Drive Growth, Regardless of Where the Data Resides

This is the first in a series of posts that will discuss extending the value of mainframe data as new applications are built in the cloud.

Digital data is increasingly framed as the basis of contemporary economies, representing an important new asset class. As organizations seek to extract the full value of their digital data, there is also the realization of the breadth of digital data, often making it difficult to identify or even extract. Digital data exists in pretty much every corner of every business–ranging from simple Excel spreadsheets to mainframe-maintained data. It’s a lot to reconcile.   

Named a Leader in multiple Gartner® Magic Quadrant reports for many years, Informatica is known as an authority in data management and data integration. However, did you also know that our data management and data integration capabilities allow our customers to work seamlessly with both IBM z/Series™ and i/Series™ platforms, providing access to files and databases residing on them?

In fact, Informatica has enabled the integration of various mainframe data sources over the last two decades through our PowerExchange Mainframe portfolio of connectivity components. PowerExchange Mainframe allows for the cost-effective exchange of data, allowing read, write, and Change Date Capture (CDC) capabilities to the IBM™ platforms while ensuring maximum data protection. Integrating all enterprise layers of data, no matter where the data resides, into uniformed, sanitized, and trusted data stores through Informatica’s data management solutions enables that data to be consumed by new business applications, which drives growth and profitability.

Informatica customers have benefited from this unparalleled addition of “one-shop” mainframe data sourcing to the overall breadth of Informatica connectivity, helping to maximize the reach into the entire enterprises’ data landscape. Access to digital data is provided through simple, intuitive, and speedy graphical user interfaces. This helps users quickly extend their reach for data into the complexities of the mainframe data, without having to be an expert.

Furthermore, Informatica provides the technology for intelligent data transfer: Rather than performing complete data refreshes when updating data repositories, PowerExchange Mainframe uses CDC technology to identify the changes to the source data, and simply transfers the delta updates since it was last refreshed. This saves time and reduces the costs associated with extracting and transferring the data. CDC does not need special content added to any of the data stores. It operates in the mainframe and looks at the log files generally provisioned for the data stores’ own recovery or restore purposes.

PowerExchange Mainframe & CDC components enable access to the most common data stores on the IBM z/Series and i/Series platforms, including:

z/Series

• Adabas (Software AG)
• CA Datacom (Broadcom Inc.)
• CA IDMS (Broadcom Inc.)
• Db2 (IBM)
• IMS (IBM)
• VSAM: ESDS, KSDS & RRDS (IBM)
• Sequential file (IBM)

i/Series

• Db2 (IBM)
• Member files

PowerExchange also interacts with the most common mainframe security applications in use, namely RACF, ACFII, and TopSecret, to maintain high levels of security.

PowerExchange Mainframe & CDC can be consumed by several of Informatica’s data management solutions, whether on-premises or within Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.

In my next post, I’ll discuss how PowerExchange Mainframe & CDC helps customers provide additional data to their new cloud data warehouses and data analytics services.