In-Memory Technology Speeds Up Data Analytics

In-memory helps the Postal Service flag fraud and quickly determines if a mail piece has correct postage. The spokesmen cite in-memory databases as one of technology that makes it possible for the postal service to take on such tasks as dynamic routing, same-day delivery and predictive routing.

"In-memory databases are allowing us to do things in real-time that would have taken hours or days in the past," Houston and Atkins say.

Interest Moving Beyond Finance, Telco Industries

In-memory technology isn't particularly new. Roger Gaskell, chief technology officer at Kognitio, an in-memory analytics platform vendor, says the first system was built in the late 1980s for the London brokerage firm Savory Milln. The broker wanted to be able to calculate trading exposure risk at virtually any point in time, Gaskell notes.

Before the in-memory system, the exposure calculations were done overnight. In-memory "was the only way we could get at the data fast enough to allow us to bring enough CPU power to bear to meet the use case criteria," Gaskell says.