When we write up our end-of-year reflections at NuWave, we usually look back fondly on that year’s tradeshows and user group meetings around the world, the friendly faces we’ve seen, and the boisterous dinners with partners, customers, and friends in the HPE NonStop space. This year has of course been vastly different from previous years, with little face-to-face interaction of any sort. The year has not been without its bright spots, though.
We did manage to sneak in one in-person conference this year before travel was restricted: that was SunTUG in February, which seems like a lifetime ago now! We were represented at this always-light-hearted event by NuWave’s founder, Ernie Guerrera, and our partners at TIC Software, who presented on future-proofing NonStop with NuWave’s LightWave solutions. Little did we know this would be the last time we would convene with the NonStop community in 2020 (shortly after that, one of the first US outbreaks occurred right in our backyard of Boston, Massachusetts). Given the ability to see the future, surely we all would have liked to have one last hurrah before the pandemic started! Maybe, looking back, that was TBC 2019; and while we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the time, we certainly took that week for granted.
Once the various lockdowns started around the world, things started to look different for us all. Fortunately, NuWave’s employees had started working completely remotely in 2019, so we were well-positioned to continue work with very few changes to the business, aside from having to give up our lunch meetings and team-building trips in exchange for virtual happy hours, meetings, and team-building activities. Our main concern was obviously the physical and mental health and well-being of our employees, but they have proved to be resilient in the face of crisis. They have continued to offer uninterrupted support for our customers throughout the pandemic and remain committed to this task day-in and day-out.
When the pandemic started to pose a serious threat to the global economy, and more specifically our customers and business partners, NuWave reached out to offer support. We have continued to work with our customers and employees to make sure we are offering whatever is needed to help people get through these difficult times.
While Covid-19 has undoubtedly posed a challenge to all of us, we have taken this time to reflect on the way we do things and to further strengthen our values and our company culture. We have been working on improving our communication with each other, understanding each other better, and providing opportunities for employees and the company to make a difference. This year was the first time that Election Day in the US was given as a paid holiday, so employees could get out and vote for their candidate of choice. We have also been making a concerted effort to work with more minority- and woman-owned businesses (MBEs and WBEs).
We have also had some good news this year. We enjoyed the chance to work with Insider Technologies, a NonStop solution provider based in the UK, and a new partner of NuWave’s, to help them modernize the interface of their Reflex product using LightWave ServerTM. That successful use case was presented at VIRTU-NUG, the first all-online NonStop event of the year, and it was also covered in The Connection’s July/August edition, as well as on our NonStop Innovations Blog. A summary can be found on YouTube.
In addition to Insider, we brought on another new partner in 2020: Pay Intelligence, a new corporation based in Mexico and servicing NonStop customers in Latin America—more information on this partnership to come! We are excited to be working with both Insider and Pay Intelligence.
We have also been working closely with our customer, RedLink, the leading switch in Argentina, to help them progress a number of LightWave use cases. For the March/April edition of The Connection, we interviewed Gustavo Martinez, RedLink’s NonStop Engineering Head, to discuss their various REST initiatives, including interfacing to BASE24. That interview is available in both Spanish and English on our blog (link provided).
NuWave’s Director of Operations, Andrew Price, has been working with Gustavo (above) on a very special presentation for this year’s NonStop Technical Boot Camp (The NonStop All Digital Experience). This presentation covers even more use cases—including some that are currently in-progress—than the above article, so make sure you check it out on NuWave’s YouTube page to learn about what RedLink is planning next.
As of this writing, we were looking forward to connecting with everyone virtually at TBC. We were especially excited about sponsoring the photo contest, which would certainly be interesting with everyone joining the event from home!
Throughout the pandemic, we have been working hard to stay engaged with our NonStop community. Even though we thoroughly disapprove of seeing ourselves on webcams and hearing our own voices, we’ve found that videos work well for keeping in touch. NuWave CTO Dave Belliveau started a series of LightWave feature tutorial videos, which have been incredibly well-received, and Dave just “loves” the spotlight, so everyone is happy! So far, Dave has covered message logging and working with optional elements, and soon to come is his video tutorial on BLOB support. We have also posted our first vlog, which talks about what microservices are and how to get your NonStop applications to work with them. All of these videos can be found on NuWave’s YouTube channel.
Some other good news is that NuWave has been growing this year, and we are planning to expand further in 2021. Hopefully, it will be safe for new and old team members to meet each other in person then! Given the circumstances, this year could have been much, much worse. Most importantly, we hope that all our friends in the NonStop community stay well, and we look forward to seeing you in the not-too-distant future. Here’s to a better 2021!
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