In the last fifty years the world has been completely transformed through the use of IT. We have now reached a new inflection point. This book presents, for the first time, how in-memory data management is changing the way businesses are run. Today, enterprise data is split into separate databases for performance reasons. Multi-core CPUs, large main memories, cloud computing and powerful mobile devices are serving as the foundation for the transition of enterprises away from this restrictive model. This book provides the technical foundation for processing combined transactional and analytical operations in the same database. In the year since we published the first edition of this book, the performance gains enabled by the use of in-memory technology in enterprise applications has truly marked an inflection point in the market. The new content in this second edition focuses on the development of these in-memory enterprise applications, showing how they leverage the capabilities of in-memory technology. The book is intended for university students, IT-professionals and IT-managers, but also for senior management who wish to create new business processes.
Prof. Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner is a co-founder of SAP AG, where he served as the CEO until 2003 and has since been chairman of the supervisory board. SAP AG is today the leading provider of enterprise software solutions. In his role as chief software advisor, he concentrates on defining the mid- and long- term technology strategy and direction of SAP. Hasso Plattner received his diploma in communications engineering from the University of Karlsruhe. In recent years, he has been focusing on teaching and research in the field of business computing and software engineering at large. In 1998, he founded the Hasso-Plattner-Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, Germany. At the HPI, approximately 480 students are currently pursuing their Bachelors' and Masters' degrees in IT Systems Engineering with the help of roughly 50 professors and lecturers. The HPI currently has about 100 PhD candidates. Hasso Plattner leads one of the research groups at HPI which focuses mainly on In-Memory Data Management for Enterprise Applications and Human-Centered Software Design and Engineering.
Dr. Alexander Zeier graduated from the University of Wuerzburg in business management and successfully completed his studies in information technology at the TU Chemnitz. He worked for a few years as a strategic IT consultant, before gaining his Ph.D. in Supply Chain Management (SCM) at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has 20 years experience with IT/SAP Systems and started working for SAP in 2002 as product manager with overall responsibility for the SCM Software, SAP's first large In-Memory Application. Since 2006 he has been Deputy Chair Enterprise Platform and Integration Concepts of Prof. Hasso Plattner at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, focusing on real-time In-Memory Enterprise Systems. During that time he has also been Executive Director for the European Section of the MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation. Since March 2012 Dr. Zeier has been working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as Visiting Professor, lecturing and conducting research in the area of In-Memory Technology & Applications, and Supply Chain Innovation. He is the author of more than 150 journal articles and papers and has also published six books on IT and SAP.
