We greatly enjoyed the 2016 Connect HPE NonStop Technical Boot Camp held November 13-16 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA and spending time with so many of you. We thank Connect and the HPE staff for hosting such a terrific gathering. We delivered several presentations, two with Mark Pollans of HPE, one on our synchronous replication feature rollout, one on a case study, and one on new availability topics with Dr. Highleyman, all of which are listed below:

·        Recent Developments in Improving Mission-Critical System Availability, Bill Highleyman, Bruce D. Holenstein

If you are interested in discussing our presentations’ content or would like us to present this or other HPE Shadowbase topics to your staff, please contact us. Congratulations to Rodney Winfield of UPS for winning our Sennheiser headphones prize!

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.

comForte launches new Enterprise Data Protection Suite

comForte 21 GmbH (‘comForte’) launches its new enterprise wide Data Protection Suite known as SecurDPS. In order to integrate with a variety of business-critical applications, SecurDPS provides both simple APIs and application transparent integration options.

This results in minimal (or zero) effort for code development in order to activate data protection. The SecurDPS data protection engine is based on comForte’s patented tokenization algorithm, and provides strong, secure, stateless tokenization of sensitive data.

Optional configuration capabilities exist for companies who wish to integrate with other 3rd party data protection engines.SecurDPS helps organizations to meet compliance and data protection requirements and allows them to better manage the risk and minimize the impact of potential data breaches.

 Contact Information

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

Availability Digest Discusses Amtrak Train Control in the U.S. Northeast Corridor

In the early 1990s, The Sombers Group, a custom software house that built large, real-time mission-critical systems, was awarded a contract by Amtrak to develop a train-control system along the U.S. Northeast Corridor. Sombers was founded in 1968 by Availability Digest Managing Editor Dr. Bill Highleyman. The contract came about because Amtrak, a U.S. nationwide passenger railroad service, ran into challenges with its Tandem-based control systems installed by another company.

“Controlling Amtrak Trains in the Northeast Corridor” is Dr. Bill’s account of the work his team undertook with Tandem systems to operate this busy railroad line that runs from Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C.

In addition to “Controlling Amtrak Trains in the Northeast Corridor,” read the following articles in the Availability Digest’s November 2016 issue:

Improving Power Availability with Microgrids – Portions of the U.S. electrical grid fail on occasion. At times, that failure is huge – Superstorm Sandy in 2012 left 6 million people without power. As a result, increasing numbers of communities are considering the feasibility of deploying microgrids, local energy networks that can separate from the larger electrical grid when there is a failure.

U.S. Internet Traffic Comes to a Halt – The Availability Digest needs to backpedal from its assertion last month that the Internet cannot be shut down in most developed countries, where Internet access is provided by many Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In mid-October, the Internet was taken down over a large swath of the U.S. due to a massive DDoS attack on Dyn, a major DNS provider.

Facebook Turns Off Entire Data Center to Test Resiliency – This takes guts. To ensure that its services will survive any outage, Facebook periodically will take down an entire data center to ensure that the predicted failover to its other data centers takes place rapidly and correctly.

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

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

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 786 members and counting. Follow us as well on Twitter @availabilitydig.
 

comForte’s recap of the NonStop TBC - bright future of NonStop

From start to finish, the NonStop Technical Bootcamp 2016 (NonStop TBC 2016) was jam-packed with interesting topics and relevant sessions - overall, it was well worth attending!

The opening day keynote speakers included Randy Meyer and Andy Bergholz from HPE. But before their presentations, the Connect Worldwide committee presented the “volunteer of the year” award to Michael Rossbach, retiring-CEO of comForte. His efforts with GTUG and his many decades of sponsorship with Connect and past TUG events, led to this wonderful gesture - and Michael certainly looked surprised receiving this award!

Randy Meyer, Vice President & General Manager, Mission Critical Systems at HPE, took the podium and spoke about his department, and how the NonStop sales contributions have helped support the mission critical product line. Randy mentioned that much of this is attributed to customers continuing to upgrade to NonStop X resulting in ‘double-digit’ growth for NonStop this year.

Read the full story.

DATAEXPRESS

All the reports from the NonStop Technical Boot Camp as well as our own experience there showed it to be one of the most interesting and well represented in many years. However, nothing presented there detracted from the need to keep moving files – whether from a Converged System such as we have today with NonStop systems, or from a Hybrid System where NonStop may be just one of the systems. There was agreement reached on one critical factor - there will be more files to move and that they will be bigger …

From a user perspective, there are still many NonStop users relying on scripts and simple utilities to move critical business information and in some cases, those charged with responsibility for ensuring the safe and timely movement of files can be a team. It’s time to reconsider the approaches being taken by many enterprises as there are solutions available to fully automate the process no matter whether these enterprises are dependent upon SFTP, IBM Sterling Connect:Direct® (formerly, NDM) or something else that is completely proprietary to the enterprise.

