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New Orchestrate 2.0 Helps Companies Build and Manage Scalable Software
Systems for Data Mining, Data Warehousing and Batch-Oriented Data
Processing
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Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1997
Source: Business Wire
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE) via Individual Inc. -- Torrent Systems,
Inc., today announced Orchestrate 2.0, designed for building, deploying and
managing scalable data processing systems for applications such as data
warehousing, data mining and batch-oriented data processing. Orchestrate,
Torrent's flagship product, hides the complexities of building and
executing a parallel program; and the new Orchestrate Shell Command
Interface (OSH) eliminates the need to program scalable software systems by
utilizing a standard UNIX shell-scripting technique to assemble Orchestrate
applications. Orchestrate end users include those responsible for direct
marketing, pricing, fraud detection, merchandising and customer profiling.
Other significant new features in Version 2.0 include support for the
INFORMIX-OnLine Extended Parallel Server(TM) (OnLine XPS) and Sun
Microsystems' new Ultra Enterprise 10000 Server, called "Starfire," and
other Sun SMP servers, as well as new instrumentation and performance
visualization tools. This major upgrade extends Orchestrate beyond its
established installed base of IBM SP/2 products to new types of parallel
processing computers from two of the largest hardware vendors in this
rapidly-growing market.
"Orchestrate is a comprehensive application environment that fills in the
data mining gap in parallel computing. This enables contemporary
enterprises to develop commercial applications for extracting value from
high volumes of transaction data," said Aaron Zornes, executive vice
president, META Group. "With Orchestrate 2.0, companies can increasingly
harness their investments in parallel technology."
Orchestrate represents a new category of software known as Scalable
Enterprise Software which is being embraced by software developers in
Fortune 1000 companies who need to build scalable and robust software
systems quickly and inexpensively. Orchestrate is also being embraced by
systems integrators, commercial independent software vendors (ISVs) and
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Emergent, Knowledge
Discovery One, Lockheed Martin IS&T and MRJ Technology Solutions who use
Orchestrate to add immense value to their clients' parallel software and
hardware solutions. (See today's announcement on Torrent's new channel
partner relationships.)
"The demand for scalable data processing is growing rapidly," said Allen
Razdow, president and CEO of Torrent. "However, until recently, developing
scalable application software for parallel computers has been complex,
time-consuming, expensive and risky. Because of this, very few scalable
software systems have made it to production on large parallel computers. In
addition, there have been very few, if any, scalable tools and commercial
applications available," he added.
OSH Lets Users Build a Scalable Parallel Software System Without
Programming
The new Orchestrate Shell Command Interface (OSH) in Version 2.0 makes it
possible for a much larger group of developers to build scalable data
processing systems without managing the complexities of programming a
parallel computer -- and, in many cases, without requiring programming at
all. The OSH allows developers to use standard UNIX shell-scripting
techniques to assemble programs and components into a sequential data-flow
Orchestrate application. OSH eliminates the need for using C/C++ or any
other programming language for constructing Orchestrate applications.
Orchestrate applications developed using OSH continue to exploit the full
capabilities and features of Orchestrate's robust C++ application framework
for building and running scalable data processing systems.
OnLine XPS Customers Employ End-to-End Parallelism Using Orchestrate
Torrent's integration of Orchestrate with OnLine XPS will allow OnLine XPS
customers to build scalable data processing applications which run in
parallel outside the database while exploiting Orchestrate's high volume
parallel access to data stored in OnLine XPS. This provides customers with
end-to-end parallelism from the migration of data from legacy mainframes to
the parallel server, through the transformation of data and loading of data
into the data warehouse, and then streaming data from OnLine XPS in
parallel for high-volume applications such as data mining. (See today's
release from Torrent for more details about OnLine XPS support.)
Sun Starfire Users Can Now Inexpensively Build Scalable SMP Applications
Orchestrate 2.0 will also run on Sun Microsystems' Ultra Enterprise 10000
System, or "Starfire," which is the most powerful and scalable SMP server
in the industry and rivals the mainframe in features and functionality.
