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Modernize your IBM Z Deployment Today... Real-Time Access to Mainframe Data is Here

Authored by Mark Nesson

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Are you ready for instant access to your IBM Z data in any BI tool? ibi™ Open Data Hub for Mainframe empowers you to modernize your use of IBM Z data--giving you real-time access to that data in the cloud, without compromising on security or your existing data framework.

If you work with sensitive, regulated data housed on a mainframe, you know that there are challenges to accessing the information you need. Real-time access to data, in a secure environment can be expensive and requires data warehouses or special tools to access.

Challenges include:

Data Format - mainframes use unique data formats and structures designed for legacy systems. They may lack the APIs and interfaces needed to extract data easily.

Data Volume - mainframes handle vast amounts of data that make data extraction time-consuming to transfer to another system. This can also lead to lags in real-time information since the data is out of date as soon as it is extracted.

Data Security - with strict security measures in place for sensitive, critical business data, moving data from the mainframe can become complex to ensure compliance with industry regulations.

Data Mapping and Validation - ensuring the data is properly mapped and validated can be time-consuming, especially if the data has to be restructured.

To date, business users have needed mainframe experts to build data warehouses, design custom SQL tools, create ETL tools and manage a host of data integration tools to access the information they need. With ibi™ Open Data Hub for Mainframe, we have solved this dilemma.

Open Data Hub provides access to a diverse range of mainframe data sources without the need to ETL data to Windows or Linux. Data can be accessed in place and there is no need to modify secure mainframe-based processes for managing transactions and staging data. And, we utilize the zIIP specialty engines to reduce the workload off the general-purpose CP making it more cost-effective to access the data.

Business users can work in multiple business intelligence tools to analyze and visualize the data. If you are a WebFOCUS user, you have everything you need to access and use the data today.  If you use another BI platform this allows you to access and connect to your data.

You can learn more in our WebFOCUS virtual user group on August 23rd.