DataExpress represents one such solution and it is been deployed in numerous highly sensitive operations where the failure to move a file comes with penalties. Some of the largest financial institutions in North America today rely on DataExpress where in some cases tens of thousands of files are moved on a daily basis. In this environment, you only want to hear about something that didn’t work and DataExpress can provide immediate notification via whatever channel is preferred when such a situation occurs.

When it comes to Hybrid Systems, where combinations of NonStop and Linux are cooperating, this opens new doors for DataExpress. Having both a NonStop and Open Platform solution, the enterprise now has some flexibility as to where to run DataExpress and at Boot Camp, an update was provided on the first performance figures coming from testing DataExpress running on both NonStop and Linux where files were being passed between the two using NSADI (formerly Yuma).

This is a developing story for DataExpress so expect to hear more of this and the advantages that such an option can provide. Look to read about this in other posts and commentaries as 2016 draws to a close but it would be remiss of us not to thank HPE, Connect and the NonStop user community for their support of Boot Camp. As we understand it, there were more than 450 attendees and for a small company like DataExpress, Boot Camp is becoming an important forum for us and our customers.

Contact Info:

1401 Shoal Creek, Suite 250, Highland Village, TX 75077
email:                   sales@dataexpress.com

Sales:                    972-899-3476
Corporate:          972-899-3460
   

NuWave has a new look!

Check out their new, easier to navigate website to learn more about NonStop middleware solutions, view webinars and resources, and read their blog.

Dates for your diary - coming soon:

·       The 2016 Little Sig - Thursday 8^th December 2016 at Barclays, Canary Wharf

There are less than two weeks until the Little SIG on the 8th December, however registration will be closing at 4pm on Monday the 5th December, so please don't leave it to the last minute as anyone who arrives on the day or doesn't register in time will not be able to get in - no exceptions, sorry.

For the first time the day will be hosted by Barclays in Canary Wharf. You'll be fed, watered and be updated with all the latest NonStop news.

The education session in the morning will help you make the most of the on-box XYGATE security tools. The afternoon will see a Disaster Recover session by a BITUG member bank, a Tokenisation slot by comForte and lots of important news and updates from HPE.

There will be a few prizes given out throughout the day and a networking session with food and drinks provided in the evening - what's not to like?!

If you'd like to attend there is no charge, but you must register in advance via the link on the BITUG website: https://www.bitug.com/little-sig-2016/

Note to all speakers: you must register in advance and an important note to everyone: you must bring photo ID on the day - no ID, no entry!

·       The  European NonStop Symposium and the BIG SIG rolled into one major event (eBITUG):

Do Not Miss Out - Mark Your Diary Now

9^th and 10^th MAY 2017 at the DoubleTree Hotel – Tower Of London

Your BITUG Committee along with fantastic support from our current sponsors: - comForte, CSP, Gravic, NTI, OmniPayments, Xypro, TCM, 4tech, ETI-NET, NuWave, Canam, BrightStrand and Idelji, have been busy planning this event for some time.

Here is a taste of what’s to come:

Keynote sessions include Jimmy Treybig, multiple tracks with presentations from HPE, Users and Vendors.  A vendor social evening prior to KO and the EBITUG networking evening sponsored by CSP.

Visit www.BITUG.com for the latest news, our current planning is to have registration open early in the New Year with options to book hotel rooms at the same time.

Kevin Poultney

Chairman, BITUG.

BrightStrand International Limited

CSP proudly launched its innovative security solution - Protect-X® - at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp in San Jose this month. Now you can manage NonStop security without installing anything on your NonStop system*.  Take a free test drive of this amazing new technology on our NonStop test facility without leaving your desk!  Just email us here to request your free test drive.  Alternatively, you can contact us for a free trial to try it with your own system(s).

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

Protect-X® is not only a security manager and it's not only for NonStop!  It features full approvals chains for authorizing changes, automated security hardening and many other features including merged audit trail support. Protect-X® provides a revolutionary way to manage Safeguard and OSS security via a mobile-friendly, HTML5 interface. It also supports most Linux and other UNIX security environments and can be used for mixed platform and virtual systems.

