Tandemworld eNewsletter for July 2014

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Tandemworld eNewsletter for July 2014

NonStop Technical Bootcamp

 comForte's SecurData product suite gains traction around the world

Major U.S. Bank Extends Use of OmniPayments from ATM Support Alone to Entire Payment System

Protect sensitive date: #3 on XYPRO's Top 10 List of NonStop Security Fundamentals

Because high-availability and fault-tolerant systems need strong security

Over the last several months, we’ve covered some very important concepts in

our Top 10 countdown of NonStop security fundamentals— you can review items

#4 to #10 on XYPRO’s website and LinkedIn page. Now, we’ve reached #3 on the list.

Throughout much of the first seven security fundamentals, the focus was on effectively 

managing access to the HP NonStop server and controlling and monitoring user access 

and activity. Obviously, those are absolutely must-have security requirements for mission-critical

systems. Now, however, let’s consider the data that’s being processed or stored on NonStop systems.

Continue reading...

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When HP announced that NonStop will use x86 processors, that meant an increased amount of data on the OSS operating system and growth of the use of SQL/MX.  With that comes the need for a stronger solution for a backup catalog for OSS and SQL/MX.  Q/Tos from QSA Enterprises is that solution.  Q/Tos automates Backup/Restore2 (BR2) process management, reducing the input to a simple BACKUP or RESTORE command.  Q/Tos creates the required define, starts BRCOM and monitors/manages all processes associated with BR2.  Because Q/Tos has integrated BR2, all files and objects backed up are cataloged for ease of retrieval.  This provides the same level of file backup and recovery for OSS as has been available for Guardian.

Another function supported by Q/Tos is cataloging backups produced by the PAK program.  PAK is a way for users that don’t have the need for a full-blown virtual solution to perform backups without physical tape.  Q/Tos treats these backups the same as any other backup, but instead of tracking tape volumes, Q/Tos tracks the archive file(s) create by the PAK process.  Q/Tos formats the PAK command, starts the process and sends it the command.  Q/Tos then stores the PAK file archive name in the Q/Tos database, associates it with the backup and catalogs all of the files archived by the PAK process.  File retrieval is performed by a simple RESTORE command.  Q/Tos knows this backup was created with PAK and where the PAK file(s) is and does what is needed to retrieve the file(s).

QSA Enterprises specializes in providing the best results and ease of use in your backups and restores.  Along with our media catalog/management software, Q/Tos, we provide these other useful tools.

Q/Restore removes superfluous I/Os from tape restores, thus recovering files in 15 -20% of the time normal restore takes to retrieve files.  This is particularly beneficial to users of LTO tape drives.  Q/Restore interfaces with Q/Tos, TMF and DSM/TC (MEDIACOM).

Q/Sparc is a backup/restore for spooler files.  This provides safe storage for spooler jobs so they can be removed from the spooler to recover spooler space.  Spooler rebuilds are also simplified by using Q/Sparc.

Q/TDM is the tape drive monitor, a GUI display of all tape drives on a node providing real-time activity and mount requests.  Tape drive and Mount commands can also be executed from Q/TDM.

Q/Taco is a point & click interface to MEDIACOM commands.  If you use DSM/TC and Mediacom for your catalog needs Q/Taco is worth a look.  Not only is an optimized user interface, it extends the functions and security of the DSM/TC environment.

For more information about Q/Tos and our other solutions, visit our web site at WWW.QSA.COM, email us at info@qsa.com or give us a call at 703-771-9447.

At NuWave Technologies, we were excited to celebrate our 15th anniversary this month. Looking back, we've been providing services and software to the NonStop space since 1999, saving customers a lot of money and making dozens of friends along the way.

