IN MEMORY Computing for Databases...

As we know Business & Decision is recognised as a key player by the world's largest vendors and analysts. This in turn depend on extremely fast access to and manipulation of massive data stores.This increasing demand of analytic in the today's competitive environment and with the volumes of data we are dealing with,its beyond the capability of traditional disk storage system to process them in real time in an efficient,accurate and empowerment of business user to help them making smart decision.For this we need a data computing mechanism which fills the lag time between data gathering and business intelligence.
Here comes the IN-Memory data computing for database (IMDB).IMDB rely on main memory for data storage and it contrasts with traditional database management systems as these employ a disk storage mechanism.It strictly provide memory based architecture and direct data manipulation.IMDB technology can support real-time data management, application-tier deployment and the ACID properties.It uses massively parallel architecture with atleast 10X faster than traditional database.
Donot get confused IMDB with database caching.Caching is the process whereby on-disk databases keep frequently-accessed records in memory, for faster access. However, caching only speeds up retrieval of information, or “database reads.” Any database write – that is, an update to a record or creation of a new record – must still be written through the cache, to disk. So, the performance benefit only applies to a subset of database tasks. In addition, managing the cache is itself a process that requires substantial memory and CPU resources, so even a “cache hit” underperforms an in-memory database.In-memory database systems can also gain durability by maintaining one or more copies of the database.
In retail, companies are using in-memory computing to predict which products need to be in which store and at which time. In banks you can carry out real-time risk management - these are things which move an industry forward.These are few examples which empower business user.
Currently there are two big fish in the market competing for IMDB.One among is ORACLE who launched "Exadata" hardware for the same is powered by HP and another big fish is SAP which launched "Sybase ASE In-Memory Database" hardware for the same is powered by intel.

This is a game changer for sure. Disk storage as we it know it may eventually come to an end in the not too distant future. As the functionality required by today's computing environments can be increased shouldered more efficiently by a resource that is housed within main memory, the allure of speed, efficiency and storage and operational cost savings is too good not to take notice off.