute eyes will pick up that for all four posts, I included photos of our cars and looking back at the photos chosen at the time where I made my first two sets of wishes, the cars in the photo are no longer in the garage. Perhaps an omen with respect to my prowess at forecasting what is to come and yet, I have been consistent about a couple of items in my sets of wishes.

Commoditization and the outcome from such commoditization have been central to all my wishes and with the plans of HP NonStop to support the Intel x86 architecture, along with InfiniBand (IB) for the interconnect fabric, my wishes are being fulfilled. I can see blades that are standard (and support multiple Operating Systems) being supported by NonStop even as I can see a shared infrastructure fabric supporting them – while a pretty obvious outcome of the investments made for many years, the outcome was never guaranteed. But along with everyone I have talked to, pleasing to see all the same!

In going down this path, NonStop has gradually morphed into a software offering and has pulled this off with no lessening of its key attributes – availability, scalability, and data integrity / securability. True, some may argue that for a brief period, and driven by a degree of uncertainty over the reliability of the underlying MIPS chips, NonStop capitalized on additional hardware to ensure uptime, but today we see no less levels of uptime that existed with the servers I last worked on – the groundbreaking S-Series (with ServerNet).

I am not going to go into any more detail about what I have wished for over the years or describe in detail what I now wish for as it’s all in the blog posts to Real Time View. However, what I will address is how much better HP NonStop has become in its dealings with middleware vendors. The ecosystem of vendor partnerships is continuing to work with HP NonStop development to fill several important elements everyone in the NonStop community can benefit from – and that’s to everyone’s benefit. HP comes into criticism on occasion for not always being sensitive to partner’s plans but a lot of this has lessened over the last couple of years. Certainly, in my discussions with Sean Mansubi and before Sean, Fred Laccabue, the openness to discuss opportunities with partner was all I could wish it to be; warm and encouraging and for that I am grateful and appreciative.

Accumulating a group of cars – and no, we are not by any means collectors – has proved relatively easy given that it’s the result of more than a decade of indecisiveness. However, retaining customers the way HP NonStop has done, even as it added new applications as well as a couple of new users along the way, has been outstanding. It’s always difficult for pioneers to retain a presence – you just have to look at Wang, Prime, Data General let alone the likes of Nixdorf and Fujitsu – but somehow the timelessness of the NonStop architecture still retains the value proposition on which it built its reputation. And with that I really cannot wish for too much more!

XYPRO's Instructor Led Education Classes 2014

To ensure customers get the best possible experience using XYPRO solutions, XYPRO provides formal instruction on all aspects of NonStop security as well as specific instruction on all XYGATE security products. With many years of industry experience, XYPRO trainers deliver engaging courses that are designed to provide instruction and hands-on practice on all critical product topics. This approach ensures students are more productive on their return to the workplace. Instructors draw on real-world experience to provide examples of how XYPRO solutions have been successfully deployed around the world.

XYPRO offers both General XYGATE Learning and Advanced XYGATE Instruction. General learning is for those just getting started with NonStop and XYGATE security and those who wish to hone their XYGATE skills in a broad range of HP NonStop Security fundamentals using the XYGATE suite of security solutions. Advanced learning is for those wanting a mastery of a XYGATE product or security area.

Classes for up to eight (8) students are offered at XYPRO's education facilities in Simi Valley, California. Classes can also be held on-site at your facility and be customized to meet your unique requirements. To arrange for a class at your facility, contact your XYPRO Sales Specialist.

The classes currently scheduled are:

May 19-23, 2014
October 20-24, 2014

Register for the next General XYGATE Learning Class

Register for the GTUG "PanEuropean NonStop HotSpot 2014" - April 2-4, 2014 in Hamburg, Germany

Attend the main NonStop Community event in Europe 2014! This conference & exhibition is presented in the tradition of ITUG Europe for the third time by GTUG and Connect Germany. It takes place every two years with a focus on NonStop (2012 in Dresden, 2009 in Darmstadt).

This is your chance to meet your fellow NonStop users and learn the latest on NonStop from users, HP and solution partners. The organizers are going to put together a strong international agenda, featuring keynotes from HP and others, as well as user and vendor presentations while also offering educational and networking opportunities for users of other platforms. Further more workshops will provide detailed insights in actual NonStop topics.

Enjoy the comfortable conference facilities at the luxury Hotel Atlantic Kempinski, located in the heart of Hamburg next to „Außenalster“. Discover the Hanseatic Spirit of Hamburg and get a glance of the tradition, present and future of this magnificent city.

A number of social events will provide a relaxed and inspiring environment for networking with your peers in the NonStop Community.

Conference language is English.

For more information and registration please go to … http://www.gtug.de/HotSpot2014/

Stock Exchange and Clearinghouse Gain
Operational and Availability Benefits with Shadowbase Solutions

Gravic recently published a new case study: Stock Exchange and Clearinghouse Gain Operational and Availability Benefits with Shadowbase Solutions. A South American stock exchange that used a trading system built with HP NonStop servers faced high data entry error rates and the resulting manual reconciliation process required to correct these errors prevented it from complying with its same-day or next-day clearing commitments. Working with its clearinghouse, the exchange chose the Shadowbase replication engine to re-architect its system to eliminate manual data re-entry. The re-architected system uses Shadowbase software to replicate a Sybase validation database from the clearinghouse’s AIX system to a NonStop SQL/MP database located on the exchange’s HP NonStop trading system. The exchange also utilizes Shadowbase heterogeneous replication in managing several Linux/MySQL data warehouses that provide trading history. The exchange replaced an earlier micro-batch updating approach with Shadowbase real-time transactional data replication from the HP NonStop SQL/MP trading database to the MySQL databases. The exchange also implemented Shadowbase solutions for disaster recovery protection of its trading system (providing active/passive data replication between the primary and standby HP NonStop servers). Shadowbase software now plays a major role in integrating the many systems in the exchange’s IT infrastructure, as well as providing continuous availability for its mission-critical business services.

