Tandemworld eNewsletter for May 2014

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Tandemworld eNewsletter for May 2014


Contents

comForte: Legacy Application Modernization - From the ground up and from the user in

BrightStrand Health Check Service

Musings on NonStop! - May, ‘14

XYPRO Completes Management Buy Out

comForte: The 'SWAN2' song - uLinga as an alternative

Gravic Publishes New White Paper on Shadowbase Data Recovery Software

NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2014

XYPRO's Instructor Led Education Classes 2014

Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming Events

 

comForte at events near you in 2014

Where we are in The World...

Please Visit Gravic at these Sites

Big Data is certainly the thing of the moment.

Third Data Corporation

Preview TANDsoft’s “Interception Technology Enhances Application Functionality”

OmniPayments Preauthorization Services Minimize Complexities of Credit/Debit Card Transactions

“BASE24 OMF Event Management”

SOAPam® Gets Endorsed, Again

Availability Digest Managing Editor Will Speak at Upcoming KNUG

Modernize or Migrate?

 

Online Version

Current Subscribers 14976


 comForte: Legacy Application Modernization - From the ground up and from the user in

Tandem Computers have come a long way to become the HP NonStop systems of late and it's been a bumpy road for NonStop users. With the recent announcement by HP to take HP NonStop to the x86 platform there is a 100% commitment to the NonStop server platform. HP has invested a lot of time, energy and money into modernizing the NonStop hardware and software environment. What's often lagging behind is the application that was developed long time ago and could really do with an 'overhaul' or 'modernization'.

 

Why should you modernize your legacy applications? Organizations usually modernize legacy applications because they serve a valid business function but at the same time there is a need to reduce the costs associated with maintaining them and make them more adaptable to new technologies.

 

There are really only three ways to modernize a legacy application:

1.     Replace the application with New (custom) Development. New Development is risky, expensive, very long in duration and difficult. It also requires lots of user and executive involvement. New development projects have a very high chance of being late and over budget, many times significantly over on both.

2.     Purchase a replacement software package. This too is expensive, the off-the-shelf package is never a ‘good fit’ (i.e., some current functionality is not available in the package), the conversion is risky, also requires lots of user and executive involvement

3.     In-place modernization. An in-place Modernization is lowest risk because the application already works, improving it piece-by-piece is also low risk, low cost and easy for everyone to understand. In-place modernization does not require major user or executive time commitments. These projects have a very high chance of being on time, on or below budget and any adjustments in scope or functionality are relatively easily made.

 

In-place modernization is the most sensible approach and comForte can help organizations to modernize their legacy applications from the ground up and from the user in.

 

At the user interface level you still find a fair amount of green screens which are awkward to use and which are far away from being modern. With JPath comForte is able to convert green screens into more intuitive and modern browser based screens.

 

At the middleware level, comForte's CSL (client server link) provides the 'smart plumbing' which allows users to integrate the HP NonStop applications in the wider IT landscape. Webservices and a host of API's make this possible.

 

Lastly, at the database level, comForte Escort SQL provides a migration  path from Enscribe to SQL. Applications which traditionally used the Enscribe database can now be 'taught' how to fully use NonStop SQL/MP.

 

comForte’s products are intended to work together to provide whatever level of modernization a particular customer may need.

This mix-and-match approach provides customers with complete flexibility in tools/solutions and the order in which they apply modernization to your environment.

 

HP modernized ‘the system’ (from Tandem to HP NonStop), comForte can help you modernize the apps to bring them to the 21st Century!

 

We recently hosted a successful webinar on modernization of legacy applications. Feel free to watch the recorded webinar at …

 

http://comforte.com/resources/product-information/webinar-modernizing-legacy-applications/

 

If you would like to discuss your modernization requirements please contact us at Sales@comforte.com.


BrightStrand Health Check Service

Maximise your hp NonStop(tm) Server environment.

 

The BrightStrand International hp NonStop Server Health Check Service has been created in order to provide users of hp NonStop(tm) Servers with a situation report as to the status of their hp NonStop systems and service environments.

The service has been designed by BrightStrand, to assure customers that they are getting the optimum from their current hp NonStop(tm) Server environments.  The Health Check will provide a guide to assist customers in making improvements to various service areas.  It can also be used as a tool to aid the decision-making process in such key areas as hardware purchasing, system migration and Service Level Agreement (SLA) planning. 

The service will take into account a number of factors depending on the pre-defined scope.  These may include - procedures, strategies, system performance, configurations and security.  The service will involve the monitoring of system metrics, an assessment of general procedures, a review of software revision levels and a general check of the installation.

Service Objective

The objective of the Health Check is to provide high quality reviews of service areas that have been identified, by the customer, as being of concern or of interest. The main goals of the service will be:

·        To advise on compliance with standards.

