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A Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper Commissioned By SAP and Intel March 2015 In-Memory Computing Platforms Simplify And Accelerate Application Development Businesses Can Build Applications And Business Value For Competitive Advantage

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A Forrester Consulting

Thought Leadership Paper

Commissioned By SAP and Intel

March 2015

In-Memory Computing

Platforms Simplify And

Accelerate Application

Development Businesses Can Build Applications

And Business Value For Competitive

Advantage

Table Of Contents

Executive Summary ........................................................................................... 1

Today’s Enterprise Applications Need More In The Age Of The

Customer ............................................................................................................. 2

Complexity, Silos Are The Culprit .................................................................... 3

In-Memory Computing Platforms Shine For Rapid, Adaptable

Application Development .................................................................................. 4

Key Recommendations ..................................................................................... 8

Appendix A: Methodology ................................................................................ 9

Appendix B: Supplemental Material ................................................................ 9

Appendix C: Endnotes ..................................................................................... 10

ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING

Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based

consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope from a

short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester’s Consulting services connect

you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific

business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting.

© 2015, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.

Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to

change. Forrester®, Technographics

®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact

are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective

companies. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com. [1-RW2I7S]

1

Executive Summary

To meet the increasing demands of the customer in a

multidevice, omnichannel world, technology professionals

are challenged as never before. Driven by the increasing

demands of customers for relevant, contextual interactions

at the right moment, they must quickly develop

performance-intensive applications that solve specific,

complex, data-driven problems across a broad range of

devices and channels. In-memory technology may well be

the application development platform of choice, as it offers

the ability to easily and quickly create custom applications

for high-performance and real-time data management and

complex analytics.

In November 2014, Intel and SAP commissioned Forrester

Consulting to evaluate use of applications built using in-

memory application development platforms. Forrester

explored the assertion that enterprises could benefit from

developing or migrating their own applications using a

robust, integrated in-memory platform, and that those

applications are uniquely suited to meet not only real-time

database management, but also other compute-intensive

applications like predictive analytics, the Internet of Things

(IoT), and various business and customer applications that

target specific business needs and bring unique competitive

advantages with extremely high performance.

In conducting in-depth interviews with 10 IT and software

development professionals, Forrester found that companies

in a variety of industries see in-memory computing as a

viable option to increase performance; create unique,

custom-built applications to meet their distinctive needs; and

enable integration across the enterprise.

KEY FINDINGS

Forrester’s study yielded four key findings:

› The age of the customer demands new development

capabilities. There’s little question today about the

importance of customer experience to your organization’s

bottom line. Customers expect to be able to get the exact

information they need quickly and on any device. This

means an enterprise’s development platform must deliver

application development and data processing abilities that

legacy platforms and processes just can’t handle. And

these development capabilities are not just important for

customers — your employees also need enhanced

applications and capabilities to keep them engaged and

productive. Failing to address these new imperatives

means your biggest assets are at risk of being poached

by disruptive upstarts. In a counterintuitive twist, that

means that development teams should consider building

their own applications rather than trying to customize off-

the-shelf applications to meet business needs.

› Data integration drives successful applications. Your

business no longer has a “back office”, regardless of your

industry. All processes ultimately affect the customer

experience, and it’s increasingly important to connect the

dots between all the data you collect and store,

regardless of where it resides. Applications for both

internal and external stakeholders must process and act

on all the same data in a timely and efficient manner, and

increased demand for continuous innovation means

businesses need to shorten the production cycles by

managing less data copies. Moreover, as data and

applications integrate, the business integrates and

innovates.

› Simplicity and performance go hand in hand, and in-

memory is an increasingly viable development

ecosystem to meet both needs. With in-memory

platform providers working to make their technologies

more integrated and more modular, and with the

performance advantages of low latency, developers are

finding they can integrate and develop faster, better-

performing applications that create opportunities to push

new frontiers in innovation and performance. Business

processes can then become more agile and competitive,

decreasing costs and delivering a superior customer

experience.

› Omnichannel and the Internet of Things force real-

time performance. Through new next-generation mobile

apps, customers are demanding continuous improvement

to their customer experience. Forrester identified four

gaps for the customer experience between what

customers are expecting and what companies struggle to

deliver: performance, convenience, personalization, and

trust (see Figure 1). Collecting events from IoT,

aggregating them in volume, and delivering the right

answer to the customer in their own context is a challenge

that all companies progressing toward an omnichannel

strategy are facing. With in-memory technology,

enterprises can work across every channel and handle

volume from IoT to create immediate, contextual answer-

based experiences in support of their customers.

