Click Here for the Current Agenda (PDF)

 Pay us a visit at the ETI-NET booth where representatives from both companies will be available to discuss with you their class-leading Backup, Contingency and Disaster Recovery Virtual Tape solutions, along with Systems Management, real-time Payments Monitoring, and mainframe class Batch Scheduler products.

 ETI-NET is the global leader in the backup of critical data for industries that never stop, developing software that allows HPE NonStop servers to access modern storage technologies. Now in our third decade of operation, ETI-NET enjoys a reputation for delivering leading-edge components to major data-centres, worldwide.

INSIDER TECHNOLOGIES is also in its third decade, being a leading developer and provider of Payments Tracking, Monitoring and Scheduling solutions to their blue-chip customer base, including central and leading banks, financial institutions, UK Government, and Military messaging bodies.

 Think of tiered policy-based data backup like this- no one would rent a room in the Four Seasons Hotel to store old magazines, holiday ornaments or Grandma’s used furniture!  Conversely, no one would be foolish enough to rent a locker at the local bus station to store priceless first state Rembrandt etchings either! A thoughtful individual will determine the appropriate storage location based on the rarity, value, replacement cost and condition of the items being retained. So why should business data be any different? It shouldn’t!

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

We recently published an article in the March issue of the digital publication, NonStop Insider, and if you have as yet not seen it, you can follow this link: DataExpress can just as easily move a file to a program as it can move it to a robot … For DataExpress, having multiple digital media available targeting the NonStop community is proving to be very helpful in making the NonStop community aware of our product offerings but it is also proving to be a great forum for fostering discussions. This month there was one email we received that allowed us to explain in more detail exactly what it means to provide a product to securely manage the transfer of files.

But first, it’s not just FIs that move files on a regular basis, nor are they the only organizations that are challenged with securely moving lots of files routinely. And secondly, the files we do move oftentimes vary by type and just as importantly by content. For instance, what if the end point is a Computer Numeric Control (CNC) device (or multiple CNC devices) such as a cutting device, or even a highly sophisticated manufacturing company’s robot? The short answer is that we just don’t care about either the type of file or what is in the file.

As we explained in that article published in the March issue of NonStop Insider, here at DataExpress we don’t care if there is a robot on the end, we will simply get the data out of the NonStop system to where the file is needed and yes, we can then execute programs as required.  While the image of FedEx “Package Transportation” holds up, when it comes to how customers configure and rely on DataExpress, well, oftentimes it’s just as valid to think “Waste Management.” We go around shifting stuff and taking it from one place to another even as we don’t care where it came from and don’t judge the content and we don’t care what happens to it when it’s put down where and how we were told to deliver it. 

Furthermore, we wrote that as we oversee the movement of the file, there are numerous checks involved such that any attempts at disrupting that movement are immediately detected – there are multiple ways in which DataExpress can protect the information being passed between parties at either end of the transaction.  For DataExpress this is an important aspect of the capabilities inherent in the DataExpress product, tracking what is happening each step of the way. This we consider as being very important for companies moving files; we anticipate that there will always be a need to make sure there is no possibility of intercepting the transfer and altering the content. 

All of this is familiar territory for our customers, but DataExpress provides something else in addition to the actual management of the file transfer. As was asked in the email referenced earlier, “What is the requirement ‘Ability to monitor status of transmission’ as I know with DataExpress that they ‘manage’ file transfers but I don’t know whether DataExpress supports any monitoring of the file transfer once it has been kicked off.”

The response to this email was as telling as it was swift. “Transfers that are configured in DataExpress - i.e. have Jobs or Schedules defined depending on the platform - are visible to DataExpress. So the product is able to see the incoming or outgoing transfer start, and monitor for successful completion,” was the response from DataExpress President, Michelle Marost. “Once completed, DataExpress will take appropriate action, starting the next step of the Job or Schedule, based on pre-determined rules that have been configured. If it does not complete successfully then a notification will be created, either to the logs or via email depending on the actions specified in the configuration of DataExpress.”

When you think about what is involved in monitoring of file transfers, there really are two considerations to be made – monitoring the end-to-end process and the systems and processes this entails but just as importantly in today’s demanding business climate, there is also monitoring of the overall Service Level Agreement (SLA) goals to make sure whatever requirements the business has established are truly met. For more information about these considerations, take a look at our data sheet available on the DataExpress web site at DXNS Overview.