·        To report on efficiency and performance.

·        To identify possible problem areas and recommend solutions.

·        To advise on current or future strategy.

This will be achieved by engaging a fully qualified and experienced BrightStrand consultant that will work closely with the customer to agree the scope of the engagement and to identify areas of special interest or concern, use BrightStrand tools and solutions to gather the necessary information and documentation, analyse the information and deliver the agreed reports. Consultancy will be provided in the areas of Performance, Capacity Planning, Disaster Recovery, Operations, Database Management, System Security, System Management and Hardware Maintenance.

For further details please contact Dave Stewart today on +44 (0)7831 775115 or email him on dstewart@brightstrand.com.


Musings on NonStop! May, ‘14

The opinions expressed here are solely
those of the now self-employed author


It is the end of May and June is upon us, so it’s 2014 HP Discover time! To me this is one of the highlights of the year – where else can you go to see all of the HP executives at one time? What other event lets you hear firsthand what’s in stall for the greater HP community? It will be hot, there will be crowds, but it really is THE time to immerse ourselves in all things HP.

There are many within the NonStop community who set aside funds to make sure they can participate in the 2014 NonStop Technical Bootcamp to be held in San Jose, November 16 – 19 (for more information, check out connect-community.org). Not to take anything away from the Bootcamp, but its laser-like focus on NonStop means you will likely miss hearing about the bigger HP. This year, at 2014 HP Discover, HP’s CEO, Meg Whitman, will be involved in two general session keynote presentations!

On Tuesday Whitman, together with HP executives, John Hinshaw, George Kadifa, Mike Nefkens, and Bill Veghte will talk about Defining the New Style of IT and about HP providing solutions for this new foundation. The following day, Wednesday, Whitman will be joined by a familiar face, HP’s CTO and EVP Marin Fink, where they will talk about their vision of the future for the New Style of IT. As someone who’s always up for looking at something new, I am pretty much in the same boat as everyone else and have to wonder what’s this all about, then!

When I wrote my Musings on NonStop this time last year, I quoted from a Forbes article that had appeared the month before, HP Moonshot: Say Goodbye to the Vanilla Server.  What had caught my attention were the observation by Forbes contributor, Patrick Moorhead, about how, “The biggest driver of datacenter expansion are the pervasiveness of smartphones and a new class of devices, nicknamed IoT, or Internet of Things.” I quoted from the article too, how, “Current enterprise datacenters aren’t prepared for the onslaught of devices coming their way.”

Last week I visited California and met with many of my clients. The topic that kept coming up was how systems had to change, how databases had to be enhanced, if not replaced, and how the demands by users were fundamentally shifting the programming model. New ways to write programs kept coming up, like data-driven programming and more specifically, data-driven apps. It would seem that datacenters are indeed aware of the approaching flood of devices and are taking the first steps to accommodate everyone.

Data-driven programming? According to Wiki (and referencing work by IBM’s Michael Stutz), “In computer programming, data-driven programming is a programming paradigm in which the program statements describe the data to be matched and the processing required rather than defining a sequence of steps to be taken.” In the blog stackoverflow, there’s additional commentary on data-driven programming. “In data-driven programming, the data is not merely the state of some object, but actually defines the control flow of the program. Where the primary concern in OO is encapsulation, the primary concern in data-driven programming is writing as little fixed code as possible.”

But data-driven apps? This has become the focus of another client of mine, WebAction Inc. In the post of May 12, 2014, to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View, What’s next in Vegas! I quoted WebAction Cofounder Sami Akbay, who talked about, “Our product is .WebAction Real-time Enterprise App Platform (REAP). Our view on data-driven apps is that the value comes with being able to use REAP to build apps in days, not months or years.”

Surely, “enterprise datacenters aren’t prepared for the onslaught of devices coming their way” is as much about the way IT approaches crafting programs as it is about the raft of new devices about to connect. And the move to an apps model is recognition that there’s a need for a wealth of super lightweight apps, similar to what we all use on our smartphones and tablets, and pursing the tried and true models entrenched in IT will not cut it.

As WebAction Akbay noted, “We have all seen the disruptive technologies that have reshaped IT – the Internet, mobile phones, and social media. Consumer-centric software revolutionized how information is accessed, and against this backdrop it’s just not possible to embrace a data-driven world without viewing it in the context of being supported by data-driven apps.”

So yes, it’s not surprising then to read about HP executives talking of there being a need to define the new style of IT. I am sure it will include references to Big Data, Cloud, Mobility, Security, and will provide an update on Project Moonshot as well. However, for the NonStop community the real issue comes back to what role will NonStop play in any new style of IT envisioned by HP. I am hoping that the presence of Martin Fink, alongside Whitman and in his new role as head of Clouds, might provide some clues. But I am also acutely aware that NonStop may not be part of the agenda – and that, I hope to change.

