For those who registered for the 2015 HP Discover event in Las Vegas the folks at Connect, the HP User Group, entered your name into a draw for free tickets on the latest attraction to hit Vegas – the High Roller that is a part of the new open area devoted to restaurants and bars.
Labelled the "VIP Ride in the Cloud", I was fortunate to be one of the names drawn from the hat and so late into the evening, Tuesday, Margo and I found ourselves riding high with the whole of the city spread out before us. As an aside, I want to publically thank all involved with Connect as they not only hosted us across several capsules but also arranged to have an onboard bar in each of them – a reminder that as a community, functions involvingNonStop never truly take us far from the good times at Tandem, with their legendary beer-busts.
While there is considerable debate within the NonStop community about the potential value to be derived from attending HP's biggest of big tent events for the year, it really is the only opportunity for quality one-on-one time with HP management and executives. IR made such an investment, in time and money, with IR Inc. President, Andre Cuenin, and Director of Sales – Americas, Jay Horton, flying into Las Vegas for the occasion. There are possibly other ways to work with HP, but nothing beats the opportunity for face-to-face meetings and the insight into HP's business as well as product directions proved invaluable. Given how the newest product family, NonStop X, has just been announced and the rhetoric in support of NonStop within hybrid computing has ratcheted up quite noticeably, it's an important aspect of any software vendor's business to hear of HP's plans first hand.
While the term "high roller" has been synonymous with high stakes gambling through the years, HP is going through considerable change where those vendors that are part of the HP ecosystem feel like they are placing some very sizable bets. First up, there's the separation of HP into two $50+ billion companies with vastly different focusses. One will be pitching to enterprise board rooms while the other will be marketing to the consumer, but at least with Prognosis the choice of new HP to work with is obvious. However, once that decision has been made, there's still a variety of products being released even as the completely new architecture, as encapsulated in what HP calls The Machine, is inching it's way to fruition. In between what we have today and what is to come, there's considerable talk about hybrid computing involving the integration of disparate systems as well as multiple combinations of cloud scenarios - from public clouds to managed clouds to private clouds as well as combinations of all three.
Where the strength of Prognosis truly lies is its ability to run on all systems and servers being marketed by HP – the results of decisions taken a decade ago when Prognosis was re-implemented; the NonStop version in support of Linux / Unix / Windows (LUW). Overseeing the monitoring of applications running on any combination of systems and servers is now simply having Prognosis talk to Prognosis and interface with operations and business personnel, all from a single pane of glass – something that already is acknowledged by the more than 60% of the installed NonStop base, HP believes are running Prognosis today.
There's always considerable value to be gained whenever there's interaction between partners and their primary vendor, in this case, HP. When asked about this, Horton said that, "it was obvious that the HP executives were being pulled in many directions, but they exhibited a willingness to make time for IR Prognosis, and have open and honest discussions on how we can work together. It is invaluable for us as a partner to have direct conversations with the management at HP, as we expect the NonStop arena to be a dynamic environment for us in the future."
This willingness on the part of HP to talk of their plans for NonStop, just as importantly, is valuable to those using Prognosis and makes the case for Prognosis to be an even stronger candidate for HP's customers as the product lines continue to merge and morph – a sight, I have to believe having now returned from Las Vegas, rivals anything we saw as High Roller crested some 540 feet in the air. The view provided by High Roller was truly unreal for a first timer like myself, but everything about Prognosis, on the other hand, particularly with what was on the exhibition floor, is very real and of significantly more value over the long haul.
