Syncsort buys mainframe expertise to link Big Iron to Big Data

Like Mark Twain before it, reports of the mainframe's death have been exaggerated. While the data may be over a couple years old, as of 2014, IBM counted 97 of the world's top 100 banks continuing to rely on mainframes. With the philosophy of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," there's little reason for large financial institutions to revisit 30 to 40 year-old transaction processing code if there's no business gain to be had from it. There are massive efficiencies, agility, and manageability benefits from virtualizing your data center and running it from software. Privately-held Syncsort is announcing today that it is acquiring U.K. mainframe database tools firm Cogito Ltd. for an undisclosed amount to add more optimization to its existing DMX-h Hadoop-mainframe ETL and data integration tooling.