Torrent Systems

{{Infobox company | name = Torrent Systems | logo = | caption = | type = | traded_as = | genre =  | fate = Acquired | predecessor = | successor = Ascential Software | foundation =  | founder = | defunct = 2001 | location_city = Cambridge, MA<ref name="nist" /> | location_country = | location = | locations = | area_served = | key_people = Edward Zyszkowski Robert Utzschneider | industry = | products = Orchestrate | services = | revenue = | operating_income = | net_income = | assets = | equity = | owner = | num_employees = 32 | parent = | divisions = | subsid = | homepage =  | footnotes = | intl = }} '''Torrent Systems''', originally named '''Applied Parallel Technologies''' (APT), was a parallel computing 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.<ref name="nist">{{cite web|url=http://www.atp.nist.gov/eao/sp950-2/chapt5-5.htm|title=Performance of 50 Completed ATP Projects Status Report - Number 2 NIST SP 950-2|publisher=National Institute of Standards and Technology|accessdate=28 March 2011}}</ref>

==Products==

The company's product was a parallel flow-based programming 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 pipelines. Here is a simple example:

<pre> generator -records 50 -schema record (recNum: int32; firstName: string[max=20]; lastName: string[max=30];) | peek -name -all </pre>

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 in late 2001<ref>{{cite web|last=Whiting|first=Rick|url=http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/bi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=6507746#|title=Ascential Buys Torrent Systems, InformationWeek, November 28, 2001|publisher=UBM Webtech|accessdate=28 March 2011}}</ref> for about $46 million; Orchestrate became part of Ascential's DataStage data integration system, which became part of IBM'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== {{Reflist}}

Category:Defunct software companies of the United States