We started out as a NonStop consulting firm based in Massachusetts (USA). A few years later, we opened a development office in New Hampshire (USA) and launched our flagship product suite, SOAPam (then SOAP/AM) in 2001, which made a name for us in NonStop middleware. The next NonStop product that we developed was XML Vault, which stores and retrieves XML documents. Not long after that, several other "NuWave"s popped up in various industries! We were no longer the only NuWave, and we started to receive NuWave oven inquiries (and complaints), as well as messages regarding other new "NuWave" technology companies. 

The opinions expressed here are solely
those of the now self-employed author

Turning on the weather channel and it’s all doom and gloom for residents of North America. Hot and dry where food is being grown; wet and windy in the south and east; unseasonably cold in the mid-west all of which has everyone looking at the data and wondering, “what’s changed?” Furthermore, one weatherman went so far as to suggest ignoring the data, recommending we simply step outside and check the sky. However, ignoring the data may not be the correct call, as we all know, the weather is seasonal. What we don’t always know is what cycle we are in the midst of experiencing.

Data continues to be the important consideration in all we do in business. And yet, among the better established corporations, where data plays a key role in the enterprise IT responsibilities, data has become the tail that wags the dog – an extremely long tail for many IT professionals. The question I am often asked is whether data, and in particular Big Data, is beginning to separate the haves from the have-nots. In other words, is the absence of Big Data frameworks another sign our IT is legacy?

Last month I wrote about HP’s announcement of The Machine. Mind you, not just in this Musings column, but pretty much everywhere else my posts are published. One of the major arguments used in support of developing The Machine was the explosion of data – and we haven’t yet seen the arrival of the really large volumes everyone expects when the world’s sensors are all connected – machine to machine (M2M) and the internet of things (IoT) are in their infancy and most of us are anxious of the python effect these will likely create.

However, I also referenced companies like IR and WebAction, as well as to HP – the arrival of voluminous amounts of data not only impacts major portfolio players like HP but middleware and tools vendors. After publishing the last Musings on NonStop I went back to them for further observations and captured their observations in the latest post to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View. However, I didn’t stop there with IR and WebAction as I also included a solutions vendor, OmniPayments, where Yash was pretty forthright in letting me know that while he doesn’t expect to see Big Data frameworks deployed on NonStop he does see NonStop connecting to such frameworks as being critical for solutions running on NonStop.

“Business technology has always been a world of give and take. The more you ask for, the longer you wait. As technology improves, we compromise less - and in the case of Big Data, we can’t afford to compromise at all,” observes HP in a new posting to its web site, No limits: How Big Data changes competition. Furthermore, suggests HP, “It’s a novel idea for most organizations, but it’s in the DNA of young, agile companies … To compete, the rest of the market will need to act urgently to change their data ideologies and reject limitations as they store and explore data, and serve analytics insights to the business.”

While it’s easy to argue that this is a lot of market-speak, there’s some relevance for even the oldest, most traditional NonStop user. Earlier in the above referenced post, HP also notes that “Today’s Big Data analytics platforms are making it possible for organizations to give the business everything: all the data, from all sources, in all formats, in real time, without limits.” With this, we see at last a reference to real time but when it comes to NonStop and its support of real time, mission critical applications, is the market-speak becoming a little too over-the-top?

“One of the biggest new ideas in computing is ‘big data.’ There is unanimous agreement that big data is revolutionizing commerce in the 21st century. When it comes to business, big data offers unprecedented insight, improved decision-making and untapped sources of profit,” notes one well-known vendor in the Big Data marketplace. But, “ask a chief technology officer to define big data and he or she will stare at the floor.” This vendor than asks a couple of academics to come up with a description for Big Data, and what came back was, “Big data is a term describing the storage and analysis of large and or complex data sets using a series of techniques including, but not limited to: NoSQL, MapReduce and machine learning.”

On the other hand, probably equally as descriptive of what Big Data is all about comes from Intel, where “Big data opportunities emerge in organizations generating a median of 300 terabytes of data a week. The most common forms of data analyzed in this way are business transactions stored in relational databases (RDBMS), followed by documents, e-mail, sensor data, blogs, and social media.” Again, for the NonStop community these do a good job of describing what we consider as Big Data – yes it’s combinations of data and analysis that makes Big Data what it is today.

