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A Pioneer in Open Systems
IRI was founded as Information Resources, Inc. of New York in May, 1978.
Its mainframe sort specialists recreated coroutine sort (CoSort) technology first for the personal computer -- CP/M 80 and 86 in 1980 and MS-DOS in 1982. Unix CoSort was first developed on an AT&T 3B2 in 1985 and released in 1986, long before wide adoption of this multi-user O/S in commerce. Thanks to Unix CoSort, IRI began to grow more rapidly in 1990, amid the mainframe downsizing trend that continues today. IRI's satisfied installed base also grows with world's largest data warehouses on Windows and Unix, and from CoSort's popular job syntax that is shared and supported by multiple applications.
Many mainframe sort users are familiar with CoSort's high-level sort control language (SortCL) and COBOL invocation choices. They prefer the unique join capabilities, rich reporting features, SQL logic, and centralized metadata of SortCL to the less functional and more cryptic syntax of legacy tools and procedures. In addition, CoSort is the only product providing multiple standalone utility programs, third-party sort replacements, customized user exits, and API choices for all levels of enterprise use -- from sort novices through seasoned developers.
All major Unix hardware manufacturers, including: HP, IBM, Intel, Siemens, Sun, and Unisys, continue to seek CoSort benchmarks and cross-certifications as they recommend CoSort to their customers. In addition, many leading DBMS, data warehousing, and vertical-industry ISVs -- as well as consultants in these spaces -- embed or recommend the use of CoSort technology within applications to improve performance in high data volume environments.
Growth through Innovation
In a key expansion move in 1995, IRI moved to Melbourne, on Florida's high technology "Space Coast," and became Innovative Routines International, Inc. The Company moved to larger space again in 1996, and announced the release of CoSort for Windows NT, Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp. In the autumns of 1998 and 2003, IRI's HQ offices underwent further expansion in the Melbourne area.
In 1997, CoSort became the first Unix sort package to run across SMP CPUs and set industry performance standards. CoSort version 6.2 sorted a gigabyte in under a minute. Later that year, PC Week declared CoSort the fastest sort for Windows NT. In 1999, CoSort 7 was introduced, and featured the only single-pass join technology in the sort market, in addition to extensive drill-down aggregation and cross-calculation functionality. Multi-threaded for SMP servers, CoSort 7 also introduced a unique Java GUI to allow users to read and write SortCL specifications and then execute them locally or remotely on any networked platform.
1998 through 2002 saw increased integration into third-party database, data
warehouse extract-transform-load (ETL), automation, and e-commerce analytic
(webhouse) software. CoSort Version 7.5 was an interim release in 2001 that enhanced
internet and international data type support, made the original API thread-safe,
and improved aggregation and reporting features in SortCL. In 2001, IRI
also lead the sort world by porting CoSort to Intel's 64-bit Itanium platform
and IBM eServer iSeries (AS/400) for Linux and OS/400 PASE.
2003 marked IRI's 25th year and a new "V8 Engine" for CoSort. Using just 6 Sun 12K CPUs, CoSort sorted 2.4GB in 39 seconds, and with just 4 CPUs on an IBM p690, CoSort sorted 1GB in 12 seconds! To serve its rapidly growing base of data warehouse architects, CoSort 8 features a third API call to the "sortcl_routine", unique support for clickstream data types and web log metadata, plus markup language formatting SortCL-based web reports. In addition to supporting Linux on Intel x86 and Itanium platforms, CoSort V8 also runs on IBM's zSeries mainframe eServers and HP-UX on Itanium 2.
Vertical Product Integration
In 2004, IRI enhanced both CoSort's transformation performance along with "point
solutions" for its cross-platform users. The Fast Extract (FACT) product
was introduced to rapidly unload Oracle tables and build metadata for
instant ETL flows through CoSort's SortCL (transformation and reporting
engine) and SQL*Loader. Additional products made or represented by IRI,
show that the company is interested in expanding its data center solution
offerings worldwide. In 2004, IRI also YES! Certified CoSort for SUSE
Linux (SLES) 9 through Novell, and certified on IBM's 64-bit Power5 processor
running AIX 5.3.
In 2005, IRI released CoSort v8.2.2 and 8.2.3 and put its exciting new
test data generator and custom file synthesizer, RowGen, into beta sites.
CoSort became Red Hat Ready (again) with ports to RHEL 4, and is now also
up to date on Solaris 10 on x86 and FreeBSD 5.3 (along with all other
Linux and generally-available Unix and Windows platforms).
In 2006, IRI updated its exclusive sort plug-ins for IBM's DataStage and
Informatica's PowerCenter ETL suites, and partnered with Meta Integration
Technology to automatically convert file layouts in ETL and BI tool repositories
to SortCL and RowGen data definition files. IRI continued to expands its
base of resellers and expert consultants around the world, and worked
hard to enhance the CoSort, FACT, and RowGen tool sets.
2007 marked the start of the CoSort Version 9 era and a major expansion
of functionality and services for solution architects, IT managers, compliance
officers, and application developers. In addition to its already-combinable
file data transformation and reporting functionality, CoSort's SortCL
tool uniquely integrates field-level protections (including anonymization,
de-identification, encryption and pseudonymization) for sensitive files
and file-format conversions -- all in that same job script and I/O pass.
In 2008, RowGen v2 went into general release for the creation of massive,
safe, and intelligent table and flat-file test sets. Featuring powerful
data model processing technology from RapidACE, RowGen can automatically
generate referentially correct test data for multiple databases. IRI
is also a business partner for RapidACE technologies that power through
data model visualization, integration and standardization processes.
In 2009 IRI released improvements to NextForm and FieldShield for data migration and protection, respectively. Version 2 packages for Windows users are now available, with database connections coming in future releases of these and other IRI tools to directly convert, protect, and prototype relational data. All IRI tools continue to leverage
the same data definition format so that you can re-use metadata across the product line, and work more easily with third-party applications whose metadata - like IRI's - is supported by the Meta Integration Model Bridge.
Building for Today, and Tomorrow
Watch this space and IRI's news section for ongoing product and partnership announcements in 2010. IRI is continuing to work with the latest technologies to improve the performance, versatility, and interoperatiblity of its core CoSort offerings, and its compatible spin-off technologies. We suggest that you and your system integrator, consulting firm, or application service provider stay current on IRI software developments so that you can continue to benefit from the value these deliverables hold. And as always, please contact us if you have any questions, comments or ideas to enhance our offerings or alliances. |