Tandemworld eNewsletter for May 2015
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Tandemworld eNewsletter
for May 2015
Contents
comForte Supports Key Modernization Effort for HP NonStop
Application at Gallagher Bassett
Is your NonStop Infrastructure secure and fit for
purpose?
Musings on NonStop! - May, ‘15
NonStop Technical Boot Camp
2015
It’s less expensive; it’s open and industry standard; Securing
Data and Accelerated Applications
GTUG 2015 Munich – A Biased Review from the comForte CTO
comForte's Limited Edition 'HP NonStop for Dummies' Book!
Gravic Publishes Two New White Papers
comForte at events near you in 2015
and above all else, NonStop X is supported by DataExpress!
Ban Bottlenecks® - Broken Windows!
Conversion of TAL (Tandem Application Language) to C++
My First Bet on NonStop Was for a Racetrack Wagering System
OmniPayments’ Preauthorization Engine – Our Customers Call it the Fraud Blocker
Writing an XML Document in Streams
First Shipment of TANDsoft’s OPTA2000 Virtual Clock- and Time-Zone Simulator on NonStop X
A Journey through Space & Security
CISO Executive Forum – Free Coffee and Lemon Cake Included
XYPRO looks forward to seeing you throughout 2015
Current Subscribers 15042
comForte Supports Key Modernization Effort for HP NonStop Application at Gallagher Bassett
Having been in business for decades, the team at Gallagher Bassett (“GB”) had invested significant time, expertise, and resources in its HP NonStop-based claims management system. While core application functionality had been maintained and did a good job of supporting GB’s business, the system continued to rely on outdated “green screens” for a portion of its user interface. These screens got the job done, performed well and were favored by veteran users, but lacked advanced functionality associated with more modern user interfaces, were difficult for new users to learn, and were beginning to hinder the company’s sales efforts. With the help of comForte’s staff and solutions, Gallagher Bassett was able to deliver a modern, intuitive interface that offered significant benefits from a usability and sales standpoint. Further, they were able to do so making minimal changes to the application.
The Challenge
Gallagher Bassett is a leading third-party property/casualty claims management company serving self-insured Fortune 500 clients and insurance carriers. It has more than 3,400 customers around the world and more than 100 branch offices and operations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
As a claims administrator, one of the main requirements of the system is to provide its primary users, commonly referred to as “claim adjusters,” timely access to critical information and services. Claims adjusters rely on a toolset that’s comprised largely of web-based applications. However, they also used an application based on the HP NonStop platform, which was accessed through a legacy interface.
While clients never had cause to use the legacy user interface directly, prospects did see the green screens when they came to visit Gallagher Bassett’s facilities for tours and meetings. These green-screen displays, popular though they were with veteran adjusters, left others with the impression that the company’s technology and services may be outdated.
Read the full story.
Is your NonStop Infrastructure secure and fit for purpose?
Hp, together with it’s Partner BrightStrand International are extremely pleased to offer this signficant new service to NonStop customers. It has been clear for some time that a complete service of this nature has been required and we are delighted, that after many months of taking customer feedback and subsequent planning, we are able to launch this new service.
Particularly in light of recent media coverage, there are many questions that are rightly being asked. No matter what market sector you are in, we know that your NonStop Infrastructure is crucial to your customers, your business and to your well-being as an organization.Have you ever asked yourselves any of the following questions, for example:
What happens if your system goes down?
Is your Infrastructure Secure?
Have you a viable Storage, Backup and Restore Strategy?
Are your Interfaces to Networks and Other Systems resilient?
Are Roles and Responsibilities and Interdependencies clearly defined?
Is training current and appropriate?
How do you approach Software releases and Updates?
The NonStop Infrastructure is crucial to your business and your customers.
We have all seen what happens if things go wrong and it can be hugely expensive and hugely embarrassing and lead to the loss of valuable customers. There is also the subject of heavily regulated environments and how you view/include/monitor the Social Media. The key is to ensure that your NonStop Infrastructure and the resources involved are operating in the most effective way and that there are also comprehensive, known, tested and current processes in place to try and avoid those unfortunate instances. This should also ensure that if and when these instances do occur, corrective actions are known and taken, to try and minimize system risk and outage.
Problems can and do of course occur but as we have also seen, how they are handled is as important to finding the root cause. It is vital now, perhaps more than ever with the media capabilities these days that organizations are seen to be operating as effectively as they possibly can be. We also know that the resources who work in these environments, want to know that too
NonStop SDI Service offering
HP are taking this seriously and together with their Partner BrightStrand International would like to propose that nominated resources from your organization attend an initial 1 day workshop (only for your organization), for the purpose of discussing the main areas of interest for you. The above list is by no means meant to be exhaustive and there will almost certainly be areas of specific interest to you that should be covered.
Clearly, the attendees of this initial workshop are very important and will need to be agreed with you beforehand, as they will also need to be present to gain the most effective output. Also, the receivers of this output will need to be agreed with you.
