What Can we Expect in 2024?

From NTI’s perspective and having given this due consideration, we are in agreement that the risk of Ransomware may be less than imagined due to the inherent robust architecture of the NonStop operating system but rather, the actions of rogue and yes, disgruntled, operations staff represent a bigger risk. As noted in recent articles and posts, for NTI it may be as simple as gaining access to super.super to do more damage to a NonStop than any actions from a provocative external source. The options available today from the NonStop vendor community regarding zero trust and multifactor authentication represent a great place to start in heading off these rogue interactions. Simply put, it is understood by all NonStop customers that it remains a wise course of action to improve the defenses erected around NonStop but even so, already we have become aware of the actions by some NonStop community members looking more like marketing than being a practical approach.
NTI has always been in the Business Continuity marketplace providing support for fast responses to disaster recovery. This includes both natural and unnatural disasters. Whether it is an earthquake or a hurricane, the NonStop community has long taken steps to ensure that NonStop systems are distributed geographically to better protect from isolated outages caused by these disaster scenarios.
This is what has driven the business of NTI for a very long time and where NTI has a proven track record of protecting enterprises from potential data loss. Simply put, with NTI as partner, NonStop customers are assured of operational continuity, no matter the circumstance. And this includes the basis for rapid recovery of data compromised by the ambitions of misguided staff bent on destruction.
What NTI has recognized as a growing market for our products has seen us enter the modernization arena. What drives modernization projects today is not only limited to exploration of new methodologies and capabilities but is also driven by vendor relationships. The support for NonStop systems hasn’t always been wholeheartedly embraced by all vendors particularly when viewed from a competitive perspective.
The support for IBM MQ / MQSeries has seen more than its fair share of speedbumps thrown up by those involved in the project to support NonStop systems. Likewise, Oracle with GoldenGate has made a few missteps itself being very late to the Intel x86 Architecture. Think too of the duration of Tuxedo as supported on NonStop or even NET/MASTER. All of these attracted niche supporters within the NonStop community but perhaps of them all, what NTI has witnessed first hand is the growing unrest among NonStop customers where GoldenGate has been deployed.
At events of the past year, many of the conversations have centered on what’s new. NonStop customers are always interested in new products and new features. In our most recent planning sessions, NTI has focused on this topic of what’s new and for the company, the recent work that we did to successfully migrate one NonStop customer from GoldenGate to DRNet®/Unified – a migration completed in record time from PoC to Production – falls under this heading of what’s new.
A NonStop customer committed to BASE24 was able to focus on DRNet®/Unified and not have to think in terms of the complexity that is imposed when TMF has to play a part. “Adding to the value proposition is the presence in DRNet®/Unified of BASE24 integrative capabilities that are a part of our standard product offering ,” said Tim Dunne, NTI’s Global Director of Worldwide Sales. “What this brings to the NonStop customer is a reduced resource commitment to any conversion effort from GoldenGate to DRNet®/Unified, benefitting as they will from our services being provided as part of such conversions for no additional fee.”
Arising from the success of this project is a new product offering from NTI. DRNet®/Unified for GoldenGate Conversions and it represents a brand-new packaging of DRNet®/Unified that has resulted in fewer steps needing to be taken to complete a successful migration away from GoldenGate. Whereas previous approaches involving the NonStop team have taken years to complete, NTI has reduced the window to months. This is indeed newsworthy and will become central to the messaging from NTI in 2024.
What is equally as newsworthy is the experience gained on current migration requirements and these newly gained experiences together with the counselling that NTI can provide is proving extremely beneficial to those who look to modernize their support of business continuity – nothing quite softens any perception of risk than hearing how best to proceed from those who have gained the most recent experience.
This is not to say that it will be the only focus area for NTI but rather, represents an alignment with one of the most topical areas of interest to the NonStop community. Modernization. It takes the form of choosing wisely products, methodologies, services and perhaps most of all, partners. To this extent, ensuring there is always choice available to the NonStop community will remain newsworthy and while the fireworks welcoming the new year are well and truly over, isn’t it satisfying to know that with NTI, security, migrations and business continuity remain central to the business of NTI in 2024.