While I see no harm with HP championing Big Data the way it is doing, and as much as I can cherry-pick relevant and indeed pertinent facts, it still doesn’t answer the big question for most NonStop users. How do we tap Big Data frameworks and indeed, should we even try? The transaction path for most NonStop solutions isn’t something to be trifled with and yet, all we hear is that we need to reject limitations, don’t compromise and above all else, give the business everything it needs!

What this all suggests is that for most of the NonStop community any possibility for consuming actions that may be generated by the analytics running against Big Data platforms will be via a coprocessor and that this may be yet a case for further exploration of hybrid computing – like Big Data, another popular theme within HP. Clipping on a specialty processor (isn’t everything headed to becoming a specialty processor of one kind or another anyway?) to a NonStop and allowing the transaction path to tap its resource may indeed be the least risky and least intrusive adoption model of all. And yes, there are vendors fully aware of this option and working on providing NonStop with solutions – WebAction again coming to mind.

Throughout ITs history, there have been specialty processors. Whether it’s external channels (selector and multiplexor) as in the late 1960s, intelligent front-end processors in the 1970s, LAN controllers in the 1980s and web and security servers in the 1990s, there has never been a time when we didn’t clip something onto our transaction processor. Determining the type of gateway into the world of Big Data that we want is just a continuation of this model and for NonStop users, where NS SQL is still battling for attention, adding such a gateway to an even bigger data world may be even more preferable than other existing options.

Again, I have much more to say on this topic in my latest post to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View. Look for the post I need data I can digest, in small bites, please! I’m sure I will generate further questions and commentaries and I look forward to what is posted as comments in the weeks to come. What we cannot do is ignore the data and stepping away from our systems will not help us and with that, I will wrap up this month’s Musings and trust that this will encourage further consideration of how and where tapping Big Data will add value to your enterprise.

Richard Buckle
Founder and CEO

Pyalla Technologies, LLC
Email:             richard@pyalla-technologies.com

Following my blogs? My web publications? My discussion Groups?

Check out (copy and paste to your browser):

Real Time View at http://www.itug-connection.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, Real Time View

comForte Lounge at http://comfortelounge.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, comForte Lounge

Realtime.ir at http://realtime.ir.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, realtime.ir

ATMmarketplace at
http://www.atmmarketplace.com/blogger.php?id=130763

buckle-up at http://www.buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the SubGroup on LinkedIn, Pyalla Track Days

Gravic Publishes Article: Adding High Availability to the Cloud

Gravic published an article in The Connection July/August issue: Adding High Availability to the Cloud. In this article, we discuss the role that data replication solutions can play in public, private, and hybrid-cloud computing for critical applications and how it can lower your IT costs, improve the fault tolerance of your applications, and increase flexibility. Companies are motivated to find a way for critical applications to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. A hybrid approach that assigns critical processing to highly available private systems – such as HP NonStop servers and noncritical processing to the public cloud – is a concept that is gaining momentum. Data replication plays an important role by providing the ‘glue that binds’ virtual machines running in the public cloud to highly available private servers handling the critical roles.

Gravic Presents at KNUG in South Korea

Gravic presented at the HP South Korea NonStop User Group event, HP Nonstop for Mission Critical – 40 Years & Unstoppable, which was held on July 3 at the Ritz-Carlton in Seoul. The event, attended by 71 key customers and vendors, focused on HP NonStop products and business updates as well as deep-dive workshops to further cover NonStop technology. Several sessions were given by the vendors in attendance, including Bill Holenstein, Senior Manager of Product Delivery for Gravic Shadowbase, who gave a presentation on the latest features and functions in Shadowbase for the HP NonStop and other server platforms. In addition, Dr. Bill Highleyman, Editor of the Availability Digest, gave an interesting presentation on availability theory, referenced with many case studies where Shadowbase is used. The local and regional HP account teams did an outstanding job in bringing selected customers and introducing them to the vendors. All in all, this event was an auspicious start for what hopefully will become a regular event in the HP NonStop user group calendar.