Here you will read of how DataExpress tracks the progress of each file as it proceeds through the transfer process. On-screen alarms alert the operator in real time and notifications can be sent to enterprise management products or other devices for remote monitoring. But also, you will read of how when DataExpress receives alerts, when critical files’ transfer is  completed outside a scheduled window, which is essentially a missed SLA goal, DataExpress will allow the file transmissions to complete but will notify data center operations that attention may need to be directed towards examination of  system and network properties and priorities.

Yes, when it comes to securely managing and then monitoring of file transfers whatever the type or content, DataExpress has met the needs of some of the largest and most demanding FIs on the planet. If you would like to know more about what DataExpress can do to assist with getting your files to where they need to go call us or drop us an email – we would be only too happy to schedule a call and a demonstration for you at any time.

sales@dataexpress.com | +1.972.899.3476 
http://www.dataexpress.com 

Why should you modernize your proven applications, what are the best strategies to do so and which areas should be addressed when modernizing legacy applications?

Nowadays, new and rapidly evolving enterprise IT platforms, delivery models, and capabilities provide an opportunity to increase users, innovate delivery, and extend the business value of technology across the enterprise. But to do so, IT departments must adapt, which often entails transforming proven applications to take advantage of emerging technologies.

Download the eBook 

Watch out, bad guys!  You can’t rob the virtual bank vault if you can’t get in the digital door.  The OmniPayments Preauthorization Engine preauthorizes credit card and debit card transactions by identifying potentially deceptive transactions in real time and rejecting them without having to send the transactions to issuing banks for authorization.  Our customers call our Engine the Fraud Blocker. 

We stop fraud via a complex set of rules that define each bank’s preauthorization parameters. Not only must cards be active and transactions not exceed card limits or account balances, but other restrictions also may apply. Rules change and require continual maintenance.  OmniPayments offloads from the banks this time-consuming responsibility via its Transaction Screening Module.  The OmniPayments Financial Transaction Switch or that of another provider will route all transactions to the Preauthorization Engine for review.  Only afterwards will validated transactions be submitted to issuing banks for final approval.

Modern and easy to manage, the OmniPayments Preauthorization Engine preauthorizes millions of transactions far more effectively than its complex, compute-intensive competitors.  We sell it as part of the OmniPayments Financial Transaction Switch or as a seamless interface to other providers’ switches via a custom support module (CSM).  

The OmniPayments Financial Transaction Switch is a switching solution for the financial and retail industries. It is deployed on NonStop for the highest availability and offers all the requisite functionality to manage credit/debit-card transactions. It manages multiple devices, hosts application interfaces, and interoperates with third-party products or other systems if required. OmniPayments easily expands to provide additional functionality when needed and supplies complete security functions for every financial transaction handled, including encryption-at-rest and encryption-in-flight.

Available 24x7, OmniPayments will survive any single fault, requires no downtime for maintenance or upgrades, and supports a range of disaster-recovery solutions. OmniPayments can be installed either as a complete, off-the-shelf solution or can be enhanced with customer-requested modifications and features to improve cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and risk mitigation.  Our team of 100-plus NonStop specialists are skilled at rapid project turnarounds and meeting deadlines.

For our European Union customers, OmniPayments satisfies all GDPR requirements via our secure payments infrastructure.  It is flexible and responsive yet protects the personal data of every EU resident.  OmniPayments is built for Instant Payments and is ready for PDS2.    

OmniPayments systems in production today process 1 billion transactions per month, generated by point-of-sales terminals and over 14,000 ATMs. A single OmniPayments system can support up to 10,000 transactions per second. Multiple OmniPayments systems can cooperate to provide any capacity required by an application. From our seven worldwide locations, we serve as a 24×7 managed services provider for remote production monitoring. 

Visit OmniPayments in the Exhibition Hall at eBITUG (9-10 May) in London.  OmniPayments is a platinum sponsor of the event and a co-sponsor of the ever-famous Tandem Beer Bust. 

Our eBITUG plenary presentation is as follows:

Title: OmniCloudX on NonStop X: Impressive – and Affordable – Together

Abstract: OmniCloudX on NonStop X hosts numerous instances of the OmniPayments Financial Transaction Switch at pay-for-use prices so affordable that mid-size retailers and financial institutions now can operate own their high-capacity transaction switches. The OmniCloudX solution is continuously available with automatic failover to other NonStop X systems.  Also supplied are complete security functions for every transaction handled.  Join us as we introduce our NonStop X Thunder & Lightning demonstration. It highlights the OmniPayments capability to process 5,000 transactions per second (TPS) with only half of an NSX system in use.  The Switch has been proven to support volumes as high as 10,000 TPS. 

