IRI Affirms Partnership with Micro Focus
Strategic Alliance Speeds Processing, Migration, and Protection of COBOL Data
Melbourne, Fla. (November 16, 2009) – Innovative Routines International (IRI), Inc., a leading developer of big data transformation and data-centric protection software, is marking the tenth year of a technology and business partnership with Micro Focus, a leading provider of COBOL compilers and development software based in the United Kingdom. The Micro Focus alliance with IRI has contributed to the development of IRI's flagship CoSort software with respect to the processing, migration, and security of data contained in Micro Focus COBOL files and data types so typical of mainframe banking and business applications.
"Partnerships with leading platform providers and solution experts enhance the functionality and interoperability of IRI software in a variety of IT environments," said David Friedland, VP of Business Development at IRI. "Through technical collaboration with Micro Focus over the years, IRI has been able to develop a number of value-added solutions for COBOL users." Here are some of those solutions:
COBOL Sort Acceleration - IRI's CoSort package provides Windows, Unix, and Linux COBOL users with fast, drop-in replacements for the MF COBOL and ACUCOBOL sort verbs and runtime system sorts in AcuBench, Net Express, and Server Express environments. Use of these plug-n-play libraries can six-fold native sort performance without making changes to COBOL source code.
COBOL File Manipulation - CoSort and its spin-off NextForm product can rapidly transform files in Micro Focus and other COBOL formats, including those with Micro Focus variable length (long and short) records, as well as: MF-ISAM (index), fixed and variable block, and line, record, and variable sequential formats. CoSort processes these files on Unix and Windows platforms in multiple ways, with functions like sorting, merging, joining, aggregation, filtering, and reformatting.
COBOL Data Type Conversions - CoSort and NextForm can also translate to and from Micro Focus and other COBOL data types like packaged decimal to numeric and EBCDIC to ASCII. Along with file reformatting, data type conversion that occurs in the course of CoSort data integration and staging activities (like sorting and de-duplication) helps companies migrate their mainframe data sets into CSV files ready for population into relational database tables.
COBOL Data Security - CoSort and its spin-off FieldShieldproduct can be used to encrypt, mask, and otherwise de-identify personally identifying information (PII) within COBOL files, down to the field level. The process of targeting data protections this way results in very resource efficient and auditable processes that help CISOs and data governance teams comply with privacy regulations pertaining to personally-identifying information (PII) stored in COBOL files.
COBOL Test Data - CoSort and its spin-off RowGen product can generate safe, intelligent test data in sequential and other COBOL file formats, while also controlling the size, value ranges, and field layouts of the target. This allows COBOL developers and compliance teams to make sure production data is not used in application stress-testing, outsourcing, development, benchmarking, and testing database population.
About IRI, The CoSort Company
Founded in 1978, Innovative Routines International (IRI), Inc. is an independent software vendor headquartered in Melbourne, Florida with license and support offices in more than 30 cities worldwide. IRI's flagship package, CoSort, transforms and reports on big data, migrates legacy sorts, and replaces many SQL, shell, and 3GL programs. CoSort-compatible tools include Fast Extract (FACT), FieldShield (data masking), NextForm (data conversion), and RowGen (test data).
For more information, contact:
Jason Koivu, PR Coordinator
IRI, The CoSort Company
(321) 777-8889 ext. 210
jasonk@iri.com
