Extensive Range of Data Sources

Although the variety of data formats continues to proliferate, fortunately, the advantage of vendor lock-in and platform optimization have been superseded by the benefit of universal interoperability. As a result, a number of standards have evolved that are increasingly ubiquitous. RapidGen is committed to supporting these standards.

Datatypes

One example of proprietary and incompatible formats that routinely impacts legacy systems is data types. Different legacy hardware architectures, operating systems, and programming language use different methods for physically storing data. Examples include

  • Signed, unsigned and scaled integers of 1 to 8 bytes
  • IEEE 754 32-, 64- and 128-bit binary and decimal floating-point formats
  • 8-bit ASCII, UTF-8 and other Unicode text strings
  • ISO 8601, JIS, US and other text date formats, including automatic century inferral for 2-digit years
  • 64-bit binary date formats for efficient calculation
  • Numeric strings, including legacy zoned, overpunched, packed decimal and leading/trailing separate numeric
  • Legacy VAX-floating and byte-swapped integer formats

Data Sources

The majority of data held in legacy systems including

  • Relational databases including Oracle, Oracle Rdb, Ingres, and generic ODBC.
  • Key-value pair databases (NoSQL)
  • Indexed flat file systems including RMS, C-ISAM, D-ISAM, and Micro Focus COBOL, with full control of locking
  • Excel native and CSV
  • XML and JSON
  • Many legacy databases and file structures including Codasyl, CA-DB and Sybase
  • User-extensible mechanism for integrating access to legacy data structures

Unknown Data Formats

RapidGen’s expertise and software suite have been applied to virtually every data format ever used. The RapidGen tools also allow our consultants to access unknown data formats even if generic drivers cannot be used and the database interfaces are undocumented.

Your Data

For advice or assistance with your data sources, please let us know how we can help.
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