The output from this workshop will be a document outlining the specific Service to be delivered to your organization which will address all of the main issues identified in your workshop. A customized Professional Service to cover each issue in great detail, to ensure that from the perspective of both the technical and people resources involved, your organization will be much better prepared to hopefully prevent future issues where possible but also very importantly, to deal with them as effectively as possible when they do occur.
Following this workshop, there would be no obligation for you to accept the specific service being proposed to move forward with but we would hope that you will be able to see the huge benefits in doing so. During this Service delivery process, we will hopefully find areas where things are indeed already being done extremely well within your organization and we will report on that. Either way, the key is you now have a way of ensuring that your organization, at least from a NonStop perspective is “Fit for purpose”
, which we hope will provide you with peace of mind.David McLeod, the Director of NonStop for EMEA says:
“Recent requirements for continuous availability, often from regulatory authorities, have caused many customers to review the practices employed in support of the HP NonStop to ensure that not just the computer but the whole environment is capable of supporting these augmented demands. This offering is geared to all customers requiring the highest levels of availability.”
Alan Mushett, MD of BrightStrand International Ltd says:
“We are delighted to be working with HP on this very significant service. Over many months, a lot of input has been taken from customers and experienced NonStop people, which has enabled us to put together this complete NonStop infrastructure service. It was clear that customers wanted a complete service of this nature, in order for them to ensure that all areas of their NonStop business, both system and resources were covered to ensure that for the future they were prepared and ‘Fit for Purpose’.
F
or further details and questions please contact your HP NonStop Sales representative.Alternatively contact emeasales@brightstrand.com.
Musings on NonStop!
May, ‘15
The
opinions expressed here are solely
those of the now self-employed author
Readers of my posts to the NonStop
community blog, Real Time View, may have already picked up on the
addition of a new label -
C17 Hybrid. There’s only a handful of posts linked to this
label but in the coming weeks I plan on going back through all the posts
to ensure the label is properly represented. Over the years I have been
working with NonStop systems nothing has piqued my interest more than
the support of hybrid computers being provided by HP NonStop
development.
When I consider hybrids, and their inclusion of NonStop systems, two
things come to mind – will this be too complex for customers and,
equally as importantly, will this truly fly with solutions and
middleware vendors? However, before I go any further it’s worth noting
that the rise of middleware can be traced to companies looking to others
to address the issues of added complexity that arise from having more
than one architecture involved in a solution. Middleware, with its array
of APIs and services all designed to mask what lies beneath, have
traditionally been key to advancing hybrids – indeed, with my background
in networking, this need for an API across systems was what led IBM to
introduce APPN, APPC and LU6.2 as part of its Systems Network
Architecture.
However, middleware alone isn’t good enough today – we need solutions as
well. And this is a good place to start. Looking at today’s array of
solutions for processing payments, whether it’s the presentation
services, the transaction authorization or even the fraud detection
processing, there are very few solutions on offer where it all runs on
just one platform. Even when it looks like it might be all in one box
today the box quite likely supports more than one OS and the IBM
mainframe comes to mind in this respect. No, the computer that may serve
us well as our desktop, or even everyone in a branch or regional office,
isn’t likely to be the same as what we find inside the data center.
Talking to HP product management there is a growing list of solutions
today that have been architected to run on hybrid configurations. The
one that quickly comes to mind is the OmniPayments Inc. solution that,
according to Yash Kapadia and HP, leverages a mix of Linux and NonStop
and has been architected to do so to provide a lower price point for
entry level usage
among the
tier
2 and 3
Financial
Institutions
(FIs).
“We
have been deploying a hybrid architecture for some time that includes
both NonStop and Linux and with HP contemplating further hybrid
development, this would be very easy for us to support,” responded Yash
in a the post of February 6, 2015,
Of hubs and spokes; of niches, clouds and beyond the horizon; it all
looks good for NonStop X! This is good for Yash, and why? It’s
all about providing solutions at a reasonable price point and according
to Yash, “Even as there’s considerable talk across the NonStop community
about hybrid X systems, comprised of NonStop X and Linux (all on x86
blades, housed in the same chassis / cabinet), such hybrids will help
reduce the cost of the hardware needed to support FIs.”
Solutions flourish as the middleware reduces complexity and when it
comes to the NonStop community there’s a wealth of vendors already well
versed in bridging multiple platforms. In my most recent article just
published in the BITUG Spring 2015 Newsletter,
Will this hybrid fly?,
I
touch on the work being done by Gravic with Shadowbase (moving the data)
and Infrasoft with maRunga (moving the transactions). In so doing, I
reflected on how far we have come to productizing what we first saw
implemented at, for example, Sabre (American Airlines) where the
“look-to-book” model first embraced NonStop systems.
But
will this hybrid model truly fly? As I explained in that BITUG
newsletter, will this attract advocates and champions? When it comes to
FIs, it has been Gartner that has begun promoting the concept of the
Payments Services Hub and almost everyone who has looked at what such a
hub entails believes NonStop is an ideal candidate for being the hub as
described by Gartner. However, as the word hub implies, there are other
systems likely to be involved, but Gartner leaves the door open as to
how these apparent hybrids would function better than a giant
homogeneous system.
