Day three; it’s a wrap-up at NonStop TBC 2019

The final day is winding down as the attendees gathered for one last time to enjoy lunch. Surprisingly, attendance was still very good and for a community that had spent long hours “networking,” that for some didn’t end until after 2:00 am, reminiscent of days, long ago, of ITUG Summit’s past. It really is an encouraging sign to see so many members of the NonStop community enjoying the time out to hear the latest from HPE and Nonstop.

Wednesday morning was a time for interviews and in-depth dialogues. For me, it is always the time to throw questions at folks who have a keen interest in the future of NonStop. In addition to the usual “did you like the event this year?” as well as “what about the venue and the food?” I also asked for comments on the take up of NonStop X and virtualized NonStop.

Consensus?

NonStop X is really on the move with many NonStop users pursuing upgrades – a great sign in terms of what will likely dominate the conversation throughout 2020. On the other hand vNS is really in its infancy with the traditional NonStop user not rushing to deploy and for good reason; there really aren’t any savings in going to vNS.

And yet, if you already have cloud infrastructure in place and have the knowledge of how best to leverage virtualization then yes, there is potential upside with vNS. But there is still a feeling that those electing to go down the vNS path will be in it for the database and for new applications, but it’s still very early days and as the message coming from HPE continues to emphasize the as-a-Service model, it is inevitable that vNS will develop traction in time.

Going into the event, I had hoped to hear more on the HPE NonStop team’s plans for embracing the core / cloud via hybrid IT as well as  the intelligent edge, but apart from casual conversations with HPE folks kicking around ideas as to why this would make sense, there is nothing concrete happening just yet. The emphasis here for me is on the “just yet” as clearly HPE CEO Antonio Neri has made it very clear that with the goal of the Intelligent Edge program being “this new family of products and services we will enable you to run unmodified enterprise-class applications and services from the edge so you can make your hybrid IT simple.” Simple?

No, so far nothing concrete to report. On the other hand there were numerous conversations concerning the need to know more about NonStop deployments as part of hybrid IT – is anyone actually doing this right now? As events are planned for 2020 we all hope that we will hear a lot more about the real world deployments of NonStop as part of hybrid IT and I for one would look forward to hearing the business case driving such a deployment, although I suspect early use case scenarios will likely center on NonStop SQL/MX on NonStop systems participating in hybrid IT.

And with that, attendees are now all heading to the airport so until the next event takes place, safe travels!