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ITUG Europe 2005

Presented in collaboration with GTUG

The Global HP User Community...
        Stepping Forward with NonStop Business Solutions

ITUG members can view the conference proceedings using their membership login and password.

HP NonStop Users Come Together in the City of Unification...Berlin

More than 500 members of the HP NonStop community from almost 30 countries gathered at Berlin's Estrel Hotel and Convention Center for the ITUG Europe 2005. This year's event was held in collaboration with Germany's regional NonStop users group, GTUG, which provided all delegates from across Europe with a genuine "Wilkommen!", and hosted a German track for interested local delegates.

"This was not only an overwhelmingly successful event, but it was a truly collaborative one as well," commented ITUG Europe 2005 Co-Chair and ITUG Board Director Volker Dietz. "I say this because of both our successful partnership with GTUG and our success in working with HP and our third-party vendor community to provide our most expansive trade show ever in EMEA. Once again, we experienced outstanding HP executive support, including the new head of the HP NonStop Enterprise Division, VP & General Manager Martin Fink, who came on quite short notice."

ITUG Europe 2005 Co-Chairs, Volker Dietz and Michael Rossbach welcomed delegates and introduced ITUG Chairman Richard Buckle, who gave a brief "State of ITUG" address outlining progress on the organization's key initiatives in the areas advocacy, volunteer recruitment, and future growth. This update included a special announcement that Volker Dietz had been selected by the ITUG Board of Directors to serve as the 2006 chairman, following communication from ITUG Vice Chairman Stan Prushik that he would not be able to assume the position in January due to professional commitments. Buckle also expressed ITUG's appreciation for the support it had received over the years from Pauline Nist, HP's former VP & General Manager for the NonStop Enterprise Division, and welcomed her replacement, Martin Fink, to ITUG and the worldwide NonStop community.

Following the ITUG Chairman's address, HP Germany Country Manager Uli Holdenried welcomed delegates and introduced HP NonStop executives Martin Fink, VP & General Manager and Neil Pringle, Director of the NonStop Enterprise Division, HP EMEA. Fink and Pringle focused on the much awaited launch of the Intel® Itanium® 2-based HP Integrity NonStop servers. Fink and Pringle were joined on stage by special guest Richard Curran from Intel.

HP executive presentations continued on Wednesday with, Dave Stubbs, VP, Customer Support and HP Services, HP EMEA, who provided delegates with a customer support update.

As ITUG represents the entire spectrum of participants related to the HP NonStop community, featured speakers extended beyond HP executives and included Helmut Hauer of DaimlerChrysler, providing a perspective on HP NonStop usage by Daimler Chrysler and his thoughts for future requirements, as well as Gartner analyst Philip Dawson, who shared his thoughts for the future.

ITUG offered an extensive NonStop-specific technical programme, providing more than 50 technical sessions on developing applications; enterprise management; enterprise solutions and platforms: servers, storage, operating systems, and data communications, plus an array of popular vendor presentations. In keeping with their promise to be "stepping forward with NonStop Business Solutions," this year ITUG offered a number of presentations on business application solutions as well as an array of technical sessions on heterogeneous solutions, covering other HP platforms that integrate with NonStop technology to provide true business solutions.

Plus, ITUG remains the place for HP NonStop collaborative dialogue. This year's conference offered eight Special Interest Group (SIG) sessions focusing on Consultants, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, Java, NonStop SQL, Open Source, Operations Management, Performance, and Security & Audit. ITUG also remains the place for professional advancement. Many conference delegates took advantage of the on-site HP Certification Programme. Test preparation sessions and certification testing were offered free of charge to delegates wanting to earn new levels of certification.

The closing general session for the conference proved as strong as its opening with insightful wrap-up comments by ITUG Europe first-timer, Martin Fink, followed by ITUG's ever-popular Q & A. This year, in addition to HP NonStop executives, the panel included Buckle GTUG president and ITUG Europe 2005 Co-Chair Michael Rossbach moderated this year's Q & A with a bit more of a "Phil Donahue flair," moderating from the audience versus from the stage.

Panelists included:

  • Richard Buckle, ITUG Chairman
  • Martin Fink, VP & General Manager, NonStop Enterprise Division and Open Source & Linux Organisations, HP
  • Neil Pringle, Director, NonStop Enterprise Division, HP EMEA
  • Dave Stubbs, Vice President, Customer Support HP Services, HP EMEA

"Conferences like these don't happen by themselves," commented ITUG Chairman Richard Buckle. "It is very important that we don't lose sight of the time and extraordinary efforts put forth by the conference planning committee. We are extremely happy that our members honour these effort by a steadily growing attendance."

This year's ITUG Europe 2005 committee was comprised of:

  • Conference Co-Chairs: Volker Dietz and Michael Rossbach
  • Programme Chair: Margo Holen
  • Programme Committee members: Jean Isnard, Robert Osello, Joyce Perrelli, and Christian Schuetz
  • Vendor Chair: Dr. Werner Alexi
  • Programme Managers and Liaisons: Patty Fennell, Joyce Perrelli, Daryl Ragan, and Christian Schuetz.

For more information of this and future ITUG events around the world, visit www.itug.org/events/.