CoSort V9 integrates these security functions into its widely-used data transformation and presentation language (called SortCL). Companies and government agencies can use SortCL to protect data (e.g. name, social security, credit card, or phone number) in source files that are at rest or in motion. Other field-level protection methods are cumbersome, limited to one encryption library or database, or require standalone processing or expensive ETL software, the company says.
With 256-AES data encryption and other protections built into SortCL, CoSort users can simultaneously process and present data from CSV, index, LDIF, sequential, text, XML and other portable files without exposing private information. IRI Senior Software Engineer Don Punhagen observed that, "SortCL can encrypt data quickly, and do it in the same job script and input/output (I/O) stream with large-scale sorting, joining, aggregation, conversion, and reporting tasks." In addition, SortCL scripts are explicit, easy-to-implement, and fully auditable—"a key benefit for industries with stringent compliance requirements," he added.
"Data loss and the compromising of personal information is pandemic," explains industry data expert Gwen Thomas of The Data Governance Institute. "Over the last 28 months, hundreds of documented security breaches have resulted in over 154 million records being compromised. A common theme in these breaches was that sensitive data was not encrypted—not at the file level, and not at the field level."
IRI Vice President David Friedland summarizes IRI's field-level solution this way: "CoSort V9 can rapidly and affordably protect personally-identifying information with a rule- and role-based choice of targeted, convenient, and verifiable security functions. This includes precision encryption that lasts from database loading to overseas outsourcing."
The company says its new version solves a big industry problem—manipulating and migrating massive XML and LDIF (LDAP interchange format) files to and from other file formats. Prior to CoSort 9, there has been no efficient way to convert, process, protect, or create large files in either format, the company says. The new CoSort version can do this thereby helping companies use this data in many more ways.
XML is a popular interchange format but large XML files have not been practical for manipulation or conversion. LDIF on the other hand, holds large amounts of information but is not a file format that most applications can import or process.
XML
CoSort can convert between uniform XML files and sequential (flat), COBOL, CSV, LDIF and other legacy formats. "Vast amounts of valuable data are still processed in legacy file formats," explains Purnhagen. "New customer-facing applications are being developed using service oriented architecture (SOA) and driven by data in XML format. CoSort V9 bridges the gap between these disparate technologies, allowing their data to flow both ways." CoSort can also sort, transform, report on, and protect (encrypt, de-ID, etc.) data in large, flat XML files directly.
LDIF
CoSort accurately and quickly processes billions of rows of directory access protocol (DAP) data, allowing organizations, like Comcast's Data Engineering and Management Integration (DEMI) group, to join and analyze LDIF records in connection with other data formats and warehouse processes. "We work with 10-terabytes of data a day and could not pull this off successfully without CoSort," explains Ray Harrison, a principal engineer at Comcast. "No other tool gives us this much speed and flexibility in processing or converting this volume of LDIF records."
The company at the same time also announced the availability of an optional dashboard application for displaying business information in convenient visual formats. Popular with executive management and IT professionals for the quick visual assessment they enable, dashboards help automate and unify source data across multiple departments or business lines. Dashboards also help managers monitor data in order to quickly shift marketing, sales or distribution tactics.
The Data Volume Problem
Dashboard software cannot handle large data sets efficiently. With source files and tables routinely at or above the gigabyte level, companies must integrate, reduce, and cleanse their data before dashboard display is possible. Back-end staging and scrubbing can also involve sort, join, aggregation, encryption, and other remapping operations so that accurate, secure data subsets can be exported to the dashboard. CoSort's SortCL tool performs all this pre-processing in a single pass through one or more massive sequential files. SortCL outputs data in CSV and XML formats that dashboards can import.
Why CoSort Dashboard?
By offering an optional dashboard application to its customers (and others who do not have one), IRI can connect the fundamental parts of the customer information lifecycle and move users more seamlessly from data processing to presentation.
The CoSort Dashboard application can import files from CoSort's SortCL tool, and combine them with data from other sources such as Excel and ODBC. The data populates graphical, dynamic charts that support business intelligence objectives. Custom visual options include: tables, 3-D views, geographic maps, metric tickers, animated speedometers, and ad hoc data displays.
According to Spencer Technology (a business intelligence consultancy) principal Evrard Spencer, "CoSort's dashboard analytics and backend data tools are invaluable when applying innovative, metric-validated solutions to solve business process integration problems for increased client value and regulatory compliance."
About CoSort / IRI Inc.
Innovative Routines International (IRI) Inc., The CoSort Company, was founded in 1978. Now headquartered in Melbourne, Fla. IRI is represented in more than 30 international locations. A pioneer in open systems, IRI has grown steadily since its inception by helping IT professionals perform or accelerate: legacy sort and file migrations, high-volume data warehouse ETL and database utility operations, and, new software applications. Please visit Cosort or call 800-333-SORT for more information.
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