The NonStop community is a very special community, as unique as the product itself. Over the decades that NonStop systems have been processing transactions these systems have been given many labels. Some of these labels are less flattering than others, however, there’s no disputing the presence of NonStop wherever there is a need to process some of the most mission-critical applications on the planet. And the user community, well, they remain as evangelical as they have ever been.
At the heart of any discussion about NonStop systems ongoing presence in an enterprise is the issue of whether or not something could do almost as good a job for less money, but the simple answer, despite arguments to the contrary, is that nothing does as good a job as NonStop. I was reminded of this when a business acquaintance forwarded to me recent observations Gartner made about appliances. The context was Gartner’s review of Oracle where they said, “Until Oracle began using Exadata for transactions, the more than 20-year-old Tandem was the only transaction appliance”.
NonStop Street Cred
So yes, NonStop has its “street cred” earned over decades of successful transaction processing. Street cred? By definition NonStop “commands a level of respect … due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments” as well as it is giving its users “a quality that makes you likely to be accepted.” It’s not surprising then that NonStop has thrived through the decades and that its supporters are visibly proud of what NonStop provides. And it’s not a shock to see attention being given to NonStop when it comes to the integration of transactional data with event data, as well as reference and historical data.
WebAction is the first vendor working on simplifying real-time analytics and providing frameworks for quick development of data driven apps, and as such, supporting NonStop is highly visible on its radar. Just like users, vendors too demonstrate a strong affinity for NonStop – it may well be true that NonStop (nee Tandem) has been the only transaction appliance available for many decades. Though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing even if the term appliance has become jaded of late. What’s critical is that vendors, like users, see the importance of NonStop and make sure, when it comes to real-time analytics, they include NonStop in their all-important roadmaps, something the folks at WebAction are only too happy to acknowledge!