When it comes to new style of IT, there’s still no letup in the demand for systems that are always-on and hardened, if you like,  against the many ills that are already plaguing public clouds. Will we see Clouds secured by NonStop? Will we see Clouds administered and monitored by NonStop? Will we see a new branding – NonStop on guard! It’s not like I am going to attend with my fingers crossed, but rather, to have a real close look at all that’s involved and with the idea that NonStop can indeed add value. After all, forty years on and NonStop is still as disruptive a technology as it ever has been in the past.

I closed my Musings on NonStop this time last year with the comment that datacenters will be processing many more transactions than ever before and the companies consuming them will deem many of these transactions mission-critical. NonStop has only upside opportunities with this, and of that I am confident. And about this my confidence remains as high too as it has ever been in the past.

Watch for my posts and commentaries included in next month’s Musings as I return from this year’s HP Discover with even more to discuss!

 

Richard Buckle
Founder and CEO

Pyalla Technologies, LLC
Email:            
richard@pyalla-technologies.com

Following my blogs? My web publications? My discussion Groups?

Check out (copy and paste to your browser):

Real Time View at
http://www.itug-connection.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, Real Time View

comForte Lounge at http://comfortelounge.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, comForte Lounge

Realtime.ir at http://realtime.ir.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, realtime.ir

ATMmarketplace at
http://www.atmmarketplace.com/blogger.php?id=130763

buckle-up at http://www.buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the SubGroup on LinkedIn, Pyalla Track Days


XYPRO Completes Management Buy-Out


The management team of XYPRO Technology Corporation, a leading provider of mission critical security solutions, has successfully completed a management buyout from the company’s founders, and previous owners, Dale Blommendahl and Sheila Johnson.

The buyout has been led by Lisa Partridge, XYPRO’s President, along with Barry Forbes and Andrew Price, who are both executives with the company.

 

Click here to continue reading the rest of the article...

 

Stay Connected with XYPRO

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn Group
BlogSpot
YouTube


comForte: The 'SWAN2' song - uLinga as an alternative

 

HP recently started to announce the End of Sales of the SWAN2 box which is used by many to connect devices to HP NonStop systems using SNAX, X25 and other protocols.

 

Whilst SWAN2 boxes will be at least supported until June 2017 according to the HP NonStop Hardware Maintenance List (available on the HP NonStop website in the 'Product' section), maybe now is the time to look for alternatives.

 

uLinga might be the one for you.

 

uLinga allows users to connect their legacy devices to the HP NonStop system via TCP/IP.

 

Contact us at Sales@comforte.com for more information.


 

Gravic Publishes New White Paper on Shadowbase Data Recovery Software

 

In this newly published white paper, Shadowbase Data Recovery Software, Gravic discusses its flexible and customizable products, Shadowbase REDO and Shadowbase UNDO, which can quickly and safely restore corrupted databases with a minimum of downtime and a maximum of confidence, reliably eliminating the potential costs and risks associated with corrupted data. Shadowbase Data Recovery Software products are able to meet specific needs, including customization via powerful User Exit facilities. Depending on the nature of the corruption, Shadowbase REDO may be used when significant data corruption has occurred, affecting a large part of the database, or Shadowbase UNDO may be used if the amount of data corruption is smaller, localized, or application service availability must be maintained while recovery is in process

 

Gravic Presents at NENUG and N2TUG Spring Events

At the recent spring meetings for NENUG in Andover, MA and for N2TUG in Dallas, TX, Gravic presented on: Avoiding the Risks of Application Downtime – Moving to Continuous Availability Business Continuity Architectures. Both meetings included excellent technical content and peer-to-peer networking with NonStop technology engineers, executives, practitioners, analysts, consultants, and other industry professionals.

The NENUG meeting was held at the HP offices, and was followed by an informal gathering at a local watering hole. Congratulations to Peter Fabiszewski of SunGard and Rich Cuevas of GE Capital for winning the Gravic gift cards!

The N2TUG meeting was held at the Addison Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater in the North Dallas corridor, where the evening show, “No Laughing Matter,” was enjoyed by all. Overall, the event – including a presentation by Jimmy Treybig – was a great success, in spite of the tornadic weather in the area! Congratulations to Sandy Gerhardt of Solutions Connection LLC who won our Kindle Fire HD! If you missed our presentation and are interested in discussing its content or having us present it to your staff, please contact us.

For more information, please visit: www.gravic.com/shadowbase, or contact us at +1.610.647.6250 or SBProductManagement@gravic.com to discuss your specific situation and to learn more about our solutions.


 NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2014

 

Registration is open!  https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1496544

Early Bird price:      $1095                        (expires June 1st)

Regular price:          $1295

 

(FYI – Hotel rooms at Hayes Mansion are limited, so make your reservation now!)

These 28 NonStop Partners have committed to exhibiting at the Boot Camp!

ACI

Ascert

Attunity

BlackWood Systems

Canam Software

Carr Scott

comForte

ESQ

ETI-NET

Gravic

HP Services

Lusis Payments

Marshall Resources

Merlon

Network Concepts

Network Technologies

NuWave

Oracle

Prognosis by Integrated Research

QSA

Resource 1

TANDsoft

Third Data

TIC

Tributary Systems

Voltage Security

WebAction

XYPRO

Did you see all the Partners you want to talk with?  Please take this short, anonymous survey to help us plan for a fantastic NonStop Event:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VVZDNZD

The Partner SIG looks forward to reuniting with Customers and HP this fall!

Kathy Wood

NonStop Partner SIG/Vendor Chair

kwood@blackwood-systems.com

 


XYPRO's Instructor Led Education Classes 2014

2014 XYGATE Classes
October 20-24, 2014 
Class Open
Register for the next General XYGATE Learning Class 

XYPRO® provides formal instruction for all XYGATE Security products.
Classes for up to eight (8) students are offered at XYPRO's education
facilities in Simi Valley, California. Classes can also be held on-site at your 
facility and be customized to meet your unique requirements 

XYPRO offers both General XYGATE Learning and Advanced XYGATE Instruction 

General XYGATE Learning is for those just getting started with NonStop 
and XYGATE security or those who wish to hone their XYGATE skills in a broad
range of HP NonStop Security fundamentals using the XYGATE Suite
of security solutions. 

Periodically, XYPRO will offer Advanced XYGATE Instruction classes. Advanced
instruction is also available on request. Topics may include, but are not limited to
XYGATE production configuration deep-dives, XMA SYSLOG and SIEM appliance filters, 
user-exits, expanding storage for XMA, user impersonation, file hashing,  
XYGATE Encryption Library (XEL) implementation and XYGATE Intercept Library (XIL) implementation. 

 

Stay Connected with XYPRO

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn Group
BlogSpot
YouTube

 


Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming Events

 

HP Discover 2014 Las Vegas, NV, 10-12 June

 

KNUG Event Seoul, South Korea, 2-3 July

 

VNUG Conference Balsta, Sweden, 9-10 September

 

The Payments Knowledge Forum (EBUG) London, 29-30 September

 

Connect NonStop Technical Boot Camp San Jose, CA, 16-19 November

 


comForte at events near you in 2014

 

Join us at these events:

 

HP Discover 2014

10-12 June

Las Vegas

VNUG

9-10 Sept 2014

Stockholm, Sweden

PCI Community Meeting, North America

9-11 Sept 2014

Orlando, FL, USA

EBUG Knowledge Forum

29-30 Sept 2014

London, UK

PCI Community Meeting, Europe

7-9 Oct 2014

Berlin, Germany

CTUG

8 Oct 2014

Toronto, Canada

CONNECT Advanced Technical Boot Camp

16-19 Nov 2014

San Jose, USA

PCI Community Meeting, Asia Pacific

19 Nov 2014

Sydney, Australia

BITUG BIG SIG

2 Dec 2014

London, UK

 

 

 

And there is more, join the security discussion in the HP NonStop [Tandem] Security Group on LinkedIn.

 

Last but not least, follow us on ...

comForteLounge BlogSpot

comForteLounge LinkedIn Group

comForteLounge Twitter

comForte on YouTube


 

Where we are in The World...Join XYPRO at these upcoming Events in 2014

 

ACI Annual User Group Conference
June 3-6, 2014
Salt Lake City, Utah
www.aciworldwide.com

 
 
HP Discover
June 10-12, 2014
Las Vegas, NV,
www.hp.com

 
ACI Exchange Asia Pacific
August 5-6, 2014
Sydney, Australia
www.aciworldwide.com

 

 

VNUG Conference
September 9-10, 2014
Aronsborg, Balsta, Sweden
www.vnug.biz


 

PCI SSC North American
Community Meeting

September 10-11, 2014
Orlando, Florida
www.pcisecuritystandards.org


 

 

PCI SSC European
Community Meeting
October 8-9, 2014
Berlin, Germany
www.pcisecuritystandards.org


 
HP NonStop Technical
Bootcamp
November 16-19, 2014
San Jose, CA
www.hp.com
 
 

PCI SSC Asia Pacific
Community Meeting

November 18-19, 2014
Sydney, Australia
www.pcisecuritystandards.org


 

Stay Connected with XYPRO

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn Group
BlogSpot
YouTube


Please Visit Gravic at these Sites

Website  http://www.gravic.com/shadowbase

 

Twitter  https://twitter.com/GravicSB

 

LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/company/gravic-inc./shadowbase-data-replication-305119/product

 

Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gravic-Shadowbase/116969767814

 

Google +  https://plus.google.com/b/117288516055822969721/117288516055822969721/posts


Big Data is certainly the thing of the moment.