Will it fly? It did for many years at Sabre, even as the implementation
included a considerable amount of home-grown technology, but today it
will fly a lot more smoothly as a decade later middleware vendors have
stepped up to providing productized solutions where before none existed.
This will make it easier for solutions vendors who in turn will sway
enterprises to embrace NonStop X and I for one foresee a lot more
attention being paid to some pretty clever, if not intriguing,
middleware software options, all of which will only help confirm their
value for many more years to come.
And will this hybrid model be simple? Again, paging through the articles in the BITUG Newsletter, I came across the section devoted to HP where there was a column, Redefining Mission Critical Servers for x86. At the end of the column were a couple of quotes, none more striking than that of Marc Solomon, SVP of Sales, BPC Banking Technologies, “When people look at the true value of HP NonStop, it’s doing something very complex in a simple, elegant way. That’s how NonStop has always offered continuous business value, and NonStop X will drive new levels of availability and efficiency for a new generation of users.”
I couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to finish this month’s Musings on NonStop. The HP NonStop systems for decades have attracted some highly skilled developers in support of middleware and solutions. It has also attracted major corporations worldwide who value the NonStop fundamentals. As a group, the NonStop community continues to prosper even as HP delivers what they truly need and so when it comes to whether hybrids will fly and whether they will prove simple to use, the resounding answer from all who are actively engaged in exploiting hybrid computers today inclusive of NonStop is a resounding, Yes!
Richard Buckle
Founder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC
Email:
richard@pyalla-technologies.com
Following my blogs? My web publications? My discussion Groups?
Check out (or
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 at http://blog.comforte.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
WebAction.com at http://webaction.com/blog/
….
And check out the group on LinkedIn, Data Driven Apps
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
NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2015
Registration is open!
www.etouches.com/nonstopTBC2015
2015 NonStop Technical Boot
Camp Attendee Registration: $1295
Early Bird Registration: $1095 until June 1, 2015
Pre-Conference Seminar Registration: $150
Guest/Spouse Pass for Evening Events and Receptions: $200
Hotel info:
Fairmont San Jose 1-800-346-5550
HP NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2015 rate: $209 + taxes
Code: TEC1115
Agenda:
11/15/15 – Pre-Conference Seminars 9am to 5pm
Welcome Reception 6pm to 8pm
11/16/15 – Partner Pavilion open 7:30am to 5pm
General Session 8am to 10am
Breakout Sessions 10am to 5pm
TBD 6pm to 9pm
11/17/15 - Partner Pavilion open 7:30am to 9pm
General Session 9am to 10am
Breakout Sessions 10am to 5pm
Dinner 6pm to 9pm
11/18/15 - Partner Pavilion open 7:30am to 1pm
General Session 9am to 10am
Breakout Sessions 10am to 12pm
Lunch
The Partner SIG looks forward to reuniting with Customers and HP this fall!
Kathy Wood
NonStop Partner SIG/Vendor Chair
It’s less expensive; it’s open and industry standard;
and above all else, NonStop X is supported by DataExpress!
Events for the NonStop community have already kicked
off with the last month’s Connect Germany GTUG conference and
exhibition. Presentations came from HP NonStop executives as well as
from corporate Product Managers and regional presales specialists.
Presentations are now readily available on the GTUG web site and are
providing a wealth of material for the NonStop community – for more,
just follow
this link.
Among the more revealing presentations was
Better TCO and Higher Availability than Oracle RAC with HP NonStop,
given by HP NonStop PreSales engineer, Azucena Ubierna and it generated
numerous posts to vendor blogs as well as started discussions on
LinkedIn groups. In the presentation was a comparison between a NonStop
System i (Itanium) and a ProLiant running Oracle RAC. As has been
already reported elsewhere, according to Pyalla Technologies, LLC.,
Cofounder and CEO Richard Buckle, “With the hardware on both sides of
the equation coming from HP – yes pitting a cluster of ProLiant’s
against what out of the box is a cluster, the NonStop System - there
were many surprised by the final computation that clearly showed NonStop
the winner.”
Coming as it has at a time when NonStop systems continue to be viewed as
legacy systems by many within the IT industry, findings such as those
included in the presentation by Ubierna need to be broadcast to a much
wider audience. Companies worldwide continue to build mission critical
infrastructure so to see NonStop depicted as the low-cost option is an
eye-opener for many. Throw into this mix the proposed ease-of-use of
InfinBand (IB) as a communications / networking via a HP NonStop
developed set of APIs where hybrid systems, featuring NonStop X and
Linux, suddenly take on a real viability that up until now have still
only existed on whiteboards. As HP NonStop Product Management keep
reminding the NonStop community (and has included in the presentation to
the GTUG community), project Yuma, a code name for the effort to provide
these APIs, intends for applications to “send transactions and data back
and forth between NonStop OSS and a Linux application”.
