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Challenges
You need a faster way to sort large data sets directly from Software AG Natural; the native Natural sort function may not have the efficiency you need.
You may also require an affordable, convenient, and faster facility for large file processing and reporting, while sourcing and targeting huge work files to and from Natural.
Finally, you may need CoSort to manipulate, mask, replicate, report from, or otherwise work with data in Adabas sources and targets.
Solutions
IRI CoSort contains a plug'n'play sort library for sorting in Natural faster. With no user impact and a simple Makefile link, the CoSort engine can sort within Natural up to six times faster than native Natural sort operations. Full instructions for the use of CoSort an external sort are described in the Installation documentation for Software AG Natural under 'Re-Linking a Natural Nucleus.'
In addition to this drop-in sort replacement, CoSort's file transformation and reporting program, SortCL, can be called from Natural directly with:
CALL shcmd $COSORT_HOME/bin/sortcl /spec=job.scl
where the /INFILE(s) into, and /OUTFILE(s) from SortCL can be Natural WORK FILEs. This allows greater flexibility for off-loading high volume file manipulation, and reformatting jobs to SortCL. SortCL functions also protect field data at risk.
CoSort and Natural are also used as reference technologies in Software AG mainframe migrations performed by Cronus and in the 'Operational Processing for Unix' (OPX) legacy migration application environment developed by Tetrad Systems. OPX integrates easily with Software AG Natural tools, and includes a SORT wrapper interface to CoSort for re-hosting and extending JCL sort functionality.
CoSort and its metadata-compatible products:
IRI NextForm, for data and database migration, replication, and reporting
and
IRI FieldShield, for data masking, encryption, and other field-level protections
can now also use partner drivers to directly work with data in Adabas repositories in the IRI Workbench graphical IDE, built on Eclipse™.
