Explore how different mainframe data sources can provide valuable insight into the performance, availability, health, and security of your mainframe and its underlying applications. "Mainframes generate a massive volume of useful but overwhelming data that enterprise IT organizations often fail to fully leverage," says David Hodgson, General Manager, Mainframe, at Syncsort. A major part of the problem is the fact that the most modern and useful analytics tools were developed entirely outside of the mainframe sphere. Extracting and exporting mainframe data into external data warehouses for analysis using those standard toolsets has been, until recently, a difficult and expensive operation. Machine learning (ML) has come to the mainframe, and with it the ability to analyze (and monetize) mainframe data in place.

In Part 1, I discussed some compelling new uses of mainframe machine data that go far beyond today's common use cases. I looked at how Google is using interaction between machine learning teams and the rest of its employees to drive transformative thinking in all product development, and began to explore how ML is part of predictive analytics on z/OS. Now, let's look at what IBM, Elite Analytics, Syncsort and Splunk are doing to leverage ML for next gen analytics, and how bots can become the development teachers of the very near future. IBM is already using Predictive Failure Analysis inside z/OS to anticipate certain types of failure -- based on ML using data on its own behavior. Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA) pulls data from IBM Health Checker for z/OS and uses ML to recognize opportunities to alert operators to potential problems in advance of a serious problem.

Mainframe machine learning poised to take off. Is Terminator Skynet far off? So far the mainframe big data story has been very useful, but pretty tame: logs for operational intelligence, improved cybersecurity, improved retention period, fancier dashboards. Here's betting that it's going to get much more interesting -- and probably already is in some shops. ML is a discipline that Google has fully embraced.