As observed in the update provided in last month’s issue of Tandemworld,
none of this is going unnoticed at DataExpress even as we acknowledge
that the OSS personality of NonStop has become the premier interface for
all future application deployment. As stated by DataExpress President,
Michelle Marost, “While as yet we do not have a customer asking for our
DXOP product on OSS, considering the built in redundancies that NonStop
brings to the table, it just makes sense for us to go there.” For those
NonStop users looking to DataExpress as their secure managed file
transfer solution, hearing that DataExpress will begin exploiting OSS
will reassure them of the future of the DataExpress product suite.
Of course there will be the need to ensure the same levels of
availability delivered today by DataExpress running as a Guardian
application and this will be central to the testing we do on HP’s test
systems. There will be “little tolerance by the NonStop user community
of anything that would turn out to be less robust than what is in use
today”, Marost confided. While there is an attraction in moving to a
single code base, it is “requiring changes to the DataExpress code to
make it support all of the NonStop operating systems from one code
base”.
This was made apparent in the post of May, 2015,
DATAEXPRESS AND NONSTOP X that has just appeared on the DataExpress
News Blog pages of our web site. In this post Marost went on to note
how, “These changes have been completed by the DataExpress team, taking
advantage of the ATC facilities in Palo Alto, despite some setbacks and
challenges caused by late adoption of the platform by other vendors.
While there are a few more functions to be tested, there is no doubt
that DataExpress for NonStop will continue its evolution, supporting
HP’s progress in the market.”
Lower overall TCO than competing systems and databases. Higher levels of
availability all from a system that remains highly scalable.
Easiest-to-deploy cluster-in-a-box than is available from any other
vendor. It all speaks volumes of the many changes HP has overseen for
the NonStop system family and a message that is recharging the
enthusiasm of HP sales and marketing. As depicted on slides used during
the presentation
Why you need NonStop today – more than ever! by Director, HP NonStop
EMEA, Dave Mcleod, his organization is (a) Preparing for an Increased
Demand for “True” Mission Critical, while (b) Recruiting “fresh new
blood” into the HP NonStop team , and not forgetting to continue (c)
Equipping a broader group of HP people to work with NonStop.
And nothing fosters endearment to any platform by a vendor such as
DataExpress than reading commitments being made by HP
executives such as this. Expect to hear more about the progress we are
making utilizing new capabilities delivered with NonStop X in upcoming
articles and posts. Of course, if you have as yet not seen the latest
post by Richard Buckle to the DataExpress News Blog, then take some time
to read
ARRIVALS ARE ALWAYS HIGHLY ANTICIPATED … ESPECIALLY FOR THE NONSTOP
COMMUNITY!
Contact Info:
1401 Shoal Creek, Suite 250,
Highland Village, TX 75077
email:
sales@dataexpress.com
Sales:
972-899-3476
Corporate: 972-899-3460
Third Data Corporation
Securing Data and Accelerated Applications
888-301-2431 / sales@thirddata.com
Third Data Corporation provides numerous products which can reside on HP Nonstop and other HP hardware platforms. In addition we provide custom high performance software design and development for our clients. Don't forget to download the latest version of Sysbusy. It's FREE at www.thirddata.com/dwnlds.html
Securing Data in Flight
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.
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.
Securing Data at Rest
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).
NxFile+ – NxFile+ provides compression and encryption to Enscribe structured files. The files are configured through an XML 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 current record size limitations.
Accelerated Development of High-Speed Applications
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.
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.
GTUG 2015 Munich – A Biased Review from the comForte CTO
It’s been a while since I [Thomas Burg, CTO of comForte] provided a write-up of a major NonStop community event —the last one was about HP DISCOVER 2011. I just returned from Munich, the beautiful city in Southern Germany, where the German Tandem Users group [GTUG] held its yearly European event. The event brought back memories of former “ETUG” (European Tandem User Group Meetings) meetings: A lot of NonStop users from EMEA, good attendance by HP NED folks and ISV partners – and, most importantly, plenty of educational and informative sessions to choose from.
During the event, I tweeted from several sessions I attended, and in this blog post I will provide some links to those tweets that include relevant screenshots.
Musings on the Event Overall
The GTUG folks certainly know how to pick a location: Personally I much prefer Munich in the sun over being in Las Vegas. There were Bavarian food and drinks aplenty; the comForte customer and partner dinner was in a “Brauhaus” a bit outside of the buzzing city; we were close to the English Garden for a morning exercise session… let’s see what they will come up with for next year, but this will be a hard act to follow.
Customer participation was good—beyond the known faces, there were also a few fresh faces for me. Maybe most notably there was a new NonStop customer from Russia—a large retail bank that is now running the BPC application on HP NonStop. There was a mix of known but also of new faces in the vendor space, the latter is very good for HP NonStop.