Protect-X® Features:

ü  Nothing to Install*;  runs in any web browser

ü  Automatic update feature (user controlled)

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

ü  Provides security hardening recommendations based on CSP-Wiki®

ü  Automatic compliance with customizable hardening rule sets.

ü  Manages NonStop security from any web browser

ü  Contains built-in user roles with authorization controls

ü  Handles change control using workflows

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

ü  Self-hosted web application using HTML5

ü  Mobile friendly

ü  Provides full user audit and reports

ü  Many new features planned for 2017

For complimentary access to CSP-Wiki®, an extensive repository of NonStop security knowledge and best practices, please visit wiki.cspsecurity.com

Regards,

The CSP Team

+1 (905) 568-8900

* - Existing CSP customers do not need to install any NonStop software to use Protect-X® in their environment. New users need to install a light footprint Safeguard agent.

Musings on NonStop! - November, ‘16

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

Margo and I have just returned to Boulder, Colorado, having spent all of last week back in the San Francisco bay area where we had attended this year’s NonStop Technical Boot Camp. Can’t give enough thanks to all those who helped make this event possible nor can I heap enough praise on those from HPE whose direct involvement gave the event tremendous credibility. Again, many thanks to everyone and yes, looking forward to returning for next year’s event which I understand will see the location change from the San Jose Fairmont to the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf Hyatt.

Before commenting any further on Boot Camp I must add how much I am looking forward to the upcoming eBITUG – a combination of BITUG with an annual European event. As it’s been noted in the autumn 2016 issue of the BITUG Newsletter, “The last time the UK hosted the European NonStop event was in 2007 in Brighton” and I recall it well. 2007 was the year Margo was on the ITUG Board even as I had wrapped up my term so it was a transitional year. It was also the first occasion where I had stepped out of my role at Insession to begin a new life at GoldenGate.

And it was a time when I was taking my first small steps into the world of social media having just launched the NonStop community blog, Real Time View. If you scroll down the posts of October, 2007, you will find considerable coverage of that earlier event: http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html And yes, before you ask me, Margo and I are making plans to attend the upcoming eBITUG event, May 9-10 at the Hilton Double Tree hotel.

This past month too saw the launch of a new online publication, Nonstop Insider. An ambitious undertaking, of course, as nothing happens for free but I have to admit, the format and presentation came out a lot better than I had originally imagined. I covered the launch in my column to The Connection magazine – check out, Back for more … (Nov – Dec 2016) where the theme of the column centered on the development of a media ecosystem every bit as important as product as well as services ecosystems. There’s a new web site and an optimized presentation format ideally suited to today’s smartphones and tablet so the next time you are standing in line at Starbucks waiting for you Latte, check out http://www.nonstopinsider.com/

Finally, when you consider everything that was discussed at this year’s Boot Camp, there is greater understanding developing around the value proposition of Hybrid Systems even as there’s more than passing interest in vNonStop and about both of these products / technologies, I am very excited about their prospects within the NonStop community. This too was something that gained considerable attention at Boot Camp and I am anticipating covering this in more detail in future posts and commentaries.

But for now, check out all of the recent posts for more about my observations, opinions  and much more:

Real Time View:

And this month I wrote a fourth post as I celebrated the commencement of my tenth year of blogging!

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2016/10/more-milestones-this-time-its-400th.html

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2016/10/fall-is-time-to-take-in-change-rug.html

http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2016/10/oh-canada-nonstop-rug-ctug-enjoys.html

LinkedIn blog / Pulse:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ctug-all-wrapped-up-we-back-road-richard-buckle?trk=mp-author-card

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-day-dawns-welcome-nonstop-insider-publication-focused-buckle?trk=mp-author-card

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hpe-turns-up-volume-hybrids-nonstop-vendors-following-richard-buckle?trk=mp-author-card

NonStop Insider – a new online publication:

http://www.nonstopinsider.com/editorials/october-editorial/

Striim:

http://www.striim.com/blog/2016/10/business-intelligence-versus-business-analytics-striim-helps-you-get-out-in-front-of-whats-happening-today/

DataExpress:

https://dataexpress.com/2016/10/28/dataexpress-participate-nsadi-workshop-boot-camp-2016/

TCM Solutions:

Have you searched out NonStop?

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8546566/8546566-6188076475497930754

Welcome to the inaugural issue of NonStop Inside https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8546566/8546566-61964321556781711141

Richard Buckle
Founder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC

 

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

Find out more about us at www.tandemworld.net