2

Today’s Enterprise Applications Need More In The Age Of The Customer

Enterprises stand at the brink of a major opportunity to

expand their capabilities and efficiencies for serving the

customer. The key to this is exploiting the real-time insights

provided by the vast array of data that can be collected and

brought together by big data and real-time advanced

analytics. This requires a technology platform that can store,

process, and access data faster than traditional approaches

and readily adapts to new business needs. Recent

advances in in-memory technologies offer this ability.1

Forrester defines an in-memory database as: "Database

technology that stores either all or partial data in DRAM,

either on a single server or distributed across multiple nodes

in a cluster to support transactional, analytical, and

predictive workloads." Combined with complementary

application development modules that exploit this data

access model, in-memory technology enables businesses

to innovate better services by running business operations

faster and efficiently, in order to upsell/cross-sell new

products based on customer likes, dislikes, buying patterns,

friend circles, and past orders.2

The business implications are huge not only for migrating

existing business applications, but also for building new

innovative custom-built applications, as both directly and

indirectly affect a firm’s customer experience, employee

productivity, business agility, and competitiveness. What if

you could deliver your complex queries and business

insights a thousand times faster? What if your mobile

application could access integrated data from many

disparate sources in seconds? What if the technology you

use could accelerate data processing and deliver real-time

information with low latency? The power exists to address

the following realities:

› Customer experience is the ultimate sustainable

advantage. Mobile applications have shifted enormous

power to consumers and customers, enabling them to

switch to competitors instantaneously. Social channels

amplify their opinions and extend their reach, and

consumers now have more power to make or break a

business. Winning — or losing — customers comes down

to the digital customer experiences and levels of service

you provide.3 Creating relevant applications in the service

of this will be the key business differentiator for

enterprises. More than ever, enterprise application

developers must build a bridge between what customers

expect and what businesses deliver. This expectation

lives not just at the technology level, but even more

importantly, at the business level (See Figure 1).

Technology developers must now consider the full cross-

channel experience, blending technology and culture to

enable and build performance, convenience,

personalization, and trust.

› Employee productivity suffers from poorly designed

applications. A recent Forrester survey found that only

34% of information workers are fully engaged (meaning

likely to stay at their employer for the foreseeable future,

recommend the company’s products and services, and

recommend a job at their company to friends or family

members). The potential energy of engagement is

converted into kinetic energy of productivity. As the

number of digitally native employees increases, it’s

important to serve their needs with mobile and social

technologies that increase their productivity.4

FIGURE 1

Experience Delivery Requires A New Architecture And Philosophy To Bridge The Gap

Source: “Predictions 2015: Customer Experience And Digital Business

Rise In EA’s Agenda,” Forrester Research, Inc., November 14, 2014

Whatbusinesses

deliver

Whatcustomers

expect

A bridge built on an architecturecross-channel experience delivery

and a philosophy and culture ofbusiness agility

Performance:Internet scale, real-time, any

device, instrumented fordata-driven improvement

Convenience:simple, compelling, complete,

unified delivery across channels,can act immediately, anywhere

Personalization:context-rich, next best action,

location-aware, socially connected,customer-journey-mindful

Trust:honest, accountable, transparent,

contextual, reliable,privacy-respecting

3

› Business agility and innovation can launch ships;

disruptive competition can sink them. To compete,

firms must offer innovative technology to engage

customers at speed-to-market, becoming more agile in

product and service delivery. Rapid innovation is now a

primary motivator for adopting new development

technologies. For example, among the reasons cited in a

recent Forrester survey of enterprise firms who use or

plan to use SaaS, the top five benefits cited all related to

business agility and speed (versus cost) (See Figure 2).5

The ability to gather and analyze data in real time and

respond quickly and innovatively saves money and opens

the door to new opportunities. A major ship building firm

interviewed for this study is currently integrating project

management, materials management, and real-time

materials and process analysis to ensure the ships it

builds not only come in on budget, but are better,

stronger, and longer-lasting. Its CIO cited the power of

real-time, relevant data: Problems and opportunities are

discovered and worked on in real time, in one case cutting

the materials cost in half on one portion of the project.

The good news is that with a changing business

environment, internal application development teams that

can meet these needs are needed and more relevant than

ever before. They are in a unique position to partner with

the business to create the tools and applications that enable

great customer experiences, improve employee productivity,

and support rapid innovation and business agility. But

developers are struggling to keep up. Why?

Complexity, Silos Are The Culprit

Enterprise application development teams are faced with

challenges that make it difficult to keep up with the business

demand for new real-time and high-performance

applications, as well as enhancements to existing web and

mobile applications. Netted out, the following obstacles

have plagued enterprise application development teams for

years:

› Development teams struggle with ever-changing user

requirements with higher expectations. As users from

both employee and customer ranks demand more across

a wider variety of channels and interaction points,

business applications must cope with rapidly shifting

customer needs. With the emergence of new

technologies such as mobile devices or cloud

applications, end users’ needs are significantly changing.

