TCM covered the miles; now it’s time to reflect on 2025 Nonstop events.

TCM covered the miles; now it’s time to reflect on 2025 Nonstop events.

Rushing from one airport’s terminal to another, looking to see if we were headed to the right gate, grabbing a latte on the run and just trying to make sense of today’s travel experience, has become the norm for many IT professionals. Nothing stands still for a moment and there is always an air of expectancy, given how so much can change in an instant. Then again, this has always been how we do things; going into event season and now that 2025 is drawing to a close, gaining valuable insights into what drives the Nonstop community today cannot be replicated in any other way than by spending time directly conversing with those tasked with deployment and operation of Nonstop Compute converged systems.

For TCM, travel is an ever-present necessity. Running the gauntlet of lines stretching what seems into infinity as check-in, security, and gate entrance becomes a blur. However, travel for the TCM team continues to be an ongoing learning exercise, framed by the awareness born out of years, often decades, of field services experience. For as long as TCM has been actively engaged with the Nonstop community, it has been a learning exercise.  This year, TCM made the commitment to pack our bags, heading down to Australia for OzTUG; repacking our bags a short time later, as TCM headed to Canada for CTUG. Like Australia, this was unfamiliar territory for TCM as we ventured into the big bright wide world in order to better serve our growing Nonstop client community.

TCM is becoming more aware of the need to think globally. It is imperative to all members of the Nonstop vendor community to think in a similar manner, but for TCM, the sense of urgency has intensified. TCM has begun to address the all-important question, “how can I do it better?” It has been recognized for some time that falling back on the mantra, “but we have always done it this way,” was of little value to our customers, given the changes they were going through.

Chief of these changes has been aggressive moves to modernize Nonstop’s presence and indeed participation within an enterprise IT operation. Building on the fault tolerance, the industry-best level of availability, strengthening resilience, embracing DevOps, and more Nonstop customers are driving the need to tap greater depth of experience from within the consulting services providers such as TCM.

Present at Nonstop conferences was Daniel Craig, TCM’s Managing Director. Even as we moved on to the biggest event of the year for our European customers, E-BITUG, European NonStop Symposium, it was Daniel Craig whose clear message of doing better resonated with all audiences, “How could we do better?” The message built on more than the simply, we have always done it this way, to where the advent of AI, Generative AI, considered passive and Agentic AI, considered proactive, is raising the bar on how best to integrate Nonstop in a world that is thriving on adjacent servers.

“Stepping out in front of an audience of Nonstop community members,
it is always a moment to celebrate. This may seem at odds with the seriousness
of the occasion but it’s a great time to acknowledge that we are still here,
all prospering from a platform that doesn’t fail in an era where
failure, corrupted data and network glitches have been considered normal.

The Nonstop community stands alone as the sole group of Nonstop customers
who do not accept this normality and have risen to address it with
Nonstop converged systems that support an uptime presence unmatched
within the industry.”

Daniel Craig
TCM Managing Director

Following close behind HPE Discover 2025, the most important event of the year for the Nonstop Community, TBC 2025, was held in Houston, Texas. The annual big-tent gathering at the HPE Nonstop Technology and Business Conference 2025 (Nonstop TBC 2025) turned out to be the place where messages created for HPE Discover 2025 were repeated for the Nonstop community. Key among the messaging was the very real prospect that AI would not be on Nonstop but be deployed on adjacent servers, a situation that had already been socialized by Nonstop team members. This was well received by the TCM team as it aligns well with our own messaging around how we can do things, better.

We again packed our bags to head off to The Netherlands for INNIG (Inter-experience Netherlands NonStop Interest Group). Upon our arrival in Utrecht, it soon became clear that this event would be well attended. Then again, with the history of Nonstop Compute centered in Utrecht, it is always a great location and always attracts a crowd. TCM’s Shiva Subramanian presented “Pushing the Boundaries with Virtual Nonstop.” Shiva’s passion for everything virtual shines through. Not everyone agrees with his views, but it leads to debate and discussion which is always a prompt for “Can we do it better.” This passion is exactly why INNIG attendees regularly show up for these Nonstop community events.

TCM has now had time to debrief following Nonstop TBC 2025 and, in the process, our event post-mortem turned to what was good, bad and ugly. Much as the main characters in the film of the same name each exhibited one of these characteristics, different elements of Nonstop TBC 2025 offered up similar characteristics.  Already covered in commentaries posted elsewhere, it’s simplest if we recount them here:

The Good … quite simply, the venue centered on an exhibition great room initially presented a challenge for all attendees but ultimately proved to be an inviting stage. Attendees knew where to find us.

The Bad … not to put too fine a point on what stood out was well, for TCM, was how the venue and in particular, the exhibition hall, lacked privacy.

The Ugly … there were just too much information that could be presented in such a short space of time. The net result being that some presenters had a room with less than five in the audience. Considering the effort and cost of TBC, the numbers of tracks was quite simply overwhelming; surely, we can do better?

The year is coming to an end but not before we sign-off 2025 events with one last opportunity to carry our message forward and to lay the ground work for what we know is going to be a big year for us in 2026.  The BITUG Little SIG (Special Interest Group) in London to be held on the 6^th November will be another opportunity to listen to Shiva as he continues to push the boundaries with virtualized Nonstop (vNS).

“Conferences are a mainstay of community gatherings.
It’s where communication flows in both directions.
It’s where networking provides insights into future program,
products and promotions.

“It’s where the foundation for modernization is laid and
it’s where the community hears firsthand who has met
with success and who are still to see the path forward.”

Andy Vasey
TCM Services Consultant

It is obvious that the community wants to continue having the face-to-face events and we’re sure that organizers will take our comments as an input to “how we can all do better” discussion. As we head into 2026 and begin to pencil in event dates and circle travel dates – think Munich April 14 – 16 for eGTUG – European Nonstop Symposium 2026 – it’s clear to the TCM team that we have come a long way under the new leadership of Nonstop and for that we remain strong supporters. The future may be more of the same for 2026 but together, as a community, even so we can still do a lot better!