There is immense interest in the subject from all quarters, with many organisations appointing Chief Information Officers (CIO) to meet the challenges of this new deluge of data and information.

So what is ‘Big Data’ and what’s all the fuss about?

Firstly it is not new; the term was first coined in an article by Erik Larson for Harper’s magazine containing the sentences “The keepers of big data say they do it for the consumer’s benefit. But data has a way of being used for purposes other than originally intended.”  In its present form it was coined by John Mashey, at the time working for Silicon Graphics, who found that the parallel architecture of the Silicon Graphics environment had data mining benefits too. Indeed, further back, John did work with linear regression to determine where squirrels were most likely to bite through the telephone lines. Trivial by the standards of today but massive in the 1980s.

John Mashey was also interesting in that he highlighted over 20 years ago that data will always have the properties of ‘bigger, further and stronger’, in the sense that we will always want to collect more, store more and be able to do more with it.

Technology in terms of storage, architectures and hardware are making that possible; the thing that was missing was the software. The interesting development is that most of the software to enable Big Data is open source, which of course, means it’s free. Alas, there is never such a thing as a free lunch. The really costly aspect is finding people who can not only talk this strange language of Mahout, Splunk, Hadoop, Sqoop and other strange names but actually produce things with it.

One of the key philosophies of Big Data manifested itself during the time of the ancient Greeks, when Aristotle said “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Big Data comes into its own when data is merged. A small example of this is where Insider Technologies have merged Social Network feeds into its monitoring system, as on occasions, the Twittersphere has a valuable contribution to add to the sum of the parts when incorporated with a centralised monitoring system.

Having all this data also presents another issue - the visualization of large amounts of data. John Mashey used the analogy of ‘wetware’ for the brain. As hardware gets faster and able to contain more and more data, software must keep up. Our brains – wetware - are only as capable as they were 20 years ago to take in and process data, therefore it becomes imperative that software can select and display the data we need to see. This has given rise to visualizations that can only be described as works of art. However beautiful they are, are they really that useful? That is ultimately the key to the success of Big Data: large amounts of data need to be presented in a clear and concise way.

A small example from Insider Technologies on how to visualise large amounts of data, transactions, the infrastructure and events in a clear and concise solution.

In a NonStop environment we have been dealing with Big Data for many years – the real time transaction processing system that has dominated the NonStop space is the perfect seed for Big Data. At Insider Technologies we have been involved in many projects where we are turning the data from the NonStop environment into Big Data friendly formats. An interesting twist on this was quoted by the author Revathi Subramanian in a recent book “Bank Fraud”, when talking about how organisations, mangle, not harvest their data. She noted that data warehouses tend to ETL - Extract, Taint and Lose, rather than Extract, Transform and Load. Big Data relies on not tainting data, and getting more of it at source.

Insider Technologies provides real time monitoring solutions for these environments. This is an example of Aristotle’s view of additional data adding to the clarity of data. With everything being monitored within the multiple log files for the environment, application and HP NonStop EMS, to the actual data within the financial transaction, there is an enormous amount of data to retrieve. This requires an enhanced ability to manage networks and in order to achieve this, data needs to be turned into visualisations that can be easily managed and are targeted to the user.

This same data can also be used to analyse and detect fraud, which is, again, an example of how large amounts of real-time data can be used to respond to and categorise data. The key here, in an environment measured by the ratio to False Positives, is to ensure that only the relevant data is presented to the user.

There is little doubt that Big Data is here to stay and HP NonStop systems will be a key provider of this resource. The standards however, still have some iterations to perform, but they will ultimately emerge. In order for these Big Data initiatives to succeed they must be able to provide clear visualizations which provide continuous automation, monitoring, reporting and alerting, which we at Insider Technologies are specialists in. 

It should be noted though, that predictions are always dangerous in the world of IT. To quote the OS/2 programmers guide in November 1987: “I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.”  

Insider Technologies believe that some of the Big Data tools will outlive OS/2 but at this stage only the brave will predict which ones.

