Desirability, Feasibility, Viability – The Impact of In-Memory

Sub-second respond time and real-time analytics are key requirements for applications that allow natural human computer interactions. We envision users of enterprise applications to interact with their software tools in such a natural way, just like any Internet user interacts with a web search engine today by refining search results on the fly when the initial results are not satisfying. In this initial chapter, we illustrate this vision of providing business data in real time and discuss it in terms of desirability, feasibility, and viability. We first explain the desire of supplying information in real time and review sub-second response time in the context of enterprise applications. We then discuss the feasibility based on in-memory databases that leverage modern computer hardware and conclude by demonstrating the economic viability of in-memory data management.