IBM® INFOSPHERE / DATASTAGE
SUPPORT

ROBUST SUPPORT FOR YOUR INFOSPHERE® ENVIRONMENT – MIGRATE AT YOUR OWN PACE, IN YOUR OWN WAY

If you’re like a lot of companies, DataStage is deep in your architecture. This particular suite of products requires a lot of expert assistance to keep running, which may present a technical debt challenge for some organizations.

Care and migration of your DataStage environment requires skill and deep expertise. IBM’s strategic direction to focus on cloud means that deep expertise can be hard to come by, either to maintain current processes or to help with migration plans.

The amount of customization that has taken place within long-standing and stable InfoSphere/DataStage deployments, makes moving to fully cloud-based ETL very delicate – and some processes may not make it at all.

Is it possible to gradually implement migration strategies that support your move to next-gen architectures while maintaining the stability of your complex and highly customized InfoSphere environment?

Yes, it is. And this is exactly what we do at Origina.

PROACTIVE SUPPORT: THE WAY FORWARD FOR DATASTAGE

Origina offers a particularly skillful brand of third-party software support that dedicates a team of over 600 IBM support specialists to your IT health. We provide on-demand support for every DataStage version.

This means you can stay on DataStage and take your time migrating. Origina technicians have a minimum of 15 years supporting IBM products – some even contributed to the original DataStage code.

We understand DataStage’s intricacies and interoperability challenges, and can swiftly resolve any issue on any version to keep your environment stable, secure and compliant at all times.

A HOLISTIC VIEW OF YOUR BUSINESS AND IT CONTEXT

Origina’s team doesn’t just keep your enterprise systems up and humming with 99% uptime. We get onboard with your business as a TPSM partner that understands your particular challenges and keeps a perpetual eye on your IBM environment.

We save our customers hundreds of thousands on OEM upgrades they don’t need, provide solid advice on how to best migrate InfoSphere and other business-critical systems, and free up teams and budgets to focus on short-and long-term priorities.

Origina customers enjoy:

  • Optimized performance of their IBM estate – regardless of product versions
  • Proactive reviews of license entitlements that keep them in front of audits
  • Expert advice on how to manage legacy product installations and migrations
  • Single-contact support with dedicated IBM product experts
  • As much as 50% off their annual IBM spend
  • Simplified IT that sheds superfluous software and processes
  • Contractual flexibility and the freedom to do decommissions

FAQ | IBM INFOSPHERE INFORMATION SERVER

Gartner enthusiastically recommends third-party support for companies that want more flexibility than OEM’s provide and are trying to find ways to free up resources for modernization projects.

TPSM shifts you from relying on a single point of vendor support that may or may not deliver a security patch months later, to having a team of experts that implement an extensive system of checks and balances to greatly limit your exposure to vulnerabilities.

In fact, 80% of IT and procurement leaders who are already using TPSM say they would recommend it to their peers.

It’s actually highly likely you don’t need upgrades – unless you are certain that a particular upgrade will bring a critical new feature that will truly add value to the way the organization utilizes the application. And given the maturity of enterprise software, that’s highly unlikely.

Chances are you’ve been running on old versions with no problem for a while. In fact, over 60% of Origina customers were 3 or more versions behind on upgrades when they came to us.

Origina actually enhances the security and operability of your existing IBM investments without requiring that you rush over to the cloud. Our approach is threefold:

PROTECT your existing IBM investments with preventative actions that address possible threats and vulnerabilities or potential misconfigurations.

EXTEND the longevity and lifecycle of your IBM estate with proactive health checks and workshops delivered by IBM software product and licensing experts.

ENHANCE the performance and functionality of your architecture by using scripts, open APIs, and API hooks to bring you custom feature enhancements that don’t infringe on vendor copyrights.

And if you do choose to upgrade your IBM products at any time while working with Origina, we don’t mind at all. We’re flexible and support you unconditionally – regardless of product, license or vendor contract.

WE KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT DATASTAGE

Our Global IBM product experts have been working with DataStage for decades – some even contributed to its original code. We’ve followed the platform from its origins to what it is now.

IBM InfoSphere Information Server (DataStage) is a suite of tools that is designed to enable organizations to better manage data and metadata across the enterprise. At a fundamental level, the suite of tools work together to understand, cleanse, transform, and deliver data across the enterprise.

Companies are seeing a mix of on-prem and Cloud based ETL (and indeed ELT) activities now taking place. An immediate and ongoing challenge to move to fully cloud based ETL is the amount of customization that has already taken place within long-standing and stable DataStage deployments. In addition to this, some processes may not be appropriate, or even possible, to move to the cloud for various other reasons, requiring some deep expertise to address.

