Acceleration Economy is on location at QlikWorld this week. In this special interview, Wayne Sadin hosts Adam Mayer, Global Products Marketing Manager, Qlik. The pair discuss the analytics and data migration solutions that Qlik provides, helping companies move away from their mainframes. Qlik is on the Acceleration Economy Top 10 Shortlist of Data Modernization Enablers.
Highlights
00:54 — Mayer is on the product marketing team of Qlik. There are two sides to the business: analytics and data integration.
02:47 — Over the last three years, through acquisition, Qlik has been growing the data integration side of the business. Currently, Mayer is focused on end-to-end data movement, helping customers get value from their data.
03:42 — Mayer describes the “strong technical and commercial working relationships” with cloud vendors, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. “We can not only help land the data there, but put it in the format it needs to be, and then take advantage of all those services,” he shares. The company also works with tech vendors and provides support through the analytics side of its business.
Which companies are the most important vendors in data? Check out the Acceleration Economy Data Modernization Top 10 Shortlist.
04:09 — The company keeps “the vendor BI agnostic from the data integration,” Mayer notes, acknowledging that “there’s more than one tool in many organizations.” He highlights Qlik’s belief that “if you put Qlik analytics on the end, that’s when you really unlock their full potential” of real-time data so organizations can focus on “the most precious data and make quicker and better decisions.”
04:40 — One of the reasons that Qlik is on the Acceleration Economy Data Modernization Top 10 shortlist, Wayne explains, is because of its analytics tools. Wayne appreciates that Qlik’s tools are in a suite.
05:09 — He states that, as a CIO, “I would rather have a vendor that understands the data lineage, the data governance, the data movement, the data quality — all those things that matter in turning raw data into information.” He emphasizes the need for “data + context,” which enables trust.
06:06 — Mayer reports his excitement for Qlik’s acquisition of Talend. The upcoming keynote will provide more insight into the ideas and visions of where they want to go.
06:45 — Wayne asks Mayer “how Qlik helps a company that is mainframe bound either use the mainframe better or build a strategy to disengage over time.” Qlik provides modernization programs to help customers “move away from the mainframe,” acknowledging how mainframes are “mission critical systems” so the transition takes time.
08:40 — Companies in heavy data using industries, like financial services or airlines, that were built with mainframes can greatly benefit from analytics tools, like Qlik, to better ingest data from multiple sources.
09:20 — Qlik reduces the complexity of accessing data. Mayer describes mainframes as “solid, robust machines” with “robust security protocols.” Mainframes are trusted with important transactions because it’s difficult to get data out. Qlik provides various ways of accessing mainframe data without impacting it.
10:08 — The company takes the change data capture (CDC) approach in most mainframe sources. When changes occur in a transaction, Qlik delivers that to customers’ modernized environments, such as the cloud. “You’re offloading the queries from the mainframe and now you can start innovating and take advantage of all the good stuff the cloud has to offer,” Mayer says. For instance, this includes scalability and reducing infrastructure, enabling the innovation needed to improve data accessibility.
11:09 — Mayer talks about the work Vanguard is doing to modernize its mainframe. “Our data integration is really at the heart of that, they call it a key enabler.” He shares highlights on what Vanguard has done with the Qlik data integration platform.
13:03 — Qlik has helped Vanguard as it has been modernizing into AWS and expanding microservices applications to deliver real value to its customers. It has been able to deliver real-time data “in both directions,” which is key, Mayer says.
13:48 — High availability regions experience high costs in terms of finances, effort, and resources.
14:03 — Outdated mainframes and a skill shortage are contributing drivers to modernization. Rather than doing a “lift and shift,” it requires reinventing applications and continuing to innovate in the cloud.
14:30 — Accelerating time to value, Qlik works closely with cloud vendors, notably AWS and Microsoft.
15:25 — With an analytics and data migration solution, companies are able to transition away from the mainframe. “It’s running it parallel,” Mayer explains. The long-term goal in mind is to decommission the mainframe, but that takes time, he says. With this approach, companies aren’t “leaving the mainframe alone, but you’re offloading it more and more.”
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