Looking to Migrate to the Cloud? Run it on the Mainframe…
Moving data from one place to another is rarely easy but when you need to reconfigure or consolidate it along the way it can become very time and resource consuming.
With the current climate of moving data and applications off the mainframe and into a cloud environment being a high priority for many large companies, doing so efficiently and in a timely manner can be tricky.
The intricacies of the Transform phase of Export / Transform / Load are very often underestimated and revisiting this phase many, many times due to misunderstanding the actual data or the way the data in different tables interacts can be extremely time consuming as well as incredibly expensive.
How to get your data
There are various well-proven methods of extracting data from the mainframe in ways that have absolutely no impact on running applications; it’s also simple to set a stake in the ground and capture any changes to the initial data using log scraping or other technologies. You don’t need to stop an application in order to extract data from it and keep that data consistent in a target platform.
Where to transform your data
The mainframe has been used for manipulating vast amounts of data for decades now and it’s become incredibly good at it and it’s only got better at it with the move up through the various Z Series machines. Not only that, but the tools used to do this have been in use for many years and will be installed in the vast majority of mainframe sites, so no new software is required.
Triton Consulting has designed and built many processes for extracting data ‘invisibly’ and transforming that data. Whether it be combining data from many tables to create composite rows to be loaded into newly designed tables, or creating new data layouts to fit the cloud requirements.
Triton has proven methods for extracting and transforming billions of rows of data into directly loadable files which can be presented to the Cloud database for loading in a matter of hours. This is also easily customisable and rerunnable should the requirements change, as they inevitably do on a project of this type. The short extract/transformation process means the capture and apply of data changes from source to target is practically achievable.
In comparison, we have seen this same transform task running in the cloud take days or even weeks. This elapsed time can mean that applying deltas from source to target is unachievable. Once you add in the process changes and reruns that are required this can push the project timeline out by many months. Good news for the people doing the work and the Cloud provider but not so great for the budget holders.
If you’re interested in discussing how we can help you move to the cloud or transition back to the mainframe, contact us. We’d love to help! Email info@triton.co.uk or call us +44 870 241 1 550