Commit the photos below to memory.  Jessica Nieves, our Vice President of Client Services, and Craig Lawrance, our Vice President, New Business EMEA, will represent OmniPayments and will be co-presenters.  jessica@omnipayments.com; craig@omnipayments.com.

To learn more about OmniPayments, contact Yash Kapadia at +1 408-446-9274 or at yash@omnipayments.com.  OmniPayments customers and others interested in our solutions are invited to join the OmniPayments Discussion Group on LinkedIn at http://bit.ly/2bB1AGh.

Spring Events and Recaps

You can see what has been going on over on the News & Events section of their website, and be sure to catch them at other NonStop events this Spring!

XYPRO® Technology Corporation, the leading provider of security software for HPE NonStop™ server environments, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Merlon Software Corporation, the leading provider of database management software for HPE NonStop™ servers.

“Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, whether business or personal, and our trust in XYPRO has given Merlon confidence in knowing that we will continue to be successful and will grow together as a single organization. The natural fit of our two companies’ philosophies, culture and technologies will provide an even greater customer experience for our mutual clients and help deliver a more integrated solution set to manage and protect mission critical data for the HPE NonStop marketplace”, said Rick Pettifer, Director, Merlon Software Corporation

XYPRO Technology offers 35 years of knowledge, experience and success in providing HPE NonStop information systems tools and services. Businesses that manage and transport business-critical data on a large scale turn to XYPRO for the very best solutions in Security, Risk Management, and Compliance. XYPRO’s software solutions ultimately enable businesses to protect information assets and gain a competitive edge through improved efficiency.

Merlon Software is a Toronto-based software vendor specializing in modern, functional Database Management software for the HPE Integrity NonStop line of servers.  Merlon products increase availability, reduce complexity and maximize investment of the highly available, fault-tolerant NonStop servers.

Read the full story

Don’t be left behind and learn how zero data loss can benefit you! Please contact us if you are interested in discussing this presentation’s content or having us present it to you or your colleagues.

To speak with us about your 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.

If you long to return to the simpler life of the early 20th century, your wish is the Unix Millennium Bug’s command. Well, almost. At 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038, 32-bit date-time functions that are still in existence – and there will be many – will hit an integer overflow and will run out of counter space. Surprise! From an HPE NonStop perspective, your OSS programs (in-house, vendor, and system provider) with 32-bit date/time calls may freeze or will wrap around to a negative number that will be interpreted as an earlier year (1901).

How do you evaluate your company’s risk to Y2038? TANDsoft’s OPTA2000 can help. This
virtual clock- and time-zone simulator is the only NonStop solution available for such time-critical simulation. It eliminates the need to change system clocks for time-sensitive testing. OPTA2000 was used successfully in many Y2K testing projects to ensure proper program operation as Midnight, December 31, 1999 passed.

Y2038 is due to a limitation in the representation of time as a signed 32-bit integer. On most 32-bit operating systems, time usually is counted as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on Thursday, January 1, 1970. This is widely known as Unix time (also POSIX time or Epoch time). Beyond January 19, 2038, the number of seconds will be too large to fit into a signed 32-bit integer. A system or application that relies on a 32-bit internal clock to make measurements will not be able to tell the difference between the real time and date and the year 1901. The impact? We just don’t know for certain.

Note: The NonStop Guardian O/S time functions will not be affected by the Y2038 bug because Guardian uses 48-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit timestamps. OSS timestamps that still use 32-bit integers include Ctime, Difftime, Gmtime, gmtime_r, Localtime, Mktime, Time, and Timegm.

What we do know is that there already have been problems, most notably in applications that must forecast interest rates and payouts for 30-year mortgages, life insurance policies, and many others. In 2014, the popular YouTube video Gangnam Style surpassed YouTube’s 32-bit counter limit of 2,147,483,647 views and “broke” the site. YouTube was forced to upgrade quickly to a 64-bit signed integer, which for many is the accepted fix for the Y2038 bug. A major concern is 32-bit embedded programs that rely on precise dates and that cannot be upgraded.


Here’s where TANDsoft comes in. Its OPTA2000 virtual clock- and time-zone simulator can be used to time-test the performance of NonStop OSS applications to 2038 and beyond. OPTA2000 provides date/time simulation and time-zone simulation for all HP NonStop applications and data bases. Date and time simulation allows organizations to "time travel" their applications in the future or past to test all date and time-sensitive logic. Time-zone simulation allows applications to operate in any virtual time zone. It is one of TANDsoft most popular products and represents TANDsoft’s expertise in interception technology.

