Articles by Ron Thompson

When it comes to system availability, whether for “ cloud computing “ or on a “ platform “ , people frequently hear about ” 9’s ” of uptime.  Many service level agreements (SLAs) specify at least 99.9 % availability (3 9’s  – or –  < 9 hours of downtime / year), or, 99.99 % (4 9’s – or –  < 1 hour of downtime / year).  In conjunction with this, to further define system performance, the SLA Availability Metrics agreed on need to be from the End User perspective and apply from the time the application initially goes live.

Recognizing the NonStop community is technically oriented with people having many years of system experience, it’s understandable that comfort is high when “The Topic Du Jour” is about technology.

Satisfying today’s very demanding applications and business needs is a made to order scenario for NonStop.  As the following chart highlights, NonStop is a superior platform for enterprises if the goal is to improve outcomes.  The platform options to support applications essential to business success are summarized in the following chart.

Under the circumstances, hope everything is going as well as can be expected. All the best in getting through a very difficult time with the Coronavirus.

As we all know, business is becoming increasingly technology-based. With this, enterprises need to deliver new digital services and be better at business innovation on an ongoing basis to continue being relevant and to expand their opportunities. This is fundamental to delivering value, growth, creating wealth, etc. – which is very important to Customers and stakeholders.

As has been stated in previous Expanding NonStop Opportunities articles, the main metrics for applications very important to the organization are –

99.99999 % (7 x 9s) or higher system availability
$1,000,000. / minute fee from supplier for non-compliance

Extending on previous articles on improving outcomes with NonStop by “Aligning Applications and Platforms”, NonStop is also relevant in conjunction with “Cloud” initiatives or in a “Platform” strategy – and important in Hybrid system environments.

Increasing business relevance and revenue on an ongoing basis is very challenging. For proof, look at the increasing number of companies dropping off the Fortune 500 list. And even for some established companies still on the list with shrinking valuations, it’s clear digital transformation to successfully address new opportunities and increasing business demands is difficult.

Based on the news “Shares of Wells Fargo & Co. closed down more than 2 % after a nationwide outage hit the bank’s ATM and online networks.”. To quantify how bad this is for the business and stakeholders, based on a business valuation of $243 B, the 2 % hit equals a loss of about $5 B!