TM1 Forum

SAP Announces In-Memory Analysis Technology

Business Analytic Engine promises business-user-accessible analysis of real-time information.

By Doug Henschen
InformationWeek
May 19, 2010 01:21 PM

SAP's executives have had a lot to say about in-memory and column-store database technology in recent weeks. Wednesday at SAPPHIRE, the company announced plans for two specific products: The SAP Business Analytic Engine and a related High-Performance Analytic Appliance to be built on hardware from partners HP and IBM.
Promising "real, real-time analysis without risk," SAP executives Vishal Sikka, CTO, and Hasso Plattner, Executive Board Chairman, detailed the technology, which will blend up-to-the-minute transactional information from within SAP applications with historical data and other external data to enable real-time planning, optimization and analysis applications.

An SAP press release stated the products would be available within 12 months, but Sikka said he's pressing for release by the end of 2010.

At the core of the SAP Business Analytic Engine is the in-memory and column-oriented database technology that the company has previously used in the Business Warehouse Accelerator and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer products. On top of the engine is a business-user-friendly data-modeling interface that is said to make it easy for business analysts to bring data in from multiple systems and model real-time analysis, planning or optimization applications.

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The SAP Business Analytic Engine and the related appliance will initially supplement, rather than replace, the relational databases underlying SAP applications and existing data warehouses. As such it would bring the benefits of real-time analysis without ripping and replacing existing systems. Ultimately, however, Plattner laid out a vision whereby SAP's new combined transactional and OLAP engine will replace both data warehouses and the relational databases running under SAP apps.

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