CoSort Shipping New
Record-Breaking Unix Sort Speeds. SortCL (ETL) API Introduced. Java GUI Upgraded.
Melbourne, Fla. (February 20, 2003) – Innovative Routines International (IRI), Inc. (a/k/a CoSort) announced the release of CoSort Version 8 ("V8"), and with it the IT industry's first major sort speed improvement in two years. V8 features a redesigned parallel sort engine for UNIX servers, a new API for data warehouse developers, and enhanced migration tools for mainframe and other sort users switching to CoSort on open systems. V8 is a chargeable upgrade for existing CoSort users, but does not increase CoSort's perpetual-use price points. V8 for Windows will ship in late March.
Calling this a "significant performance breakthrough" for "applications with large volumes of data," CoSort Sr. VP David Friedland added that "V8 will make the biggest difference in data warehouse staging operations, where growing file sizes challenge shrinking production windows." Specifics on the major improvements in CoSort V8 follow:
- Faster Sort Engine
V8's proprietary new SMP sorting techniques are much faster than CoSort UNIX v7.5.3 and competing sort products now also running on UNIX. Solaris 8 CoSort 8 sorted 2.4GB in 72 seconds on a Sun E15K using only 2 CPUs and 512GB of RAM, versus 91 seconds under v7.5.3, a 20% improvement. On 6 CPUs, the same job took 39 seconds. Linux CoSort 8.1.1 on a 4-way Itanium processor sorted a random, fixed-length 5GB data file (300-byte records) in 9:08 versus 16:39 for CoSort 7.5.3, a 45% improvement. CoSort helped IBM set the May 2000 TPC-H record by sorting at a 4-CPU rate of 2.4GB/min on a (Sequent) NUMA-Q web server. - Callable SortCL API
For data warehouse architects and software developers requiring an integrated data transformation engine, CoSortT's award-winning sort control language (SortCL) DML/program is now callable through an application program interface (API). ISVs as well as end users can now embed CoSort's "SortCL_routine()" within their programs to simultaneously select, sort, join, convert, cross-calculate, aggregate, and reformat their data to speed loads, match and track transaction data, build structured web-ready reports, hand-off data to BI tools, etc. - Sort Conversion Offerings
In addition to drop-in replacements for the SAS System sort, Ascential's DataStage sort and other sort verbs, CoSort 8 will have an "advanced external sort procedure" for Informatica's PowerCenter, hooks to other ETL tools, and a drop-in replacement for MVS sort products using Corigin's data-sharing software. - New CoSort Platforms
In addition to being the first (and only) sort vendor to support all commercial Unix and Wintel platforms, CoSort V8 has also been ported to HP-UX on Intel Itanium 2 and Linux on IBM's zSeries mainframe.
About CoSort/IRI, Inc.
CoSort is the world's first, fastest, and most widely licensed commercial sort package on multi-CPU Unix and Windows platforms. CoSort features several end-user and programmer interfaces to a parallel-processing sort algorithm in coroutine architecture. Included in its hardware-based, perpetual- use prices are: third-party sort replacement and mainframe conversion tools; data warehouse ETL and reporting functionality; SMP resource tuning; on-line documentation; and, support from some 30 international offices. In its 25th year, IRI can be reached via 1-800-333-SORT, or www.cosort.com.
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