Please Register for MATUG September 25 Meeting

Please register for the Mid-Atlantic Tandem User Group (MATUG) Meeting scheduled for 8am-5pm on Thursday, September 25, 2014 at the Renaissance Philadelphia Airport Hotel, PA, USA. Expect several informative HP and vendor presentations, as well as a special presentation by Dr. Bill Highleyman. The MATUG meeting is open to any HP NonStop customer, partner, user, consultant, or interested party. Please contact Susan Loeliger (Chapter Secretary/Treasurer) at sbproductmanagement@gravic.com to register. Please forward this announcement to others in your organization who may be interested in attending. Members are usually from the following states: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia, although anyone can attend. MATUG provides members with the opportunity to participate in quality informational sessions, and learn about new HP products and services as well as interact with fellow HP NonStop users. Please visit the MATUG Connect Chapter web page for more information.

If you want to find out more about ensuring the availability of your critical business services, because “Customers never wait”, please contact us at +1.610.647.6250 or SBProductManagement@gravic.com to discuss your specific situation and to learn more about the solutions we offer. For more information, please visit: www.gravic.com/shadowbase.

Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming Events

Please Visit Gravic at these Sites

comForte posted a new Opinion Paper on Security on its website 'Secure The Fort – Your Data has become the new Gold'.

Early in the year, during an HP webinar in support of key initiatives, HP CEO, Meg Whitman, addressed the topic of security and told the audience that it had become an arms race, with each step taken by the good guys only providing temporary relief. Of course, “You can raise the bar,” Whitman noted, “but it simply creates a new objective for the bad guys, and they will eventually find a way over.” For those participating in the webinar, it struck a chord that has kept on reverberating – what can be done to minimize the likely damage and how much will it cost?

Comparing security requirements to castles is a popular theme among industry analysts. In one recent publication VP and Gartner Fellow, Neil MacDonald, told the story of how finding himself by the sea shore he attempted building a sand castle that could resist the incoming tide and nothing worked until he built multiple walls, with additional channels that redirected the water that the tide brought. This led MacDonald to write, “Are you overly dependent on one or two layers of (fire) walls to keep the bad guys out? Have you changed your mindset in how you approach information security? Assume you will be breached. You probably already have been, you just don’t know it yet. It’s time to change our thinking in information security. The best protection = prevention + detection.” 

A quick look at recent stories in the press, and it does appear that the bad guys are winning. Reading about the recent data breach at American retailers, you cannot help but wonder whether IT security is up to the task and whether even the smallest elevations in the bar, as enterprises attempt to lift it higher, are accomplishing anything at all. Can we provide a defense that is appropriate for the kind of attacks we face? In times past it was a case of building castles with stout walls and strong gates, but today it’s all electronic with cybersecurity a priority for all companies. Simple keystrokes can be as effective at unlocking secrets as any bombardments in times past.

These are familiar stories for comForte, a leading provider of security products to the NonStop community. With a combination of knowledge and experience comForte has built products some of which are now sold by HP and come as part of the HP NonStop operating system. Other comForte products add further layers as a depth of defense is developed. For all enterprises where NonStop has a presence and where the issue of security continues to be raised, comForte can provide solutions and has customers all across the globe, so the company can offer support to NonStop users everywhere. The bad guys are indeed upping their attacks and yes, you have to assume your defenses will be breached, but that’s no reason for NonStop to be left unprotected – comForte not only can move the bar higher but it can make the approach to the bar hostile to those who may contemplate an attack. And in knowing that, the NonStop community has a lot less to worry about! 

To read more, Download your free copy of the Opinion Paper.

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