Syncsort

Infobox_Company
company_name = Syncsort, Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
foundation =
location_city = Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey
location_country = USA
locations = 5
num_employees = 400
industry = Data integration Data protection Sorting Data manipulation
products = SyncSort, DMExpress, Backup Express
homepage = [http://www.syncsort.com/ www.syncsort.com]

Syncsort Incorporated is a global software company specializing in the development and sale of data integration, data protection, and data manipulation products for Windows, Unix, Linux, and mainframe systems. According to its website [ [http://www.syncsort.com/company/about.htm Syncsort Company About Us Page, retrieved on 2008-07-16.] ] , Syncsort products are used by over 90 of the Fortune 100 companies and can be found in over 12,000 customer sites worldwide. Syncsort is headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, United States. It has offices in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with an international support center in The Netherlands. Syncsort customers operate in a range of industries, including manufacturing, consumer goods, transportation, local and federal governments, and health care. [Hoovers.com, Company Query: Syncsort Incorporated. Retrieved on 2008-07-16.]

History

Syncsort began as a mainframe company in the late 1960’s.“DM Review 100", DM Review, 10(12), (December 2000)] In the nineties, Syncsort expanded into client-server environments, offering a sort utility for UNIX and later Linux, and a backup product for heterogeneous environments called Backup Express. In 2004, SyncSort for UNIX evolved into a data management product called DMExpress. [“Syncsort Introduces DMExpress”, DM Review Online, (November 5, 2004)] In recent years, Syncsort has received several readership awards from DMReview magazine. [“Announcing DM Review's 2002 Readership Award Winners”, DM Review Online, (September 30, 2002)] [2005 Readership Merit Awards” DM Review Online, (October 28, 2005)]

Products

Syncsort products are designed to back up and recover data rapidly in distributed, heterogeneous environments; to speed data warehouse processing, database loads, and query performance, and to handle mainframe sorting and data transformation jobs. Syncsort offers its solutions through three sets of products: SyncSort, DMExpress, and Backup Express.

yncSort for z/OS

The original SyncSort sorting utility was developed in the late 1960s and was designed to speed batch processing on mainframes. In his book "Mainframe High Productivity Tools of the 90s", computing expert Alex Varsegi defined SyncSort’s capabilities.

From the user’s perspective, SyncSort essentially replaces a number of utility and program functions (for example, compiling, debugging, testing, and linking programs, as well as selecting, reformatting, converting, and summarizing the various record types). [Varsegi, Alex. “Chapter 10: Conventional and CICSORT Techniques.” Mainframe High Productivity Tools of the 90’s. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1990. 260-283.]

The current incarnation, SyncSort for z/OS, is a sort/merge/copy and data management utility designed to take advantage of the capabilities of the IBM zSeries computers and the z/OS operating system's advanced facilities, including the IBM MIDAW and System z9 Integrated Information Processors (zIIP). SyncSort for z/OS also supports S/390, the OS/390 operating system, and compatible computers. [ [http://www.storagenewsletter.com/news/software/syncsort-zos Storagenewsletter.com: New Release of SyncSort for z/OS 1.3] ] A similar product, SyncSort VSE, is designed for IBM z/VSE and VSE/ESA operating systems.

DMExpress

The data sorting and transformation capabilities described by Varsegi for mainframe systems are provided as well in DMExpress, Syncsort's data integration product for UNIX, Windows, and Linux. DMExpress is typically used for ETL, data warehousing, and business intelligence applications. [ [http://www.b-eye-network.com/listen/5846 Audio Interview with Syncsort's Rich Pilkington] ] The program is designed to transform and consolidate data from multiple sources. System administrators and analysts often use DMExpress to pre-process data to speed database loads, to create and maintain aggregate data stores from flat files, to optimize reporting, [ [http://products.databasejournal.com/dbtools/mgmt/1099337641.html Database Journal Product Guide] ] and for changed data capture (CDC) applications. [ [http://research.pcpro.co.uk/detail/RES/1208450325_439.html PC Pro Research Paper: Enterprise Data Integration Essentials] ] Data warehouse expert, Dr. Ralph Kimball in the first edition of his popular book, The Data Warehouse Toolkit, explained how data management and sorting products like Syncsort’s can be valuable for Database Management Systems (DBMSs):

[The] massive sorting and summarizing operations required to build aggregates can be handled much more efficiently with a dedicated sorting package like SyncSort on either IBM or a UNIX machine than by using the sorting capabilities of the relational DBMS. [Kimball, Ralph. The Data Warehouse Toolkit. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1996. 222-223.]

Backup Express

Backup Express is used for data protection, disaster recovery and business continuity. It integrates snapshot, image and rapid recovery options, works across Fibre Channel or iSCSI networks while sharing system drives, and supports NDMP incrementals. [http://www.lynxtechnologies.net/data-storage-3.htm Lynx Technologies] ] Utilizing D2D techniques, including block-level incremental backups and image-based storage, Backup Express offers recovery in place, server re-imaging, and thin cloning capabilities [Crump, George, “Syncsort Backup Express vs. SAN Snapshots”, Storage Switzerland (January 2, 2008)] .

References

External links

[http://www.syncsort.com Syncsort Inc. Home Page]