Syncsort, which offers integration technology for Big Data environments, announced the acquisition of UK-based Circle Computer Group.
Earlier in the year Syncsort CEO Lonne Jaffe laid out the firm’s ambitious acquisition strategy, suggesting the Circle deal is merely the first of several.
Circle offers a portfolio of software products that allow organisations to make mainframe data securely available for new enterprise-wide Big Data initiatives without requiring any changes to existing applications.
Circle’s flagship product, DL/2, provides a software engine that enables the rapid, transparent migration of applications accessing large quantities of data from the IBM Information Management System (IMS) to DB2 on z/OS, without requiring any application changes. This mainframe data can be made securely available to Big Data platforms such as Apache Hadoop by using Syncsort’s DMX-h product line. Circle also provides similar capabilities for moving IBM Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) data.
"We’re looking to acquire fast-growing companies with extraordinary talent and highly differentiated software that will advance our strategy and easily snap into our existing technology," said Jaffe, Syncsort’s CEO. "We were really fortunate to find such a company in Circle."
Over 90% of the Fortune 1000 enterprises use IMS for their mission-critical data management needs, Syncsort pointed out, processing more than 50 billion transactions a day and managing over 14 petabytes of data. CICS VSAM processes tens of billions of online transactions every day at the world’s largest companies.
"Many large enterprises with substantial Hadoop projects have told us that up to 80 per cent of their corporate data originates in the mainframe," said Geoff Cooke, general manager of Circle Computer Group. "With mainframe data being such a critical piece of the enterprise’s Big Data strategy, Syncsort and Circle create a formidable combination of expertise and a trusted ability to bring measurable value to mainframe customers."
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Syncsort says it already has software running on more than half of the world’s mainframes.
"The early adopters of Hadoop – the consumer Internet companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter – didn’t have mainframes," said Jaffe. "Over the next decade, as Big Data technology adoption accelerates in large enterprises such as banks, governments, retailers, and hospitals, powerful software that allows secure access to the vast stores of the world’s mainframe data by these next-generation platforms will become increasingly important."
Read our recent Q&A with Jaffe here.