For further details on our Social Network monitoring solutions, please visit the following link:

Sentra for Social Networks – The price of not monitoring

Alternatively, please contact Insider Technologies at:

Insider Technologies Limited

Spinnaker Court

Chandlers Point

Salford Quays

Manchester

M50 2YR

United Kingdom

Website:               www.insidertech.co.uk

Tel:                        +44 (0) 161 876 6606

Email:                   enquiries@insidertech.co.uk

Insider Technologies Limited is ISO9001:2008 and TickITplus certified: TickITplus


Third Data Corporation

High Performance Switching and Secure Data Storage

888-301-2431 / sales@thirddata.com

 

               Third Data Corporation provides numerous products which can reside on HP Nonstop and other HP and Non-HP  hardware platforms. In addition we provide custom high performance software design and development for our clients.

FastBuild Switch – When building a switch be it ATM-POS, Wire Transfer, EFT, Medical, or any other type of data that needs to get from one place to another, you are usually faced with three choices. Take an existing package and modify your system to match it. Get the vendor to “enhance” their system to meet your needs. Write a new system from scratch. The FastBuild Switch integrates with your existing system, or if you are building from scratch gives you a great start. The switch is also built around the latest HP technology to maximize performance. It integrates several of our other products to maximize cost savings and security in a fault tolerant manner. In a cross platform environment it also runs on other non-Guardian HP supplied platforms.

SecureStore – If you are security conscience trying to become compliant (PCI, HIPAA, etc) then you know that you can not leave sensitive data readily viewable. SecureStore does three things for you. The data is encrypted so that you can become compliant. The data is compressed so that your hardware costs are reduced. As part of disaster recovery your data is sent to multiple locations so it will be available when you need it. As a bonus for those having trouble with Guardian 4K limits there is no record size. It supports Big Data with up to 18 Exabytes. It can also integrate with SQL systems (SQL MX/MP, Oracle, Postgres etc).

NxLib – NxLib provides a platform and utility libraries for developing a high performance multi-threaded applications on NonStop Guardian. The platform provides threading, queuing and network capabilities. This enables development of an application written single threaded style to perform as multi-threaded.   Extensible command processing and help are supported.  Development time can be cut to a fraction of the time it would normally take.  This results in fast  application development with consistent look and feel across multiple projects.

NxWeb – A high performance web server which provides support for NxLib applications.  It also can be used without NxLib.  It provides for secure connections, virtual domains, full http support and interfaces to pathway and IPC communications.

NxFile+ – NxFile+ provides compression and encryption to Enscribe structured files.  The files are configured through a GUI interface and the results are provided seamlessly to your applications, typically without any code changes.  In addition this provides for dynamic key changes on the fly so data stored at-rest may have its encryption keys changed as required.  Because the records can be compressed prior to encryption, it’s also possible to have records which significantly exceed the 4k record size limitations.

NxSSL – NxSSL is an SSL proxy which may be used to provide SSL encryption and authentication services to TCP/IP connections.  It provides full support for certificates and multiple encryption standards.  It has been carefully tuned to provide the highest performance available for any NonStop SSL connection.

 

NxUndelete – Files accidentally deleted can be a real problem.  Even when a backup is available, it is frequently a significant effort to retrieve it from a backup tape.  NxUndelete implements a recycle bin function on the the HP NonStop system.  Files deleted may be easily recovered using its GUI interface.

 


Preview TANDsoft’s “Interception Technology Enhances Application Functionality”

 

“Interception Technology Enhances Application Functionality” is TANDsoft’s latest contribution to The Connection, the bimonthly, NonStop-focused publication that in one form or another has been a staple of the NonStop community since the early ITUG days (ITUG Newsletter, The Tandem Users’ Journal, Tandem Connection, The Connection). The TANDsoft article will appear in the publication’s May/June issue, but Tandemworld subscribers are invited to preview “Interception Technology…” at http://bit.ly/Rb8eEM. The article also can be found by visiting TANDsoft at www.tandsoft.com.

TANDsoft is an interception specialist. The company’s products are designed to create new application functionalities for existing applications without the need to make source code changes, of particular importance when the source code is unavailable. As TANDsoft President and article author Jack Di Giacomo writes, “If you bought software from a third-party provider, you don’t need the source code. If it’s HP code, you don’t need the source code. Even if you wrote the application in-house and have the source code, you don’t need the source code.”

The article defines interception technology as a range of techniques that enable the capture of a variety of system and database API calls in order to enhance application behaviors. Interception takes place at the native API level, so any program written in any language can interact with the operating system without the need to alter the original program logic. The program, or code, that handles intercepted function calls, system calls, events, or messages most commonly is called a “hook.” In the NonStop world, a hook is known as an intercept library. Intercept libraries can be used for many purposes – debugging, tracing, application monitoring, statistics collection, testing, replication and synchronization, encryption and tokenization, virtualization, etc. All are examples of enhancing an application by extending its functionality beyond its original purpose and beyond the limitations of its source code.