OPTA2000 allows existing backup, test, development, and production systems to support worldwide consolidated applications. It is user-friendly, easily installed, cost-effective, and requires no application modifications. Via OPTA2000, a single system can host thousands of applications, each with its own virtual system clock. With regard to data center consolidation, OPTA2000 becomes increasingly valuable by allowing applications to operate in local date and time, independent of the current physical location or time zone of their data centers.

TANDsoft’s OPTA2000

● Date and time testing with future time, past time and frozen time

● Time test critical applications - Pensions, Leap Year, Billing Cycles, Policies, Daylight Saving, Future Dates, End of Month/Quarter/Year Transactions

● Time-sensitive applications operate with virtual time zones in consolidated data center

● Applications sitting on a server in one time zone can accurately timestamp local transactions generated outside that time zone

● Applications run in “user” time, not “system” time, without interrupting normal system operation

● No need to ever change the system clock. Multiple virtual system clocks on a single NonStop server

● All Nonstop Guardian and OSS programs, programming languages and data bases (Enscribe, SQL/MP, SQL/MX) are supported

● Accommodates Daylight Saving Time (DST) transition tables

● Requires no application source-code modifications

● Supports in-house, HPE, and major third-party solutions, even those where source code is unavailable

● Available for NonStop X and all other NonStop servers.

In addition to OPTA2000, TANDsoft solutions include FileSync for automatic file synchronization, replication, and data deduplication; Sensitive Data Intercept (SDI) for protecting sensitive data-at-rest in Enscribe, SQL/MP, and SQL/MX databases; the OPTA suite of interception and trace utilities (OPTA-Trace Online Process Tracer and Analyzer, Recycle Bin, Low Pin Optimizer, and EMS Alerts Online Startup and Termination Capture Utility); Stack Monitor, which alerts developers to the impending threat of a stack overflow; Command Stream Replicator, which logs and automatically replicates TMF-audited/unaudited FUP, SQL/MP and SQL/MX DDL structure and other environment changes to target systems; AutoLib, which automatically loads a user library or a DLL for executing processes; the Enscribe-2-SQL and TMF-Audit Toolkits and the Enscribe-2-SQL Data Replicator, all of which offer flexible, affordable alternatives to more expensive conversion products or manual conversion techniques; and E2S-Lite, which permits efficient, low-cost Enscribe modifications without the need to change a program’s source code.

For information about TANDsoft solutions, contact Jack Di Giacomo at +1 (514) 695-2234. Free trials are available. www.tandsoft.com.

 

Back in 1998, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Bill Highleyman’s Microsoft Exchange email was incapacitated for two weeks by the Unix Millennium Bug. Why two weeks? It took that long to figure out that the crash of his MAPI spooler was due to the system date on Bill’s computer being inadvertently re-set during a battery outage to 2099, far later than the January 19, 2038 “end of all things” for Unix 32-bit operating systems.

“Future Dates Spell Problems for IT” discusses the urgency that companies should be feeling when considering solutions for Y2038 as well as for the Y2042 bug. Y2042 is a result of the limitation in the representation of time on IBM mainframes running z/OS. Already, businesses that deal with exact calculations for the likes of 30-year mortgages and life insurance policies have been forced to upgrade their 32-bit programs to 64-bit signed integers.

In addition to “Future Dates Spell Problems for IT,” read the following articles in the Availability Digest’s March 2017 issue:

Airline Outages Continue to Ground Passengers – The airline industry still limps along on a core of old technology. Airline systems were developed decades ago when flights were fewer and passenger options simpler. Now those systems must operate around the clock. System faults will continue to occur. But what airlines must do is to invest in redundant backup systems that can fail over quickly when a primary system fails. Sadly, that investment so far has been lacking.

Amazon S3 Storage Taken Down by Fat Finger – Here we go again! Amazon claims eleven 9s availability when running redundant copies in multiple regions. Its S3 storage capability has been incredibly reliable. But on 28 February, the human capacity to screw up reared its ugly head in the form of a fat-finger error that downed numerous servers and dozens of major websites, including Apple. As we have often said in the Digest, “humans need to be redundant, too!”

The High-Availability Design Spectrum – Part 4 – In recent Digest issues, we focused on the first nineteen of 23 areas that Dr. Terry Critchley lists as having an impact on the availability of IT business services. In the final Part 4, Dr. Critchley discusses the next four areas. All can be found in his book, High Availability IT Services, now available for rent or purchase on Amazon’s Kindle.

