Letters

 As we near the end of the year, it’s clear that 2020 will live in infamy for many years to come.  Between the COVID-19 pandemic, with a devastating loss of life now reaching 200,000 people in the United States, to terrifying weather such as lightning strike storms, temperatures reaching 130 degrees in Death Valley, massive forest fires in the West, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, floods in the South and even a fire tornado being sighted in Northern California, we often feel like we’re living in a horror or disaster movie.

August 2020, where to even start…  As I write this note to our community, things in the US are still uncertain vis-à-vis Covid-19, but I know as a community, we will continue to thrive and do great things! HPE had a virtual Discover event that was pretty well received, things are still in the planning stage for the NonStop Bootcamp, and I am sure we will have a great event no matter what format it will be. We have also had a few great NonStop virtual events, so things are continuing, abet in different formats.

We’re in a new world, “new” in more ways than one. The biggest change is the social norms and people interactions. Not sure how long it’s going to last. Some say “this could be a lasting change” but I do hope that’s not true. Human perseverance to improve lives have always won over crises that threaten to take us backwards. I do look forward to see that happening this time again!

A year ago, none of us could have foreseen the type of year 2020 has turned into with most of the country sheltering at home or just starting to reopen businesses but when venturing out, wearing masks as we try to go about our lives during the worldwide COVID 19 pandemic.   I’m proud to say that HPE has been very good in moving all employees to work from home, checking in and keeping everyone informed as to the latest information from our governments and the company’s future plans within those guidelines.  And we expect HPE to very slowly begin reopening some of our business sites over the summer.   Before we start talking about the NonStop business and events, I’d like to take a moment to send all of you, our customers, partners and friends around the world our best wishes for your personal good health and the good health of your families during this time of social distancing and uncertainty.  As things start to reopen again, we hope you are continuing to take appropriate measures to keep yourselves healthy and safe.

There is something about having a long experience in this industry that is of high value to us because we get to witness how different technologies are born, going through a hype cycle, being adopted in very specific solutions or getting wider adoption or in some cases just being forgotten. For customers it may be a daunting task to decide where to invest. So many new technologies simply claim to solve world hunger. In general it is rare that a technology becomes universal across all vendors. TCP/IP can claim that, for languages C/C++ and Java have had success, for operating systems, is Linux the standard now? But what else? When it comes to programming for example, not long ago, multi-threading was the common way to scale an application. Then BigData proved that “scale out” may be a better way to address massive scale for data access. I think we knew this already in our NonStop world but the industry didn’t.

There is an old Chinese curse that says “May he live in interesting times” and it seems we all are! With everything happening around the globe these days, we all need to stay alert and make smart decisions. Panic is not a strategy. Many trade shows are being canceled, and time will tell if the regional user group meetings will be canceled too. If they are, I’d like to encourage folks who were going to be presenting to share their message via our publications and website. Our Slack channel is open for business, and as a community we can use it to gather and discuss all things HPE.

With a new year upon us, it’s a great opportunity to look back and reflect on where we’ve been, the successes we’ve had, the lessons we’ve learned, the new friends we’ve made, the relationships we’ve strengthened.

Most of you are used to seeing this column penned by Navid Khodayari, who has done an amazing job for the last two years. With the new year, Navid has been promoted to past-president and I have been given the honor to be your president. I hope I will be able to continue the legacy that Navid has left me, I am sure with your help, along with our newest members of the board we will continue to build upon his work.