The arrival of a truly industry-standard NonStop family of systems happened at a very opportune time. Those with an interest in Big Data and the Analytics that access Big Data are aware that more of everything is needed, but just as importantly they recognize that perhaps not all data has the significance for business, and that in many cases some data is highly sensitive and needs to be considered as mission critical just as the business logic that is already categorized as mission critical. As we rush headlong into support the Internet of Things (IoT), ensuring mission critical data is never compromised will become very important to CIOs looking at the choice of systems on hand.
Here comes NonStop X
In the post of March 31, 2015, to the NonStop community blog Real Time View, Here comes NonStop X and here’s to another decade or two, or four, of NonStop excitement! I quoted HP’s WW Product Manager responsible for HP NonStop systems, Mark Pollans. “What we are announcing today is just the first member of the NonStop X family, the HP Integrity NonStop X NS7 X1,” said Mark and followed with, “In bringing NonStop to the x86 architecture, HP now offers customers a choice between it and the Itanium architecture. Both architectures can be relied upon to deliver resilient business foundation without compromise”. For many industries and government agencies, when it comes to choice, they have already spoken – it’s going to be industry standard x86 for the future.
NonStop systems cut their teeth on mission critical applications with the majority of these applications in customer-facing situations, where any loss of service could see customers turning to competitors. With this in mind then, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine data being considered every bit as mission critical as applications, where the traditional strengths of the NonStop architecture could prove beneficial. In her post of March 12, 2015, to Real Time view, My financial advisor talks IoT? former Tandem Computers executive, Margo Holen, wrote about “A conversation with our friend who had a pacemaker installed and who was called by the hospital while she was going home – they asked her to get right back as her pacemaker was sending disturbing messages. WTH! She had no idea she had a talkative device planted inside her!”
NonStop X for Mission Critical IoT Data
Would we want to see data important to saving lives left to some of the better known commodity Big Data implementations, or would you really want to see it on NonStop? With NonStop X such a situation will become highly probable shortly. And this wasn’t a surprise to the WebAction cofounder and EVP, Sami Akbay. In the most recent blog post to ATMmarketplace, Time to talk about ‘Things’ … Akbay said, “Transactional systems capture only events of interest. IoT systems capture everything and you need to filter out the unwanted noise in order to capture any event of interest. WebAction allows you to make realtime and complex decisions to identify those events of interest from IoT sources.” I sure would like to be assured that the data from my pacemaker is being considered mission critical and is correctly captured and then stored on something like NonStop X.
In the follow-on post to Real Time View of April 13, 2015, Industry Standard Rules, OK!, OK! I made the observation that when it comes to IT and the computer industry, the message is very clear – utilization of industry standard components wins out and those holding onto proprietary solutions cannot win over the longer term. Having a viable industry standard NonStop X system at a time when CIOs do need the option for something a lot more robust and reliable than currently on offer and yet, utilizing the Intel x86 architecture, must surely be a godsend for them. Not all data will hold the same significance for business even as not all data will be considered mission critical, but when a company identifies data as being mission critical, having it supported by NonStop will become a clear choice that CIOs will be reluctant to ignore.
