Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII Introduction Providing access to mainframe data in systems across your organization is unfortunately not as simple as a one-to-one database duplication. Mainframe data represents one of the most complex data formats found in enterprise systems, and as a result, many teams struggle with data integration projects for this crucial asset and fail to extract the maximum value from their mainframe data. Organizations that implement a data integration strategy that encompasses mainframe data see significant benefits. To make the most of your mainframe data and realize its full potential, it is vital that you take into consideration the human and technical challenges that can occur. By avoiding common pitfalls, you’ll be on the road to unlocking your mainframe data and receiving what is most important to your organization – maximum business value. Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 02 Mainframe Data is Still the Bedrock of your Business Despite the growth of next-wave technologies, mainframes will continue to play an essential role in many businesses. Mainframes have no peer when it comes to the volume of transactions they can handle. In fact, estimates are that 2.5 billion transactions are run per day, per mainframe across the world, and analysts estimate that more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies use mainframes at the core of their most valuable business systems. Mainframes contain the vital data that organizations run on, and in turn, they power initiatives that help move a business forward, such as machine learning, AI, and predictive analytics. That’s why it is critical that, when building out next-wave investments, the integration of mainframe data is factored into the equation. Neglecting to include mainframe data in strategic data initiatives can result in: • Reduced return on investment in those initiatives • Rich sources of enterprise data that are not included in key business processes • Analytics that are neither accurate nor complete Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 03 Mainframe Data Drives Business Scenarios In a Syncsort survey of enterprise IT professionals, 34% of respondents said they use mainframe data to populate data lakes or enterprise data hubs that provide data to businesses for reporting, advanced analytics, and machine learning. Filling data lakes is just one example of how companies leverage mainframe data to power next-wave technologies. The following customer stories illustrate how unlocking mainframe data has helped companies of all types enhance their business or create new business opportunities. Patient treatments. Symphony Health uses large volumes of data from patients, providers, and medical manufacturers to enhance patient journeys and better deliver treatment. Unfortunately, lags in delivery of important data from their mainframe were resulting in poor solution performance. By enabling real-time delivery of mainframe data to its systems, Symphony Health was able to accelerate time-to-treatment for patients. Claims processing. Guardian Life struggled to obtain a full picture of their customers’ data because many of their claims processes operated on a delay. This negatively impacted customer experiences related to claims, customer service, and underwriting. Accelerating the integration of data into their systems removed delays in accessing vital data and improved customer experiences. Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 04 Anti-money laundering (AML). For one commercial/retail bank, obtaining a full view of investor behavior trends is required to meet transaction monitoring requirements for anti-money laundering regulations and FCA compliance demands. However, mainframe data is just one of many disparate sources feeding the AML process. Investing in a data integration strategy that enables analytics using real-time data from the mainframe and other sources has helped the bank maintain AML regulatory compliance. Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 05 Barriers to Integrating Mainframe Data Too many mainframe data integration projects stall due to challenges, The result? Business users ask for access to mainframe data, but both human and technical. Being aware of these challenges can mainframe teams are reluctant to provide it given concerns over help you chart a successful course to making mainframe data more governance. These two opposing views can result in tension between accessible across your organization. teams. The Human Angle It is essential when discussing how mainframe data will be shared across teams that those groups work together to develop a clear One of the most significant barriers to maximizing mainframe data understanding of how data will be used. value has nothing to do with technical requirements – it has to do with an organization’s culture. Unlike knowing the origin and destination of data in a clickstream, the human element of mainframe data integration projects can be unpredictable. You need to understand the teams involved and their behaviors. Ideally, you would also have executive- level support to help move your initiative forward. IT and business teams need to work together Mainframes, in general, are secured and locked down. That level of security is one of the reasons that organizations continue to rely upon them. From an organizational perspective, that focus on security and control is part of the culture of teams that work with mainframe data. They are vigilant regarding how their mainframe data is used within the business. However, teams that perform business analytics, or users that consume data, want open access to as much data as possible in order to drive more visible insights, power organizational initiatives, and more. Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 06 Mainframe data integration must be a top-down initiative Rethink your data integration approach When developing a strategy for the use of mainframe data in a broader The first instinct of many teams when looking to integrate mainframe business context, a C-level champion that can drive the initiative from data with data from other systems will be to use existing ETL processes. the top down can be instrumental. By articulating why mainframe data is It makes sense since those tools and processes may already be owned, important to business initiatives, a plan can be put in place that includes users are trained, and the resources exist. However, using current identification of users who will be given access to the data for various systems for tooling mainframe data may not be the best approach. purposes. Additionally, an executive sponsor can influence the process Many organizations who choose to go with existing methods find that through which data is passed from one group to another and establish their investments do not work for the complexities of mainframe data – clear boundaries. Without the influence of a C-level executive, data is too resulting in wasted time and resources. Instead, look to evaluate solutions likely to remain on the mainframe, tensions between departments persist, that understand the intricacies of mainframe data and are designed and the business continues to work without the full range of insights. specifically to handle it. The Technical Angle Don’t reinvent the metadata wheel Integrating mainframe data into the overall enterprise is not as simple Consider leveraging the assets you already have on the mainframe, as pulling a database table over to another system and mapping fields including metadata structures, when looking to unlock the potential 1-to-1 as they were in the original database. Instead, mainframe datasets of the data that resides on it. Your COBOL applications are already exist in many different forms and formats, including VSAM files, fixed using COBOL copybooks for metadata. Instead of trying to translate and variable-length files, Db2 and IMS databases, and COBOL copybook. or modify these structures into something new, it is recommended Mainframes also use EBCDIC or packed decimal character encoding, to use the existing structures directly – saving time, complexity, rather than the ASCII encoding found on most other platforms, and data and costs. is compressed. As a result, you need to assess your technical approach to integrating these complex mainframe files to ensure success. Syncsort | Making the Most of Your Mainframe Data: From EBCDIC to ASCII 07 Getting Started with Mainframe Data A data integration strategy that incorporates best practices will help you Map out your data successfully extract value from your mainframe data while mitigating the risk of a failed project due to technical or human factors. The best Having a good understanding of how data needs to be mapped will help practices for your organization may grow and develop over time, but to you get a firm hold of how mainframe data should flow. For example, get started, consider the following: when data is coming off the mainframe, it is in a more hierarchical format, but when it goes downstream, it must be in a relational or SQL structure Communicate and document that other tools can understand. A copybook from a mainframe can be interpreted in many ways, so both process and design must have a clear Communication between teams and thorough documentation are critical idea of the required downstream structure. for ensuring that mainframe data use is in alignment with organizational policies. All documents should be shared throughout the organization so Tip: Remember to keep costs in mind when it comes to getting data off the that users are aware of how mainframe data will be shared, integrated, mainframe. Make sure the solutions you are using to trigger this process and used within the business. work for you and your budget. Determine the goal first Mainframe data, like any other dataset, once pulled from the source can be interpreted in many ways.