Mission Critical

Twenty years ago, data analytics was a field reserved for geeks and academics, something discussed during breaks in lectures on chaos theory. The idea was to take a very random system, with lots of seemingly disparate data, and be able to tie that tangled web of data together so that meaningful outcomes could be predicted. The most obvious example is weather forecasting, which involves analyzing all the earth’s atmospheric randomness in terms of ever-changing temperature, moisture, and wind, somehow using that data to tell people to bring an umbrella to that 1 pm picnic a week from Saturday.

It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since we were told to shelter at home. I can

It is unrelenting: the continuous stream of hacks, leaks and burns that is our infosec space. As a vendor, it

Before we begin to look at HPE NonStop platform updates becoming available in 2021 it’s probably a good idea to take a step back and look at exactly what constitutes a platform. Like with every opinion, everyone has their own take on what constitutes a platform. It was so much easier when we all understood what was a computer, an operating system or an application but of late, the lines have become less clear. Can we still draw meaningful lines or have they become lines in the sand, subject to change every time a breeze disturbs their presence.

Ben Coan is a business development manager with Odyssey Information Services. Ben’s ability to develop long-lasting professional relationships has driven him to fully understand his clients’ technology needs and provide them with the best solutions. In addition, he has more than 20 years of experience in providing HPE NonStop support solutions for companies in oil and gas, healthcare, retail, banking, and financial services.

HPE has been working on some exciting new use cases for HPE NonStop, and so has NuWave Technologies. These cases are either currently being applied, or could easily be applied in the near future, in the healthcare sector.

In past years, prior to deploying an application, significant time and effort was expended in gathering requirements to produce a design. The design was completed up front, before any code was written or database schema created. Furthermore, the design was comprehensive and static – it was expected to be viable for years without requiring significant modifications. When changes eventually were needed, they became a major redesign effort that often impacted multiple facets of the application and database. None of this was completed quickly, or without risk.

With 2020 finally, in the books, it’s time to look forward and discuss our cybersecurity predictions that will most affect the industry in 2021. I thought long and hard about what I could say that would be impactful and hasn’t been said before.  Obviously, COVID-19 and its security ramifications will continue to stay with us for 2021 and well beyond.

On an HPE NonStop system, this transaction log is maintained by the HPE NonStop Transaction Management Facility (TMF) subsystem, and is known as the TMF Audit Trail (TMF AT). Data managed in this way by TMF are known as audited files, or audited data (conversely, non-audited-files and non-audited data).

Let’s get definitions out of the way. If you have been wondering about the difference between IT Transformation and Digital Transformation (DX) then you are not alone. Many IT professionals and business commentators have stepped in to clarify what these differences boil down to, but in many cases, they have only raised more questions. As we move into 2021, enterprises are deep into projects that are designed to better align technology with business outcomes and as they do so, the idea of transformation appears with almost regular monotony.

Remember Himalayas servers? Himalaya was a project name for NonStop Servers sold in the early 1990’s. The connection between the Himalayas and NonStop was established then, and today the Himalayas are still very much part of NonStop, as a lot of NonStop development is happening in “Himalayas land”, in India, at Bangalore.

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!

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) is a foundational requirement for security compliance frameworks to help identify unexpected or malicious activity across critical system files, diagnose unwanted or inadvertent changes, and shut down attacks before they have a chance to cause damage and disruption.

Lusis Payments is a leading global innovator of mission-critical payments software and data science technology. Established in France in 1999, Lusis has offices throughout Europe and North America with customers globally. In 2010, Lusis Payments was created to focus on the payments industry. Lusis is best known for its TANGO solution, an online transaction processing engine for mission-critical 24×7 solutions including payments, retail, loyalty, finance, fraud, utilities, and transport. TANGO delivers performance, availability, and scalability, with a rich set of functionalities, all from a single architecture. TANGO is built on a highly performing micro-service architecture providing agile delivery for business needs. Lusis has also made significant advancements in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, FX Trading, ISO 20022, Fraud and Blockchain.

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.

As we’ve been thinking more about the future of NonStop in this newly established column, an item of real concern has been how to continue to build community among vendors and customers, in the absence of users group gatherings. With most companies, including TIC Software, working remotely, how do we reach across the screen, so to speak, to cultivate key personal relationships?

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.

The maximum speed limit in Texas is 85 mph.  Maybe not everything moves fast in Texas, but cars and trucks certainly do.  Perhaps it is just due to the geography.  There is a lot of area to cover in the vast state of Texas. It is the largest state in the Continental US, although Alaska is 2.2 times larger by area, and Texas is second to California by population.  The GDP of Texas is $1.6 trillion, comparable to Russia, South Korea, Tokyo or New York City.

Insider Technologies recently went through a significant technology refresh of one of our core products, Reflex.  This article explains the reasoning behind that refresh, the steps that we went through to develop the refreshed solution, and the benefits we are enjoying as a result of the updates.

The L20.05 RVU is a significant release for NonStop middleware. It carries one new product and a major version upgrade of an existing product along with appropriate enhancements in others to support these two. The new product is HPE NonStop HTTP Server 2.4, a new web server, ported from the open source Apache HTTPD Server. The major version upgrade in L20.05 RVU is that of the Ported Binaries on HPE NonStop Servers, Java SE 11, called in short as NSJ 11. Both products are delivered via the commercial and telco SUTs upon ordering the RVU.

Every day, employees log in to many different software programs, from email to payment systems, and a myriad of other applications designed to help accomplish their daily tasks. Remembering all of the usernames and passwords associated with these products can be a real challenge with some users storing passwords insecurely, leading to serious data breaches. Single sign-on systems (SSO), i.e. moving to standardized services for digital identity, are crucial in alleviating the need for — and stress of — recalling a multitude of credentials. Providing a good SSO user experience has become more complex because the technical professionals responsible for implementing identity and access management (IAM) systems must balance user convenience against enterprise security risks.

Cash has been having a hard time lately.  With social distancing, retailers no longer appear to want your cash, they want you to keep a safe distance, but they still want your money in other ways.  In the most developed countries, payment by card is well established, and there’s generally a good infrastructure to accept card payments.  Globally, card schemes like Visa and MasterCard have reported a huge increase in the use of contactless payment in the stores where cards can be used, and many consumers have adopted cards in ways new to them…

Many clients and users at TUG meetings have expressed concerns to me about losing experienced members on their Nonstop team. These team members work in different groups, such as development, support or operations for the NonStop platform. Their contributions are crucial in the ecosystem of their company’s mission critical applications.  There is great concern in losing that pool of expertise.