{"id":14516,"date":"2021-08-03T13:37:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T17:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iri.com\/blog\/?p=14516"},"modified":"2023-10-25T13:41:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T17:41:32","slug":"iri-product-nomenclature-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.iri.com\/blog\/iri\/business\/iri-product-nomenclature-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"IRI Product Nomenclature & Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

The names of IRI software products and how they run have at times been a source of mystery, or even confusion, to the uninitiated. This article spells out the pieces and clarifies their interplay, providing a quick primer for prospective users, partners, and new industry analy<\/i>sts.<\/p>\n

Where it All Began<\/b><\/h6>\n

It began with IRI CoSort<\/a> in 1978, the big data sorting, transformation, and reporting utility for Unix and Windows still in wide use today. Prior to CoSort, this first IRI product was called CO-SORT, COSORT, and CoSORT, in that order.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1992, IRI added the Sort Control Language (SortCL<\/a>) data definition syntax and manipulation program to the other utilities and APIs in the CoSort package. Today, SortCL is the most widely used, and feature-packed UI in the CoSort package.<\/p>\n

SortCL scripts define, and the sortcl program runs, the jobs that perform and combine many common data movement and mapping tasks<\/a> that CoSort users need to run. SortCL is not only a simple 4GL<\/a> to learn, read, and modify, but it is also supported through an API (called sortcl_routine), and graphically in the IRI Workbench<\/a> IDE, built on Eclipse.<\/p>\n

As SortCL functionality expanded, it outgrew the traditional CoSort market for sort migrations and BI\/DW acceleration. Today, the SortCL executable is not only the engine running most CoSort jobs, but it\u2019s the beating heart of several spin-off products, illustrated here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

CoSort \/ SortCL Spin-Off Products<\/b><\/h6>\n

Specifically, the same SortCL engine and compatible job scripts — usually designed and often managed from IRI Workbench, process structured data sources<\/a> in:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. IRI FieldShield<\/a> for data masking<\/li>\n
  2. IRI RowGen<\/a> for test data synthesis and database subsetting<\/li>\n
  3. IRI NextForm<\/a> for data and database conversion and replication and, the<\/li>\n
  4. IRI Voracity<\/a> data management platform jobs, which include those in CoSort and<\/em> the products linked above, plus<\/em> additional front-ended capabilities through the common Workbench GUI, like:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n