THE CHALLENGE: HOW TO VALIDATE REQUIREMENTS BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION
Depending on your definition of a failure, data warehouses have a significant to alarmingly high failure rate. Data mart models can improve your odds, but not as much as you might hope.
In many cases, problems occur because the requirements change during implementation. In others, the initial request is incomplete or inadequate, but this is usually not discovered until after the implementation, when users start working with the warehoused data.
These issues are not unique to data warehousing, but they can be exacerbated by the typically long implementation cycle. One of the major factors affecting the length of implementation can be integration with mainframe legacy data.
What is needed is a way of quickly prototyping your data warehouse or data mart, so you can validate the requirements before you start your implementation. Prototyping is an approach often taken in other software development areas.
THE SOLUTION
Arbutus specializes in accessing non-relational legacy mainframe and AS/400 data. Arbutus Integrate is middleware specifically tailored to move that data directly to a Windows environment. The solution is simple, powerful, timely and cost-effective.
Arbutus reads virtually any mainframe data directly and presents it as a virtual relational database, almost indistinguishable from a data mart. This virtual database is instantly accessible by any Windows-based application, without any of the complexities you would typically encounter.
This means that you can prototype much of your data mart very quickly. Not only can you validate the request, but you can work with the system for a period of time to discover any additional requirements or to monitor query patterns.
In addition to accessing the data, Arbutus offers semantic and transformation layers that allow the implementation of virtually any data interface or business rule. You are not limited to merely exposing the data, but can dynamically fit it to your needs.
See how Arbutus’ direct legacy file access assists in other application areas
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