Tweets galore (including screenshots) on key sessions
The following
three sessions were my personal favorites:
· My favorite session was somewhat “geeky” as it compared the cost of running an application that needs high availability on Oracle RAC and on HP NonStop. The HP folks did a VERY thorough exercise here and the somewhat surprising result is that HP NonStop is cheaper if all cost is factored in. Take that, Oracle J. This presentation should be shared as much as possible as it corrects the common myth that “NonStop is expensive”. The presentation is available for download at http://www.gtug.de/HotSpot2015/download/Presentation/2A01.pdf. Also, I have tweeted about it—see Tweet1 , Tweet2 and, my favorite slide of all, Tweet3.
· You have to hear Dave McLeod in person for the full experience of a great live speaker—but his presentation on NonStop Keynote—Why You Need NonStop Today More Than Ever is also available for download at the GTUG site. His key takeaways are in this tweet.
· I am probably biased because I know Bob Kiep personally and Gallagher Bassett is a comForte customer—but I think his session on To Modernize or To Replace?—You must do both was great. Somewhat unusually, his focus was on business needs and the high-level enterprise architect view on a platform and applications—rather than on the nitty-gritty aspects of how specifically to modernize. Unfortunately, his slides are not available for download, but you can find a few screenshots here and here. The key slide he showed talks about the risk of “replacement projects” and can be seen here.
Check out the full blog posting.
Ban Bottlenecks®
Broken Windows!
No, I’m not talking about a certain operating system, although one could make the case... I’m talking about processing windows, such as an “online time” or “the batch window.” While most NonStop sites run a 24-hour operation, there are always periods identified as the “critical peak time” or the batch time which shall not interfere with the online cycle.
That is, in the best of all possible worlds batch shall not infringe. In real life, however, one has to pay close attention. As volume grows, so too does the length of time it takes to process that volume. Batch takes longer. Extracts finish later. Reports finish later. And the system is busier than ever later.
At some point disk and CPU used by batch begins to affect the online processing. At that time something must be done. Rebalance, upgrade, whatever.
But the point is that unless someone is watching, this problem can creep up on you and hurt. That’s where we can help. We have time-proven techniques which will show you how your batch jobs are performing and whether they are approaching the window’s edge. We will also see if adding an index helped or slowed jobs, for example.
For the last 25 years Ban Bottlenecks has been successful in collecting, integrating, and analyzing all the factors affecting application availability and performance. Time and again we have shown our clients where their systems will be heading into trouble. They have fixed the issues before there were problems, before there was a service disruption. If this is your goal, give us a call.
Contact us for a free proof of concept!
1.415.256.8369
comForte's Limited Edition 'HP NonStop for Dummies' Book!
This book is for anyone with an interest in HP NonStop systems. This book is for you if you're new to the platform, have spent many years working with it, if you manage people or IT systems, or if you're a system operator or developer on/for the HP NonStop platform.
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Get the book and … |
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· Learn more about HP NonStop systems - a lot has changed in the past few years · Find out why the platform is unmatched in the areas of high availability and linear scalability - all out of the box · Discover how to develop new applications on the platform and how to modernize existing ones - all using modern and standard technologies · Explore ways to better integrate your HP NonStop systems in the Enterprise IT infrastructure |
If you would like to receive a free copy of the 'HP NonStop for Dummies' book please register at … http://www.comforte.com/ns4dummies
Gravic Publishes Two New White Papers
Gravic recently published the white paper, Shadowbase Solutions and HP Pathway Domains – Perfect Together! It takes two to tango! It is of no use having data available on alternate/takeover systems if the applications required to provide the business services are not also available when needed. This paper explains how to leverage these two technologies to dramatically improve your applications’ availability profile.
Gravic also just published the white paper, Fingers Crossed? Or What is Your Business Continuity Plan for the Inevitable? Extended outages happen, and when they do, the cost to your business can be severe. Focusing on real-time data replication, we discuss the pros and cons of asynchronous and synchronous replication technologies. So, the next time that unexpected downtime occurs, you will not need to cross your fingers and hope for the best!
HP Shadowbase Advanced Data Replication Solution Presentations at
GTUG, MENUG, and SATUG Events
We recently attended the European NonStop HotSpot – Conference and Exhibition held in Munich, and it was a special trip for us as we flew into Frankfurt a few days early to fully enjoy the beautiful German Spring and Bamberg, Wurzburg, Nuremberg, and the Bavarian region. We especially enjoyed riding the cable car to the highest point in Germany (Zugspitze) and visiting King Ludwig II’s palaces.
GTUG attendees enjoyed our two presentations:
If you are interested in discussing our presentations’ content or having us present them to your staff, please contact us.
This month attendees appreciated our presentations on the new HP Shadowbase product suite at the Second Annual MENUG Meeting held in Dubai, UAE, and at the 2015 South African Summit held at the South African HP Headquarters in Rivonia, South Africa. The MENUG (Middle East NonStop User Group) event hosted a 15% increase in attendees over the previous year, and the Connect Team made sure everyone was well informed and plugged in throughout the weekend. The SATUG (Southern African Technology User Group) forum consisted of two parallel training tracks presented by HP, “Concepts and Facilities” and “OSS and SQL/MX.” All seats were filled for the five-day training event, with the plenary sessions held on Thursday morning and Friday afternoon.