@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. Popular seminars are devoted to achieving fast failover, the impact of redundancy on availability, basic availability concepts, and eliminating planned downtime.

In addition, the Digest provides a variety of technical writing, consulting, marketing, and seminar services. For instance, many articles that you see in publications like The Connection were ghostwritten by us for individuals too busy to write themselves. We also create white papers, case studies, technical manuals and specifications, RFPs, presentation slides, web content, press releases, advertisements, and so on.

Consider us as well for the following:

• Patent Disclosures – Dr. Bill Highleyman is the holder of a dozen-plus patents and will be happy to help you with your applications.

• Book Writing – As the author of “Performance Analysis of Transaction Processing Systems” and a co-author of the three-part series “Breaking the Availability Barrier,” Dr. Bill understands the effort it takes to produce a manuscript.

• Consulting – We specialize in system architectures and risk analyses that help our customers provide the appropriate uptime, performance, and data protection for individual applications.

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 790 members and counting. Follow us as well on Twitter @availabilitydig.
 

My Musings on NonStop! commentary published each month in Tandemworld is a constant reminder not only to the readership of the Tandemworld eNwesletter but also to myself. Each month I try to deliver on the tacit agreement reached with NonStop management back in 2007 to produce “more ink on NonStop!” After publishing my first post to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View, in August, 2007 it was only a matter of months before I published my first article to Tandemworld in January, 2008.

The roots of the Real Time View blog lie in an exchange I had with the ITUG Board during a board meeting in Chicago. For a couple of years I had been writing a column for The Connection magazine simply called Real Time View and at the ITUG Board’s behest, I turned this column into a blog. Today, you will find the column Back for more … a regular feature of the back page of The Connection even as the blog Real Time View has flourished with more than 400 posts published with half a million words “inked on NonStop.”

In that first commentary published in Tandemworld, I wrote that I had been regularly reading Tandemworld for many years. I am not sure exactly when it first appeared, but I have been reading Tandemworld ever since I was made aware of its existence. I am a firm believer in social networks, and in the technology that encourages a community to share information. And nothing has changed in all those years – very few members of the NonStop community would be unaware that I blog for a living nor would they be unaware of the number of digital as well as physical publications that now carry my articles posts and commentaries.

For all of us living in the northern hemisphere, spring has arrived and evidence of the change of season is abundantly clear, with the first fresh leaves and buds appearing on trees almost overnight. And it is a really good reminder that for all of us in the NonStop community, NonStop is undergoing its own spring rebirth. NonStop X systems, Virtualized NonStop, NS SQL as a Service (DBaaS)…  who could have imagined only a short time ago that so much change will be coming from the HPE NonStop development team. But it has happened and it is all becoming available. Which is the long way around for me to say I see no lessening of material suitable for coverage in stories yet to be written! So expect to see even more ink on NonStop in the near future.

In the meantime, if you did happen to miss reading some of the articles posts and commentaries this February – March period, then check out what follows here:
 

Real Time View:
 

Three new wishes for NonStop that address the next three years!

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2017/02/three-new-wishes-for-nonstop-that.html

For HPE NonStop users, ATMIA US Conference and a walk down memory lane …

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2017/02/for-hpe-nonstop-users-atmia-us.html

Clouds in my coffee? Support for IoT will take us into clouds!

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2017/03/clouds-in-my-coffee-support-for-iot.html

LinkedIn blog / Pulse:

 

ATMIA US Conference – plenty of familiar faces!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/atmia-us-conference-plenty-familiar-faces-richard-buckle

If you can’t see it – is it really there? The evolving world of Virtualized NonStop!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-cant-see-really-evolving-world-virtualized-nonstop-richard-buckle

This may be past tense now with the event already wrapped up, but going into the week, this post to the Pulse blog proved popular …

For the NonStop vendor community, this week all roads lead to Palo Alto ...
https://www.linkedin.com/post/edit/nonstop-vendor-community-week-all-roads-lead-palo-alto-richard-buckle

NonStop Insider:

Issue #6 – March, 2017
http://www.nonstopinsider.com/editorials/march-editorial/

To read even more of my articles, posts and commentaries, then follow this link Read More …

Cheers,

Richard Buckle
Founder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC
 

Email:             richard@pyalla-technologies.com
Mobile:           +1.720.289.5372

A detailed agenda and event registration is online at http://bit.ly/2MRTUG17.  Please take a moment to register today. There is no cost to attend.

A detailed agenda and event registration is online at http://bit.ly/OTUG17.  Please take a moment to register today. There is no cost to attend.

Find out more about us at www.tandemworld.net