“Interception Technology Enhances Application Functionality” reviews the architecture of interception, including the interception methods of Intercept-Dynamic and Intercept-Retarget. The article discusses the origins of NonStop interception, the benefits of interception, the misunderstandings about interception technology, and the areas in which today’s NonStop customers use interception technology to enhance the functionalities of their existing applications. Encryption and decryption for data in-flight and at-rest are some of the latest uses for interception technology, and future solutions are only as far away as are the problems they need to resolve.

TANDsoft solutions are based on interception technology. They include: the OPTA2000 virtual clock- and time-zone simulator; FileSync for automatic file synchronization, replication, and data deduplication; the OPTA suite of interception and trace utilities (OPTA­Trace Online Process Tracer and Analyzer, Recycle Bin, EMS Alerts Online Startup and Termination Capture Utility, Low Pin Optimizer); Stack Monitor, which alerts developers to the impending threat of a stack overflow; Command Stream Replicator, which logs and automatically replicates TMF-audited/unaudited FUP, SQL/MP and SQL/MX DDL structure and other environment changes to target systems; AutoLib, which automatically loads a user library or a DLL for executing processes; the Enscribe-2-SQL and TMF-Audit Toolkits and the new Enscribe-2-SQL Data Replicator, all of which offer flexible, affordable alternatives to more expensive conversion products or manual conversion techniques; E2S-Lite, which permits efficient, low-cost Enscribe modifications without the need to change a program’s source code; and SDI (Sensitive Data Intercept) for Enscribe and SQL/MP.

TANDsoft products require no application source-code modifications, are available for all HP NonStop servers, and support major third-party applications. Free trials are available. Visit www.tandsoft.com, or contact Jack Di Giacomo at +1 (514) 695-2234. Our Enscribe to SQL Migration Forum on LinkedIn is at 188 members and counting.

 


OmniPayments Preauthorization Services Minimize Complexities of Credit/Debit Card Transactions

The OmniPayments financial-transaction switch offers a comprehensive solution for financial institutions to acquire, authenticate, route, switch and authorize transactions across multiple input channels such as ATMs, POS (point-of-sale) terminals, kiosks, IVR (interactive voice response) units, mobile devices, and the Internet. It provides a full set of functionalities to support payment transactions.  As OmniPayments routes transactions to the card-issuing institutions, each transaction must be validated against an often complex set of rules before its execution can be authorized. The authorization process consumes valuable processing resources and requires the continual maintenance of authorization rules and parameters.  OmniPayments offloads this complex task from the transaction-acquiring and card-issuing institutions with a powerful Transaction Screening rules engine that can preauthorize transactions, thereby minimizing the time and bandwidth typically required to obtain transaction approval.   

An acquiring bank is a financial institution that processes credit/debit-card payments on behalf of merchants.  OmniPayments allows an acquiring bank to initiate a payment or to request and receive authorization from an issuing financial institution for an action on a customer card or an account.  OmniPayments routes the transaction between the acquirer and the authorizer. It can handle both On-Us transactions (the issuing bank and acquiring bank are identical) and Not-On-Us transactions (the issuing bank and acquiring bank are different). For transactions that must be forwarded to external issuers via regional, national or international interchanges, OmniPayments provides switch interfaces and optional stand-in functionality when the issuer for whatever reason is unavailable. Although individualized rules are created by different acquirers, OmniPayments’ procedures for rules maintenance, established by the OmniConsole rules-configuration browser, are consistent across all institutions, thereby easing the manual effort to keep the rules up-to-date and error-free.    

Additionally, OmniPayments can manage multiple devices and host application interfaces, offers a comprehensive security framework, and can interface with third-party products or legacy systems if required.

 

 

With successful implementations at many customer sites, OmniPayments is just one member of the Opsol family of solutions for the financial industry. Opsol Integrators specializes in NonStop mission-critical applications and offers customers all the requisite functionality to manage credit/debit-card transactions. Based on SOA architecture, OmniPayments is easily expandable to provide additional functionality when needed.

OmniPayments supplies complete security functions for every financial transaction that it handles, including encryption-at-rest and encryption-in-flight. Available around the clock, OmniPayments will survive any single fault, requires no downtime for maintenance or upgrades, and supports a range of disaster-recovery solutions.

For further information, visit www.omnipayments.com. You can contact Yash Kapadia at +1 408-446-9274 or at yash@omnipayments.com.


“BASE24 OMF Event Management”

 

CSP is receiving more and more inquiries on how we can help customers extract, report and act on BASE24 OMF events – simply merging the audit is not enough.

Using Alert-Plus, users can extract selected events from the BASE24 OMF logs, for example, logon/logoff events, institution security errors etc., and then selectively:

 

·             Forward alarms to a central syslog server – e.g. LogRhythm

·             Generate Emails

·             Display messages on a console

·             Create reports

·             Execute of TACL macros and other programs

Find out more on how Alert-Plus can help you take control of this key event stream at www.cspsecurity.com.


