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Apr 21, 2010 at 08:48 PM

What are your ideas for new business apps based on in-memory computing?

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When we look at the current set of SAP applications using in-memory computing we see a few themes: aggregating vast amounts of data in BWA (think: summing up a billion records in less than a second), parsing complex data structures of structured and unstructured (here: text) content in Enhanced Material Search, or quickly divvying up tens of millions of customer records in the CRM High Volume Customer Segmentation to find the most appropriate target group for a marketing campaign, all with drag and drop in an attractive UI.

Where the power of in-memory computing really makes a difference to the business user is in the ability to do many iterations of a search or a planning/simulation exercise in a short amount of time, thus being able to put the results into the business context of a meeting or a customer call (instead of having to push it to some background batch, which the business person will look at some time later). And this combined with the ability to process huge amounts of data.

Look at the [SAP video|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/elearn?rid=/library/uuid/702a1f5f-c6cb-2c10-f29a-845465ad0b60] on "Real Real-Time Computing" to get a feeling for this.

In my job I am thinking about new kinds of SAP business applications which are made possible with in-memory computing technologies. Crawling the web for millions of opinions of a company's products (and their competitors')? Reading Smart Meter data and making decisions on energy management? Genome comparisons?

Dream with me: if you think of unlimited computing power and unlimited amounts of data which could be processed, what applications would invoke a radical shift in your or your colleague's business lives?

Or if you want to be closer to the ground: where in your job are you currently hampered by too slow data processing or too many limitations on accessing the data you need? And if you would get results in seconds, how would that alter the way you do business?