LUMINEX SOFTWARE, INC., best known for its innovations in mainframe virtual tape solutions, announces the latest release of its Mainframe Data Integration (MDI) platform. MDI enables tape data to be securely shared between mainframes and distributed systems applications, transformed and made available for offloading mainframe processing or general business operations across the enterprise.
The world’s most valuable corporate data continues to be processed by mainframes, making secure, more efficient access to mainframe data a high priority for enterprises seeking to gain greater competitive advantage and improve business insights. Luminex MDI delivers fast, efficient and – most importantly – secure access and transformation to make data exchange more reliable and MDI uses fewer mainframe CPU resources than using unsecured FTP and IP ports.
MDI uses the mainframe’s native channel I/O and emulates 3590 tape devices. On the distributed systems side, MDI can use NFS, SFTP or other enterprise-approved protocols to interface with distributed systems platforms and applications. So, mainframe users can reduce security risks by using the same, trusted mainframe FICON channel I/O technology that is used for their tape and primary disk (DASD) solutions.
Luminex began its implementation of MDI in the financial industry in 2015 with purpose-built workflows (“Profiles”) within a modular platform. Since then, new use cases continue to be requested by customers, expanding options for both general purpose and highly-customized Profiles, including managed file transfer, data transformation, bidirectional and distributed systems-initiated capabilities. Now, all major industries can benefit from MDI’s extensible architecture to integrate, transform and move data between mainframes and distributed systems.
“MDI is the result of partnering with customers, continuous product development and enhancements to our core virtual tape technology. It builds on our decades of leadership and innovation in mainframe data storage and sharing,” said Art Tolsma, CEO of Luminex Software.
Although MDI is offered as a standalone solution, when combined with Luminex Mainframe Virtual Tape, MDI allows end users to take advantage of expanded capabilities and maximize their investment in tape operations.