Globally published HP NonStop journal – ‘The Connection’

A HPE NonStop article I wrote in 2013 while I was working for Insider Technologies Limited in Salford Quays. I was working with a bank client in Saudi Arabia at the time who required a browser based solution for querying terabytes of transaction log data downloaded from a HPE NonStop mainframe. I themed the article on sci-fi movies. PDF version – page 12.

Episode IV – A New Hope
(…for both Archived Legacy and Real-Time Transactions and NonStop EMS Alerts)

A long time ago (well, 2010) at an EBUG conference far, far away (I guess it depends on where you’re coming from but anyway, Madrid)… Cue anthemic signature music and then, as the strings slowly fade away, pan left to a NonStop hand held aloft on the back row of a technical track presentation and an Insider speaker raising his eyebrows to acknowledge… ‘Yes, at the back’… a qualified voice is heard and a question is raised… ‘Can I store and query on 10 to 15 years’ worth of legacy, tape archived BASE24 TLF and PTLF transaction log data?’… the qualified voice continues… ‘I would also like to query on related EMS messages, POS and ATM administration data’…slight pause… ‘Oh yes, and display appropriate standard and custom tokens for EMS alerts, TLF and PTLF transaction data’… and one last volley of questioning tone ‘with consideration towards on-site directives for PCI DSS compliance?’… read on…

Author: Mark Whitfield

Welcome to my site! After graduating in Computing in 1990, I accepted a position as a programmer at a Runcorn based software house specialising in electronic banking software, namely sp/ARCHITECT-BANK on Tandem Computers (now HPE NonStop). This was before the internet became more prevalent and so the notion of enabling desktop access to company accounts for inter-account transfers and book keeping was still quite a cutting edge idea (and smartphones only ever hinted at in Space 1999). The company was called The Software Partnership (which was taken over by Deluxe Data in 1994). I spent 5 years in Runcorn developing code for SP/ARCHITECT for various banks like TSB, Bank of Scotland, Rabobank and Girofon (Denmark) to name but a few. I then moved onto a software house in Salford Quays for further bank facing projects. After a further 23 years in the IT industry and now a Senior IT Project Manager (both Agile and Waterfall delivery), I thought I would echo out my Career Profile in this corner of the internet for quick and easy access. View all posts by Mark Whitfield