SOAPam® Gets Endorsed, Again

One of NuWave's customers recently sent along this endorsement, via email:

"There is no comparison between SOAPAM and NonStop SOAP. SOAPAM is easy to install, easy to use and it is a pleasure. Night and Day between it and NonStop SOAP. "

At NuWave, our middleware users tell us time and again that SOAPam has no competition. Many of them couldn't be quoted, but we still have a long list of testimonials that show how enthusiastic our customers are about the SOAPam suite.

There are many ways to exchange information with your Pathway applications, but SOAPam:

  • Comes with great customer service
  • Has a great value
  • Installs quickly, and
  • Is easy to use. 

It is also the only option that runs in Guardian, for a smaller footprint. To learn more about SOAPam Server and SOAPam Client, visit our website, or email info@nuwavetech.com.


Availability Digest Managing Editor Will Speak at Upcoming KNUG



Availability Digest Managing Editor Dr. Bill Highleyman will present “Help! My Data Center is Down!” at the upcoming Korea NonStop User Group (KNUG) meeting, 2-3 July, in Seoul, South Korea. Created from a popular series of Digest articles, the presentation focuses on spectacular data-center failures. Causes include power outages, storage subsystem failures, Internet and Intranet problems, upgrades gone awry, and human errors. Data-center managers have told Dr. Highleyman that they routinely gather their IT personnel to discuss the lessons to be learned from the articles and to subsequently develop operational improvements to avoid becoming a Digest Never Again story themselves. Dr. Highleyman also will make the presentation to a group of NonStop customers in Taipei, Taiwan, on Tuesday, 8 July.

Read the following articles in the Digest’s May issue:

IE Exploit Allows Remote Code Execution – Security firm FireEye recently discovered a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. A zero-day vulnerability is one in which the first attack is made before a company becomes aware of the vulnerability. As yet unnamed, the security exposure was reported on April 26, 2014. It affects IE6 though IE11, which represent 55% of all browsers worldwide.


U-2 Spy Plane Crashes FAA Computer – On April 30, 2014, the air-traffic control computers at the busy Los Angeles, California, Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) suddenly went down, paralyzing air traffic across the U.S. Southwest. After some denial, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finally admitted that a U-2 spy plane operating within the area at high altitude caused a software problem that crashed the computers.

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt – Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt tells the story of how the U.S. financial markets, once stable and predictable, grew predatory by feeding on the ordinary investor. A group of dedicated individuals set out to correct the situation. “Flash Boys” offers a comprehensive exposé of the exploitative practices that today’s financial markets have subtly adopted, practices not understood by even the most sophisticated investors.


Heartbleed Attacks Androids – Heartbleed is a flaw in the OpenSSL cryptographic software library, which provides communication security over the Internet. It allows attackers to read memory data from both client and server devices to obtain private keys, passwords, and user names. Android versions 4.1.0 and 4.1.1 contain the Heartbleed bug. Although Google has released a patch to correct the vulnerability in the Android operating system, it will take time for the patch to reach existing phones because updates must come via the smartphone manufacturers and wireless carriers. An estimated 50 million Android phones worldwide may be at risk.

@availabilitydig – The Twitter Feed of Outages - This article highlights some of the @availabilitydig tweets that made headlines in recent days. If you currently are not following @availabilitydig, consider making our Twitter presence a daily read.

The Availability Digest offers one-day and multi-day seminars on High Availability: Concepts and Practices. Seminars are given both onsite and online and are tailored to an organization’s specific needs. We also offer technical and marketing writing services as well as consulting services for achieving high availability.

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 632 members and counting. Follow us on Twitter @availabilitydig.


 


Modernize or Migrate?

 

By Scott Pasho - TIC Software

Technology continues to evolve, so IT professionals must strive to proactively keep their systems up to speed with the latest systems, software and other complementary solutions to maintain peak performance. Sometimes, however, in the process of accomplishing this task, a crossroads is reached. Organizations’ with HP NonStop, IBM and other mainframe systems will have a decision to make at some point; whether to modernize with current technology or migrate to another platform altogether.

We’ll take into account the benefits and challenges of both of these paths based upon several factors:

 

  •          System Upgrade Requirements to Address Ongoing Business Needs
  •          Costs & Resources Needed to Continually Meet Business Goals
  •          Clearly Defined Strategy & Road Map to Correctly Guide Efforts

Read the entire article HERE

 
Phil Ly
TIC Software
www.ticsoftware.com
Read TIC blog: www.ticsoftware.com/blog 

 

 


 

Find out more about us at www.tandemworld.net

 



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