Mainframes cannot remain an island separate from big data. Mainframe data is too valuable and central to the business to be left isolated, particularly when companies start using analytics to answer core business questions that will guide digital businesses in the future.

But mainframe data also requires special handling, writes Wikibon Chief Research Officer Peter Burris. It’s connected to high-value, core business applications and subject to high security, privacy and regulatory requirements. Extending the use of mainframe-based data is also particularly sensitive to context.

Thus, bringing this data into the big data environment requires special tools that can maintain that high security and privacy. Leading mainframe hardware and software vendors such as IBM and Oracle already offer technology that serves the needs of both mainframe application owners and big data administrators, and Burris predicts healthy growth for this market over the next several years.

Burris discusses the issues in depth in his latest published research, “Adding Mainframe Data to Big Data Systems,” which is available to Wikibon premium subscribers. To learn how to subscribe, look here. Wikibon is a sister company of SiliconANGLE.

z13 mainframe image courtesy IBM