Third-party support offers potential solutions to all of the above issues – dedicated product expertise from highly qualified personnel, ready to assist with support, migration advice and consultation, combining deep product knowledge with a comprehensive understanding of your particular interoperability challenges through an intimate pro-active support model – for significantly less outlay than your current OEM support costs.

The InfoSphere/DataStage® product suite is made up of the following components:

InfoSphere DataStage is a data integration tool that enables users to move and transform data between operational, transactional, and analytical target systems.

This product performs the core functionality for most deployments, with the other components being included in the IIB product, but not always used additions.

InfoSphere FastTrack provides capabilities to automate the workflow of your data integration project. Users can track and automate multiple data integration tasks, shortening the time between developing business requirements and implementing a solution.

InfoSphere Information Analyzer provides capabilities to profile and analyze data to deliver trusted information to your organization.

InfoSphere QualityStage provides capabilities to create and maintain an accurate view of data entities such as customers, locations, vendors, and products throughout your enterprise.

Use IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard to measure the effectiveness of information governance initiatives by querying and visualizing business, technical, and operational metadata from IBM InfoSphere Information Server products.

InfoSphere Information Services Director provides an integrated environment that enables users to rapidly deploy InfoSphere Information Server logic as services.

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is a web-based tool that provides capabilities to help you integrate, understand, and govern your information.

These products are also included in the DataStage solutions:

  • Cognos Business Intelligence
  • BigInsights Data Scientist
  • InfoSphere Change Data Delivery
  • InfoSphere Data Architect

History of IBM INFOSPHERE INFORMATION SERVER (DATASTAGE)

The core DataStage software originated within a company called Vmark in the 90s as a tool to assist Vmark in implementing its core Universe database product. Vmark then merged with its principal competitor Unidata to form Ardent Software in 1997. This company, in turn, was acquired by Informix, but DataStage was spun off into Ascential, while Informix was acquired into IBM. Ascential was eventually purchased by IBM in 2005. Each acquisition stage led to further development in the product capabilities as the ETL market grew.

IBM initially branded the product as Websphere DataStage, part of the Websphere family, but it eventually became the InfoSphere DataStage component of Infosphere Information Server in 2008.

Successive releases of InfoSphere Information Server have resulted in additional programs and packs, with the current version containing approx. 20 programs and 10 Packed Application Connectivity Kits (Packs) and extra add-on-for-purchase modules, such as Address Certification, etc.

“We’re getting more than we ever did with IBM! Origina helped us understand and transform our digital estate, and saved us between 40 and 50 percent off our annual IBM software support and maintenance costs.”
BT is a telecommunications firm that works with Origina for third-party IBM software support.
Matt Turner
Channels & IT Transformation
ABM Procurements and Operations 500 fortune

INFOSPHERE INFORMATION SERVER (DATASTAGE) PRODUCT VERSIONS

The latest version is IBM InfoSphere Information Server v11.7.1.3 SP4.

INFOSPHERE INFORMATION SERVER (DATASTAGE) DEPLOYMENT

IIS can be deployed in a variety of configurations:

  • On-Prem
  • Installed on Cloud Servers
  • Renting v11.7.x from IBM pre-installed on cloud servers at IBM
  • Cloud Pak for Data

INFOSPHERE INFORMATION SERVER (DATASTAGE) components

  • Business Glossary Anywhere
  • Information Governance Catalog Classic
  • Information Governance Catalog “New” (Microservices)
  • Information Governance Dashboard
  • Stewardship Center
  • Subscription Manager
  • Operations Console
  • DataStage
  • DataStage Balanced Optimization
  • Grid Toolkit for DataStage (GTK)
  • DataStage flow designer
  • QualityStage
  • QualityStage Address Certification (CASS, SERP, WAVES, …)
  • QualityStage Standardization Rules Designer
  • Information Analyzer Workbench
  • Information Analyzer thin/new (Microservices)
  • Data Click
  • FastTrack
  • Data Quality Exception Console
  • Watson Knowledge Catalog (Microservices)
  • Enterprise Search (Microservices)
  • Information Services Director
  • Information Server Manager
Datastage or QualityStage ‘PACKS’:
  • Hyperion Essbase Connector PACK
  • DataStage PACK for Data Masking
  • JD Edwards EnterpriseOne PACK
  • Oracle Applications Hierarchy PACK
  • Siebel PACK
  • Peoplesoft Enterprise PACK
  • Oracle Applications Direct PACK
  • Salesforce PACK
  • PACK for SAP R/3

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW TO MOVE FORWARD WITH DATASTAGE

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ROBUST SOFTWARE SUPPORT.
THAT KEEPS DATASTAGE HEALTHY

Let’s have a chat about your current DataStage environment and how we can support you to modernize at your own pace.