Orchestrate enables users to parallelize existing sequential tools and
applications without programming the SMP system at a low level. Further,
any SMP software developed using Orchestrate will run in SMP cluster
environments when Torrent extends its Sun SMP support later this year. (See
today's release from Torrent for more details about Starfire support.)
United Airlines Selects Orchestrate
United Airlines has selected Orchestrate to build Orion, a major new
yield-management system that is expected to generate $50 million per year.
"Orchestrate technology has allowed us to build an easily-scalable system,
crucial to the success of our project," said Glenn Colville, manager,
research and development, Information Services Division at United Airlines.
"Due to Orchestrate's capacity to handle large volumes of data in a tight
time frame, building our application has moved ahead very quickly. We had
little chance of meeting our deadlines without it; it takes away the
headaches of parallel programming."
Target customers for Orchestrate include in-house development groups,
commercial systems integrators and commercial independent software vendors
(ISVs) interested in building scalable tools and applications for data
warehousing, data mining and other data processing applications. Torrent is
working with a growing list of software vendors who are building scalable
commercial software using Orchestrate 2.0.
New Tools for Instrumentation and Performance Visualization
Orchestrate 2.0 includes new and advanced tools for monitoring and
visualizing the performance of large data processing systems running in
Orchestrate on scalable parallel processing computers. By enabling
developers and systems administrators to actually visualize a large
Orchestrate application running on the system and by providing system
performance metrics in areas such as resource utilization and system
throughput rates, these tools represent a major innovation for managing and
monitoring the run-time execution of scalable data processing systems in
critical applications.
More on Orchestrate
Orchestrate provides an expanding suite of components for building
applications, including components for constructing advanced data mining
applications quickly. Using Orchestrate 2.0, developers can construct a
sequential data-flow program by combining existing sequential programs with
pre-built components and custom components developed in Orchestrate.
Beneath the application programming interface lies a robust application
framework which maps the application to the underlying architecture and
manages the run-time execution of the single Orchestrate program. A key
technology benefit of this application framework is support of C++
development of reusable application components handling record-oriented
data.
Orchestrate Platform Support
Orchestrate is designed for portability to all hardware platforms
(workstations, SMP and scalable MPP servers) offered by leading computer
vendors such as IBM, Sun, Hewlett Packard, NCR, Digital and Intel.
Orchestrate is also designed to integrate with major parallel RDBMS'
including IBM DB2/PE, Informix-Online Extended Parallel Server and Oracle
Parallel Server, providing high-volume data connectivity between
Orchestrate applications running on the scalable server and data stored in
the RDBMS. Torrent currently supports Orchestrate on the IBM RS/6000 family
of computers and will introduce Orchestrate on other platforms during 1997
including Sun (See today's release on new Sun support for more
information). Orchestrate includes an optional analytical toolkit,
incorporating neural networks and proprietary techniques, for parallel data
mining.
Orchestrate Pricing and Availability
Orchestrate Version 1.1 is currently available and pricing begins at $8000
per processor. Orchestrate is available directly from Torrent and
authorized VARs, system integrators, ISVs and original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) including Emergent, Knowledge Discovery One, Lockheed
Martin IS&T and MRJ Technology Solutions. (See today's announcement on
Torrent's new channel partner relationships.)
Orchestrate Version 2.0 is planned for general availability during Q2 1997.
Torrent Systems, Inc.
Established in 1993, Torrent Systems, Inc. provides the leading environment
for developing and deploying scalable enterprise software solutions.
Orchestrate, Torrent's flagship product, is a new breed of software that
solves critical business problems by allowing enterprises to extract value
from large volumes of transaction data. Orchestrate is designed for
constructing large-scale data warehouses, data mining applications and
other batch-oriented data processing systems. Torrent also offers training
and consulting services in systems design, development and integration. Its
customers are Fortune 1000 companies in financial, retail and other
sectors, as well as government agencies. Previously known as Applied
Parallel Technologies, the company is privately held. Torrent Systems is
headquartered at Five Cambridge Center, 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA, 02142;
617-354-8484, fax: 617-354-6767; www.torrent.com .
Orchestrate is a trademark of Torrent Systems, Inc. Other product or
company names are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective owners.
CONTACT: Lois Paul & Partners | Constance Mazelsky | 617-238-5751 |
[email protected]
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