OIL & GAS

Syncsort Incorporated is pleased to announce the availability of Release 1.2 of SyncSort for z/OS, a high-performance sort/merge/copy utility designed to exploit the advanced facilities of the z/OS operating system and zSeries computers. This new release represents the latest development in Syncsort's long-established commitment to deliver unmatched sort performance, together with new features that solve today's data processing challenges while boosting productivity. SyncSort for z/OS Release 1.2 is up to 25% faster than the previous release. These performance improvements derive from enhancements to SyncSort's ZSPACE technique, even better exploitation of parallel access volume (PAV) technology, and advances in elapsed time performance for many merge and copy applications. SyncSort's proprietary sorting algorithms and optimization techniques also automatically reduce consumption of CPU time and EXCPs and improve overall system throughput. The new features of Release 1.2 are designed to improve productivity and shorten development and maintenance time for a wide variety of applications. These features include: * New Join functionality for the joining of records from two input files. When records from two files are joined, each record from the first file with a given value in a specified join key, (one or more fields), is joined to each record from the second file with the identical value in the join key in that record. The joined records are used as input to a sort or copy function. * New parameters to OUTFIL. * Expanded arithmetic expressions. * The inclusion of Visual SyncSort, an intuitive graphical-user-interface that speeds the development and management of SyncSort applications, at no extra charge. Visual SyncSort can be used to create new sort, merge, copy and join applications, or you can import and modify existing ones. Enhancements to real and virtual storage management have also been incorporated into Release 1.2. Requirements for real storage below the line and below the bar have been significantly reduced, which provides real storage constraint relief and improves system-wide performance. Local DSM has been enhanced for better coordination of storage use between concurrent executions of SyncSort applications. Requirements for virtual storage below the line have also been significantly reduced, which allows an application to run with a decrease of up to 60K of storage below the line. "With the new release of SyncSort for z/OS, Syncsort is continuing a tradition of more than 35 years of excellence in producing high-performance software," said Dan Regan, Syncsort's senior vice president. "The new enhancements and functionality will provide our customers with even greater performance benefits as well as an increase in productivity."