For more information on Shadowbase solutions, please visit: www.gravic.com/shadowbase. To speak with us about your data replication and data integration needs, please visit us at www.gravic.com/shadowbase, email us at SBProductManagement@gravic.com, or call us at +1.610.647.6250.
HP now directly sells and supports Shadowbase Solutions under the name HP Shadowbase. For more information, please contact your local HP account team.
Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming 2015 Events
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HP Discover Las Vegas, NV, 2-4 June |
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N2TUG Meeting Arlington, TX, 24 June |
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MATUG Meeting Herndon, VA, 17 September |
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The Payment Knowledge Forum London, 5-6 October |
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NENUG Meeting Andover, MA, 18-19 October |
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CTUG Conference Toronto, 21-22 October |
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Connect HP NonStop TBC San Jose, CA, 15-18 November |
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HP Discover 2015 EMEA London, 1-3 December |
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BITUG BIG SIG London, 4 December |
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Please Visit Gravic at these Sites
comForte at events near you in 2015
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HP Discover |
2-4 June 2015 |
Las Vegas, USA |
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N2TUG |
24 June 2015 |
Boston, USA |
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MATUG |
17 Sept |
Herndon, VA |
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NENUG |
19 Sept 2015 |
Boston, USA |
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PCI Community Meeting, North America |
29 Sept - 1 Oct 2015 |
Vancouver, Canada |
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The Payment Knowledge Forum 2015 |
5-6 Oct 2015 |
London, UK |
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PCI Community Meeting, Asia Pacific |
14-15 Oct 2015 |
Tokyo, Japan |
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CTUG |
21 Oct 2015 |
Toronto, Canada |
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Connect NonStop TBC |
15-18 Nov 2015 |
San Jose, CA, USA |
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BITUG BIG SIG |
4 Dec 2015 |
London, UK |
Conversion of TAL (Tandem Application Language) to C++
There is still a lot of TAL code on NonStop systems. Few developers are left who can master TAL. So, there is a tendency to replace applications written in TAL to a modern language.
Questions are:
· Is there a technical documentation and is it up-to-date?
· Who knows how the TAL applications are supporting the business processes?
· What would re-writing cost?
· Is there a way to convert TAL applications in a modern language?
Here is the solution:
· Scanning the TAL sources with ITP-PANORANA allows to
o Cleaning the sources
o Building a technical documentation to the very detail
o Analyzing how business processes are supported by the TAL apps.
· Computerized conversion with proven technology into C++
· Scanning of generated C++ code
· Developers can switch with a mouse-click between the repository with the applications
in TAL to the generated applications in C++ (How was it, how is it now)
· Developers save
o 80% of time learning to master the new C++ applications
o 90% of time analyzing the impact of changes in the new C++ applications
Please contact me for a more detailed information. Juergen.Overhoff@itp-panorama.com
My First Bet on NonStop Was for a Racetrack Wagering System
Imagine walking up to a racetrack betting window only to learn that you
won’t be able to place your $50.00 USD longshot bet because the wagering
system is down. Realize later that your longshot pick won and would have
paid you $2,500.00 USD on that $50 bet. Fears of racetrack riots, not
uncommon if you check the Internet, led Autotote Systems in the mid
1970s to seek a highly reliable platform for its new racetrack
totalizator (wagering) system. Autotote was a customer of my company,
The Sombers Group. We were charged not only with building the system but
also with installing it on a platform that would not fail. What we
selected was Tandem Computers’ Tandem/16, later called the NonStop 1,
marketed back then as the first commercial fault-tolerant computer.
I knew nothing at the time about Tandem Computers. It was a new company
with a unique approach to availability. Autotote’s design specifications
required a central processor that would host a multiprocessing,
fault-tolerant architecture supporting several hundred point-of-sale
terminals and would provide the terminals with subsecond response times.
On behalf of Autotote, Sombers conducted an extensive comparison of
Tandem and other presumed highly reliable systems. We concluded that no
other platform was superior to Tandem in satisfying Autotote’s
requirements. The platform’s extreme reliability, uptimes measured in
years, and impressive scaling capability were perfect for Autotote’s
needs.
Thanks in great part to NonStop, the Autotote system we built was
installed at over 50 racetracks and pari-mutuel wagering facilities in
the U.S. and abroad and handled billions of dollars in bets annually. As
for The Sombers Group, we continued to utilize the NonStop platform as
the foundation of many custom systems we built. Whenever a design
specification required availabilities of four 9s or greater, whenever a
system failure could lead to a customer suffering devastating financial
losses and increased reputational risk, we chose NonStop.
Not every customer to whom we recommended NonStop selected the platform.
