N2TUG 2025

On April 24^th, N2TUG’s members came together for our 2025 meeting.   If you were expecting NonStop to relax after turning 50 last year, you’re in for a surprise.  More great things are coming from HPE’s NonStop Division this year in both the Hardware and Software arenas.  The big hardware news is two new converged hardware platforms. In honor of that, our theme was “Bring on the Starships!”

Like the past two years, our event was held at the Hurst Conference Center in Hurst, Texas, not very far from D/FW Airport, making it easy for those traveling to present or attend. The venue is attached to a very comfortable Hilton Garden Inn for convenience.

The day kicked off with a breakfast taco buffet at 8.  At 9, President Bill Honaker of XID Software, Inc., took note of the incredible support from HPE’s NonStop Division and our sponsors. Then Justin Simonds, Master Technologist and HPE’s liaison for N2TUG, introduced HPE’s speakers. In the audience were representatives from 11 current customer companies (some consultants under contract to those companies) in the financial, retail, and transportation fields.  That represented a 33% increase in faces over 2024.

HPE took to the stage with a power four-pack.  Karen Ramirez, HPE’s North American Director of NonStop Sales, and Neil Davis, newly-promoted Global NonStop Sales Director, Casey Taylor, the VP and GM of the NonStop Division, and Roland Lemoine, Product Manager of the NED.  Karen led off with a quick look at the 2025 Highlights for the NonStop Enterprise Division, Neil and Casey shared what their roles mean to the NonStop customer community, and then Roland got deep into the NonStop Roadmap.

Peter Mehta, Head of Sales for our Platinum Sponsor and Reception Sponsor Computer Security Products (CSP), followed with a talk on Risk Management and Compliance.

CSP’s presentation was followed by the first 2 of our Gold sponsors.  Paden Hollenstein, Product Manager of Gravic, Inc. spoke on HPE Shadowbase Digital Resilience and Ransomware Data Recovery, and introduced their new partnership with ETI-NET.

Mike Mitsch, Global Business Development director for ETI-NET, gave an update on Innovations and their Product Roadmap, as well as expanding on their new partnership with Gravic, Inc.

We enjoyed a great lunch buffet with Steak and Salmon, some great salad and vegetables, and a challenging set of desserts to choose from.

Robert Martin and Tom Miller, 2 NonStop ES&A Technical architects from HPE, kept everyone awake after lunch with news on ‘Project Frigg’; NonStop Integration into Enterprise Observability.

Our third Gold Sponsor, Sheetal Mule, Technical Product Manager for OmniPayments, gave an update on how their products deliver Payments as a Service, focusing on their Non-Stop tools for NonStop, and increasing availability using a ‘node in the Cloud’.

Gold Sponsor Jeff Boyer, account manager at XYPRO, shared strategies for Cybersecurity for Ransomware Protection.

Ed Adams, comforte Senior Solution architect, gave an update on PCI DSS 4.0 compliance. “It’s here, now what?”

Steven Donaldson, VP of Professional Services, and Donna Stanford, RMS Delivery Manager, from Odyssey Information Services, discussed their new service delivery product for NonStop Continuous Compliance.

Vincent Guerrera, Sales Account Manager for NuWave, was our final speaker for the day. He shared that NuWave unlocks new capabilities such as authentication exits and Kafka Integration in LightWave.

The day ended with door prize drawings for the end-user attendees who had made it through the entire day.  Prizes were given by CSP, ETI-NET, Gravic, OmniPayments, comforte, Odyssey, NuWave, and XYPRO, and we at N2TUG really appreciate it!  After that, we found time to network together at the evening reception with some creative hors d’oeuvres, wine, beer, and cocktails.

Again this year, the audience was very active with questions and discussion for all the speakers.  We could have used even more time in the day, but we were able to make good use of what we had.

We’d also like to thank our Breakfast sponsor, Odyssey, who also helped with registration, signage, badges, and printing, and sponsor XID Software for providing Bill Honaker’s time and planning to make the day go smoothly.

We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at Connect Worldwide’s Technology and Business Conference in The Woodlands this September—that’s right, a Texas TBC! And of course, we hope to see you and your associates at next year’s N2TUG Meeting. Take a browse through our photo gallery, and hopefully, it’ll help you decide to and make plans to join us!