SCIENCE

Since outlining its plans at SAPPHIRE NOW for how in-memory computing will dramatically increase the availability and speed of business information, SAP AG has made significant strides for its latest in-memory innovation, SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (SAP HANA) software. Most notably, a co-innovation program for early customers is now up and running in conjunction with key partners HP and IBM. SAP additionally announced extensions of its strategic relationships with Cisco, Fujitsu Technology Solutions and Intel to work together on similar programs to support SAP HANA. This extends SAP's ongoing collaboration with Intel on in-memory technologies as the company was the first SAP partner to co-develop SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator software starting in 2005. The announcement was made at SAP TechEd 2010, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from October 18-22.

Organizations are struggling to manage the soaring quantity of data in both transactional and analytic applications, as well as new kinds of data from the Web. In response, SAP and key partners have been collaborating to create SAP HANA, a new appliance that will enable business users to instantaneously access, explore, model and analyze this data in real time in a single environment, without impacting existing applications or systems. SAP is leading a co-innovation program with its partners that will help ensure customers achieve integration while preserving choice.

"Together with our partners and customers, SAP is breaking down the boundaries between real-time events and real-time business decisions," said Vishal Sikka, executive board member, Technology and Innovation Platform, SAP AG. "Here's an example of how we bring this to life: in early tests conducted with our customer, one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies, they were able to query over 460 billion records of data in just seconds. This is a watershed moment in the evolution of business software. And this is the world that our customers need in order to become the best run organizations."

Collaborating with HP and IBM, SAP is already piloting projects and use cases with customers to ramp up starting in December, including real-time cost and profitability analysis, account reconciliation and inventory analysis. Customers in data-intensive industries such as consumer packaged goods and retail are providing data to SAP and its partners, testing various business scenarios that draw their transactional data directly into SAP HANA for faster analysis. For example, a manufacturing company could analyze purchase orders in real time in order to more accurately manage production, thus avoiding problems like overstock.

HP has been a long-term partner with SAP in co-creating in-memory solutions. Working together on SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator, the two companies created an appliance that improves the speed of queries against massive quantities of data. This appliance also fuels SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version, software that allows business users to explore any type of data at the speed of thought. Collaborating to develop SAP HANA is the next step in their joint commitment to making in-memory computing accessible to business users.

IBM has been working with SAP to create SAP HANA software based on IBM's leading eX5 technology. The eX5-based SAP HANA software will allow SAP HANA customers to achieve significant gains in performance based on eX5 scalability.

Building on the work Fujitsu and SAP conducted on in-memory appliances, the two companies are now working to co-innovate on SAP HANA for their mutual customers. Cisco and SAP are planning to work together to take advantage of the extended memory capabilities provided in the Cisco Unified Computing System to increase the scalability and performance of applications using SAP HANA.

Intel and SAP, through joint engineering, have optimized SAP HANA to help ensure that it runs optimally on the Intel Xeon processor 7500 series, enabling greater business agility and innovative usage models that let customers respond to changing conditions in real time. Deep collaboration between the two companies has resulted in a solution that provides intelligent performance, automated energy efficiency and advanced reliability. As part of its commitment to co-innovate with SAP to create in-memory computing solutions, Intel also has a team of engineers working side by side with SAP engineers in Walldorf, Germany. According to Intel, this optimized solution is planned to be included within the HP, IBM and Fujitsu appliances, helping customers transcend previous barriers to what they could do with data. The SAP in-memory computing engine has been optimized through intensive and long-lasting joint engineering work of Intel and SAP.