Some were reluctant to invest in proprietary technology that could not
be integrated with their other systems. Some were unwilling to invest in
or could not afford the higher cost of a solution developed with
proprietary hardware and software. The result was that only enterprises
with tremendous mission-critical requirements took a serious look at
NonStop’s fault-tolerant capabilities. The system was out of the reach
of many companies that settled for less reliable options -- corporate
fingers crossed that their systems would not fail.
Forty years after my introduction to NonStop, I am thrilled to see that
NonStop’s storied longevity continues via its having ported its
operating system onto commodity blades. Not only has NonStop remained
viable when so many of its competitors have disappeared, the new HP
NonStop X, replete with Intel x86 speed and NonStop’s legendary
fault-tolerance, is competitively priced and in high demand by a far
broader market than before.
Today, as the Managing Editor of the Availability Digest (www.availabilitydigest.com)
, I am immersed in the technologies of high- and continuous availability
systems via the articles I write, the seminars I teach, and the
consulting services I provide. To this day, NonStop remains the only
fault-tolerant solution that satisfies the demands of companies
requiring true mission-critical enterprise computing. When a system
simply cannot fail, nothing compares to a NonStop. I’ll bet on it. –
Bill Highleyman
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 as well as consulting
services.
Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at
www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability
Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 688 members and counting. Follow us as well
on Twitter @availabilitydig.
OmniPayments’ Preauthorization Engine – Our Customers Call it the Fraud Blocker
Transparent to those of us who use credit cards and debit cards, numerous validation checks take place on transactions before the card-issuing banks issue final authorizations. Not only must cards be active and transactions not exceed card limits or account balances, but other restrictions also may apply based on intricate, bank-individualized sets of rules. Only if a transaction complies with the rules is it forwarded to the issuing bank for approval or rejection.
“Preauthorization” checks have grown popular in light of today’s alarming increase in fraudulent activities. Such checks successfully detect and prevent fraudulent transactions. They often are performed by a separate system acting as a front end to an issuing bank. In many cases, the front end is a financial-transaction switch, which routes transactions to banks from sources such as POS devices, ATMs, smart phones, and the Internet.
The OmniPayments Preauthorization Engine is used by financial institutions in conjunction with the OmniPayments Financial Transaction Switch or as a seamless interface to other providers’ switches via a custom support module (CSM). Our customers’ call our Engine the fraud blocker. Modern and easy to manage, it preauthorizes millions of transactions far more effectively than its complex, compute-intensive competitors.
OmniPayments is a comprehensive architecture by which financial institutions acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorize transactions across multiple input channels. It supplies a full set of functionalities to support payment transactions and is guaranteed to save a company at least 50% of its current transaction processing costs. Based on a modern Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), OmniPayments consists of several service components, all built for the HP NonStop platform. One of those components is the OmniPayments Preauthorization Engine.
Each issuing bank’s preauthorization parameters initially can be set up via bulk file transfer, maintained via an OmniPayments-provided browser interface, and accumulated in an Operational Data Store (ODS) for use by the OmniPayments Preauthorization Engine. 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 then will validated transactions be submitted to issuing banks.
OmniPayments and the new OmniCloudX on NonStop X supply complete security functions for every financial transaction handled, including encryption-at-rest and encryption-in-flight. Available around the clock, OmniPayments and OmniCloudX will survive any single fault, require no downtime for maintenance or upgrades, and support a range of disaster-recovery solutions. Both expand easily to provide additional functionality when needed. Additionally, OmniPayments and OmniCloudX can manage multiple devices, can host application interfaces, and can interoperate with third-party products or other systems if required. Like OmniPayments, OmniCloudX supports EMV smart-card technology.
The OmniPayments pricing model is based not on transaction volume but instead on a one-time software license. This results in huge savings. OmniCloudX hosts numerous instances of OmniPayments on an attractive, pay-for-use basis.
OmniPayments, Inc. (www.omnipayments.com) is the product arm of Opsol Integrators Inc., a leading HP NonStop system integrator. For further information, contact Yash Kapadia at +1 408-446-9274 or at yash@omnipayments.com. OmniPayments will take part in N2TUG’s June 24th event in Arlington, Texas USA. Visit our table, and participate in our talk on “The Smarts Behind EMV Smart Cards.”
Writing an XML Document in Streams
In last month’s issue of Tandemworld, we introduced streaming as an efficient and effective technique for parsing and creating large XML documents in COBOL. Streaming allows a COBOL developer to work with an XML document of unlimited size without hitting compiler and resource limitations. The technique can be used for both reading and writing large XML documents.
A detailed example of how to create a large XML document using the streaming technique can be found on our web site by clicking here.
XML Thunder from Canam Software Labs employs a streaming technique similar to the one described above when processing large XML documents. Using a model-driven development approach combined with automatic code generation, XML Thunder creates all of the program source code needed to stream COBOL data to XML, thereby allowing developers to focus their efforts on the business logic in their applications.
In the June issue of Tandemworld, we’ll cover how the streaming technique can be used for reading large XML documents.
For more information about XML Thunder or using streaming to write large XML documents, please contact mailto:info@canamsoftware.com or www.XMLThunder.com.
