Torrent Systems, originally named Applied Parallel Technologies (APT), was a

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

software company founded in 1993 by Edward Zyszkowski, with the first employee being Rob Utzschneider. Torrent received initial funding from the NIST Advanced Technology Program.

Products

The company's product was a parallel

flow-based programming In computer programming, flow-based programming (FBP) is a programming paradigm that defines application software, applications as networks of black box process (computer science), processes, which exchange data across predefined connections by mes ...

system called Orchestrate. The product enabled users to assemble a program using predefined components (called ''operators'') connected by ''virtual datasets'' in a manner similar to

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

pipelines A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The Un ...

. Here is a simple example:

generator
  -records 50
  -schema record (recNum:    int32;
                  firstName: string ax=20
                  lastName:  string ax=30)
  , 
peek
  -name -all

This script contains two operators: the ''generator'' operator (which creates test data) and the ''peek'' operator, which displays the contents of the records it receives. The generator will create 50 records, each with three fields; the peek operator will display their contents. Torrent was acquired by

Ascential Software Informix Corporation, formerly Informix Software, Inc., was a software company located in Menlo Park, California. It was a developer of relational database software for computers using the Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh operating s ...

in late 2001 for about $46 million; Orchestrate became part of Ascential's

DataStage IBM InfoSphere DataStage is an ETL tool and part of the IBM Information Platforms Solutions suite and IBM InfoSphere. It uses a graphical notation to construct data integration solutions and is available in various versions such as the Server E ...

data integration system, which became part of

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

's Information Server product when Ascential was acquired by IBM in mid-2005. Torrent technology became the Parallel Engine in the Information Server architecture.

References

Defunct software companies of the United States {{Ict-company-stub