For more information, please visit: www.gravic.com/shadowbase. Interested parties may contact us at +1.610.647.6250 or SBProductManagement@gravic.com to discuss their specific situation and to learn more about the solutions we offer.

Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming 2014 Events

Please stop by Gravic’s booth or table at these upcoming tradeshows and meetings to speak with us about your data replication and data integration needs or just to say hello. We look forward to attending and presenting at the following events:

SUNTUG Summit, Tampa, FL, 7 March

MENUG Inaugural Chapter Event, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 31 March

GTUG Conference & Exhibition, Hamburg, Germany, 2-4 April

SATUG Conference & Tradeshow, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa, 7-9 April

NENUG Spring Meeting, Andover, MA, 24 April

https://twitter.com/GravicSB

http://www.linkedin.com/company/gravic-inc./shadowbase-data-replication-305119/product

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gravic-Shadowbase/116969767814

https://plus.google.com/b/117288516055822969721/117288516055822969721/posts

Trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

CSP will be attending the upcoming SunTUG Conference in Tampa, Florida on March 7^th, 2014.

CSP is a Platinum Sponsor at the GTUG-IT Symposium on April 2^nd-4^th in Hamburg, Germany, and we will be giving two presentations at the Symposium:

Third Data Corporation provides numerous products which can reside on HP Nonstop and other HP and Non-HP hardware platforms. In addition we provide custom high performance software design and development for our clients.

FastBuild Switch – When building a switch be it ATM-POS, Wire Transfer, EFT, Medical, or any other type of data that needs to get from one place to another, you are usually faced with three choices. Take an existing package and modify your system to match it. Get the vendor to “enhance” their system to meet your needs. Write a new system from scratch. The FastBuild Switch integrates with your existing system, or if you are building from scratch gives you a great start. The switch is also built around the latest HP technology to maximize performance. It integrates several of our other products to maximize cost savings and security in a fault tolerant manner. In a cross platform environment it also runs on other non-Guardian HP supplied platforms.

SecureStore – If you are security conscience trying to become compliant (PCI, HIPAA, etc) then you know that you can not leave sensitive data readily viewable. SecureStore does three things for you. The data is encrypted so that you can become compliant. The data is compressed so that your hardware costs are reduced. As part of disaster recovery your data is sent to multiple locations so it will be available when you need it. As a bonus for those having trouble with Guardian 4K limits there is no record size. It supports Big Data with up to 18 Exabytes. It can also integrate with SQL systems (SQL MX/MP, Oracle, Postgres etc)

NxLib – NxLib provides a platform and utility libraries for developing a high performance multi-threaded applications on NonStop Guardian. The platform provides threading, queuing and network capabilities. This enables development of an application written single threaded style to perform as multi-threaded. Extensible command processing and help are supported. Development time can be cut to a fraction of the time it would normally take. This results in fast application development with consistent look and feel across multiple projects.

NxWeb – A high performance web server which provides support for NxLib applications. It also can be used without NxLib. It provides for secure connections, virtual domains, full http support and interfaces to pathway and IPC communications.

NxFile+ – NxFile+ provides compression and encryption to Enscribe structured files. The files are configured through a GUI interface and the results are provided seamlessly to your applications, typically without any code changes. In addition this provides for dynamic key changes on the fly so data stored at-rest may have its encryption keys changed as required. Because the records can be compressed prior to encryption, it’s also possible to have records which significantly exceed the 4k record size limitations.

NxSSL – NxSSL is an SSL proxy which may be used to provide SSL encryption and authentication services to TCP/IP connections. It provides full support for certificates and multiple encryption standards. It has been carefully tuned to provide the highest performance available for any NonStop SSL connection.

NxUndelete – Files accidentally deleted can be a real problem. Even when a backup is available, it is frequently a significant effort to retrieve it from a backup tape. NxUndelete implements a recycle bin function on the the HP NonStop system. Files deleted may be easily recovered using its GUI interface.

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 615 members and counting. A recent thread was “Delayed Failover Decisions.” Follow us on Twitter @availabilitydig.

OmniPayments supplies complete security functions for every financial transaction that it handles, including encryption-at-rest and encryption-in-flight. Available around the clock, OmniPayments will survive any single fault, requires no downtime for maintenance or upgrades, and supports a range of disaster-recovery solutions. For further information, visit www.omnipayments.com. You can contact Yash Kapadia at +1 408-446-9274 or at yash@omnipayments.com.

Excerpt: "The unqualified success of the pilot project proved that not only did TANGO deliver the full capability to replace our existing solution but furthermore it delivered on the promises of flexibility, agility, capability and quality.’ Pieter Cilliers, CEO, BankservAfrica said. ‘The pilot very clearly proved the rapid development and deployment capabilities of TANGO. From the sign off of the system specification to delivery of the full code only took 3 months, and full testing and acceptance/completion took only a few months more. Going forward, these rapid development and deployment capabilities will allow us to be proactive in addressing our business needs and to offer our member clients additional products and services in a much improved timeframe." Cilliers continued.

For more information about this success story or to see the complete interview videos contact Brian Miller at brian.miller@lusispayments.com for more information.

Log Management – Planning Ahead Saves Time and Resources

Stay Connected with XYPRO

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 615 members and counting. A recent thread was “Delayed Failover Decisions.” Follow us on Twitter @availabilitydig.