CoSORT Load Accelerator Improves DW Performance

Innovative Routines International (IRI) Inc (better known as The CoSORT Company), has announced its first release of the CoSORT Load Accelerator (CLA) for DB2 on major Unix platforms. The new feature resulted from DB2 users' and developers' requests for direct CoSORT integration and was developed in conjunction with IBM's DB2 Enablement Program. IRI was a participating exhibitor at IDUG's (International DB2 User Group) 2000 North American Conference in Dallas, TX. CoSORT company executives were on hand to discuss the new feature.

The CLA is a drop-in replacement for the sort routine within DB2's loader. The user sets an environment variable to use the SMP CoSORT engine instead of the native sort routine in UDB's loader for sort services. With CoSORT, high volume loads can be up to twice as fast while transparent to the user.

Sorting a flat file with CoSORT before loading into the DB2 Universal Database can already accelerate large loads, saving system resources for other functions, noted David Friedland, IRI's Business Development VP. But with CoSORT's direct hook into DB2's loader, the external flat file pass is no longer necessary. This added performance hook means an enormous I/O and time savings for DB2 DBAs and data warehouse architects.

By providing direct CoSORT integration to DB2 Universal Database, IRI is able to help our mutual customers keep their data current, which answers the increasing demands for current business information, said Jim Kelly, Vice President of Marketing, IBM Data Management Solutions. This speed and efficiency means customers will be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to leverage information to make important decisions, which is important in today's dynamic e-business environment.

CoSORT is the one of world's first, fastest, and most widely licensed commercial sort package on Unix and Windows NT platforms. CoSORT features several end-user and programmer interfaces to a central, parallel processing sort algorithm in a coroutine architecture. The front-end programs cater to mainframe sort users cutting over to open systems, and data integrators requiring selection, joins, sorts, aggregation, conversion, and report generation. Included in its hardware-based perpetual use prices are SMP resource configuration tools, on-line documentation and international technical support. More information on The CoSORT Company and its family of data management products is available at www.cosort.com or call 800-333-SORT (USA).