Canam Software will be at N2TUG June 24th in Arlington Texas. Visit our table to discuss XML Thunder and how to best work with large XML documents.
First Shipment of TANDsoft’s OPTA2000 Virtual
Clock- and Time-Zone Simulator on NonStop X
Here we go! The first shipment of OPTA2000 on NonStop X has now taken
place. The customer, a longtime NonStop user now upgrading to NonStop X,
will incorporate OPTA2000 into its production, development and testing,
and disaster-recovery environments.
OPTA2000 is one of TANDsoft Inc.’s most popular products and represents
TANDsoft’s expertise in interception technology. It provides date/time
simulation and time-zone simulation for all HP NonStop Guardian and OSS
applications and data bases, with no code changes. Date and time
simulation allows organizations to "time travel" their applications in
the future or past to test all date and time sensitive logic,
eliminating the need to manually change the system clock. Time-zone
simulation allows applications to operate in any virtual time zone on a
single NonStop server. As more NonStop customers consolidate their
physical data centers into the smaller footprint of the powerful,
blazing fast NonStop X, OPTA2000 will grow increasingly valuable by
allowing applications to operate in local dates and times, independent
of the current physical locations or time zones of the data centers.
With OPTA2000, a single NonStop X can host thousands of applications.
TANDsoft’s OPTA2000
● Time-sensitive applications operate with virtual time zones in
consolidated data center
● 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 are supported
● Date and time testing with future time, past time and frozen time
● Daylight Saving Time (DST) transition tables
● Requires no application source-code modifications.
● Supports in-house, HP, 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 – all certified on NonStop X
- include FileSync for automatic file synchronization, replication, and
data deduplication; 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; E2S-Lite,
which permits efficient, low-cost Enscribe modifications without the
need to change a program’s source code; and SDI/LOG (Sensitive Data
Intercept), which logs Sensitive Data access to Enscribe files and
SQL/MP tables.
For information about TANDsoft solutions, contact Jack Di Giacomo at +1
(514) 695-2234. Free trials are available.
www.tandsoft.com.
A Journey through Space & Security
What a great conference GTUG turned out to be! Apart from the 200+ delegates taking part we were treated to a mesmerising presentation from the European Space Agency (ESA). There’s something very engaging about mankind’s journey into space; and especially when the story is about landing on a comet….
XYPRO was delighted to see so many delegates take an interest in our XYGATE Data Protection solution (XDP). Presenting our joint solution, Andrew Price, XYPRO’s VP of Technology and Anna Russell of HP Security Voltage educated and entertained the audience with their stories and examples of how NonStop Users can secure their system data against the hackers. The facts themselves are astounding; almost 80,000 reported security incidents worldwide last year; estimated losses to businesses of some $400million; 700 million records compromised; over 2000 confirmed data breaches. Not that data breaches will end any time soon. Andrew pointed out that they will continue; we have to accept this and instead focus on making the data itself of little value to the hackers.
For more information on XYGATE Data Protection and how we optimize the HP Security Voltage solution for NonStop servers, visit: XYGATE Data Protection (XDP)
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CISO Executive Forum – Free Coffee and Lemon Cake Included
Top level security executives and CISOs gathered last month in San Francisco for the International Systems Security Association (ISSA) CISO Executive Forum. The quarterly forum, which was chaired by XYPRO's Head of Security, Steve Tcherchian and UPS Director of Security and Risk Management Wayne Proctor, focused on "New Strategy and Technology Approaches for the CISO" and there was plenty to discuss on the topic.
Cyber-terrorism, insider threats, regulatory compliance, cloud, the internet of (every)thing and security intelligence were at the forefront of the dialogue.
XYPRO’s Head of Security joins ISSA CISO Advisory Council
Steve Tcherchian, XYPRO Technology’s Head of Corporate Security, recently joined the ISSA CISO Advisory Council as a board member. Already a member of CISO Executive Forum, Steve now joins the board which is responsible for all aspects of the quarterly event including setting the content and theme about what’s important in cybersecurity, speakers and sponsors and overseeing partnerships for the forum.
Read the full article at XYPRO.com
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XYPRO looks forward to seeing you throughout 2015
Join Us at our upcoming 2015 Events
Calendar of Events
June 2-4, 2015 – HP Discover
Las Vegas, NV
June 8- 11, 2015 – ACI EXCHANGE
New Orleans, LA
June 24, 2015 – N2TUG
Arlington, TX
September 17, 2015 – MATUG
Herndon, Virginia
September 29 - October 1, 2015 – North American PCI SSC Community Meeting
Vancouver, BC, Canada
October 14-15, 2015 – Asia Pacific PCI SSC Community Meeting
Tokyo, Japan
Oct. 19, 2015 – NENUG
Boston, MA
October 21- 22, 2015 – CTUG
Mississauga, Ontario
November 3-5, 2015 – EMEA PCI SSC Community Meeting
Nice, France
November 15-18, 2015 – Connect NonStop Boot Camp
San Jose, CA
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