While there are common themes, there are complex

requirements not only across industries, but also across

both processes and functions. 6

› Developers are wrestling with numerous

heterogeneous application development tools and

platforms. Given that large-scale enterprise application

development in many companies is over 40 years old, it

should be no surprise that today’s application developers

seldom (if ever) have the luxury of starting with a clean

slate. Silos are a legacy issue, and integrating and

standardizing efforts must solve for that, with mergers and

acquisitions only adding to the complexity. A steel and

mining company CIO said: “There’s no consistency of

computing across North America [in our company], as the

plants are all a collection acquired through M&A. Long

term, the company would like to standardize, but costs

and keeping the whole process stable are more important

right now.”

› Developers find themselves spending too much time

and effort to achieve availability, performance,

scalability, and adaptability. As with all things in

business, there is a diminishing marginal return on trying

to perfect all ideal attributes, whether for a business

process or an enterprise application. This is especially

problematic when handling growing data volumes for

FIGURE 2

Speed And Agility Have An Impact On Technology Decisions

Base: 765 NA and EU software decision-makers whose firms plan to use

SaaS (1,000+ employees)

Source: ’Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2013, Forrester Research, Inc.

“How important were the following benefits in yourfirm’s decision to use SaaS?”

(Important [4] and very important [5])

Improved business agility 75%

Speed of implementationand deployment

72%

Faster delivery of new featuresand functions from SaaS/

as-a-service providers71%

Support business innovationwith new capabilities

69%

Allows us to focus resourceson more important projects

69%

Lower overall costs 68%

Ability to substitute upfrontcosts with regular monthly

payments53%

Agilityand

speed

Cost

4

each application, much of it coming from varied sources

and being stored across the organization, often in the

cloud. The trend toward a hybrid of on-premises and

cloud to house both applications and data challenges

developers to keep performance and availability

seamlessly maximized to serve their customers and

business partners.

› Silos impede omnichannel strategies. Every functional

executive must step up to the challenge of understanding

the “big picture” for the business, and technology teams

must be at the forefront of this effort. Planning, launching,

developing, and maintaining applications and projects in

silos will inevitably create collisions and gaps when those

projects must be collected and integrated to serve the

customer. Today, it’s about striking the right balance

between all those elements and the

technologies/methods used to achieve them (See Figure

3).7 Both business and technology experts in the

enterprise are dealing with silos when solving complex

problems that require an integrated approach. Otherwise,

customers will immediately unveil any inconsistenicies in

function, data access and manipulation, user interface, or

performance. They need platforms that can help both

simplify processes and work in real time.

Ultimately, application development teams are not judged

by how well they gather business requirements, choose

development technologies, manage the project, or march

through the development process. Instead, they are judged

by: 1) how well their software serves the business goals and

2) how empowered customers or employees feel before,

during, and after they use their software. Teams know they

need to improve. As one interviewee stated: “I’d rather have

my staff solve business problems. After all, it’s about how

we apply technology to solve problems, not in software

development for its own sake.”

So, what’s the answer?

In-Memory Computing Platforms Shine For Rapid, Adaptable Application Development

In order to meet challenges of new and increasing

demands, heterogeneous platforms, and siloed approaches

to solving business problems, many application

development teams are using in-memory platforms for help.

In-memory development platforms can help enterprises

push technology and business frontiers through five

characteristics: 1) performance — if businesses can

process data and applications faster, then quite simply, they

can do more; 2) simplification — by using a common

platform with already created code containers, there’s less

customizing and patching required; 3) innovation — the

business and its development partners can focus their

creative energies on the business; 4) a single data source

— one data source of truth with the ability to tap in and

reformat for the right device and channel on the fly means

lower cost, higher performance, and lower risk; and 5)

integration — write one application or experience that can

work across multiple devices, or integrate legacy apps via

data access. These characteristics help in the following

ways:

› Performance drives competitive advantage. In-

memory technology drives high performance by keeping

large amounts of data and instructions readily available in

on-circuit memory, rather than wasting instruction cycles

reaching out to disk. Performance is the best known

aspect of in-memory computing, but rather than get

caught up in the technical aspects of how that works, app

developers should consider what that means from a

business and accomplishment angle. One of the CIOs

interviewed put it bluntly: “I don’t care about the

FIGURE 3

Balance Business And Technology Trends

Source: “Increase Flexibility By Embracing Future Business And

Technology Trends,” Forrester Research, Inc., October 24, 2014

Mobile

The future ofbusiness applications

Flexibility,speed,

intelligence,ease of use,value focus

Clouddeployment

BPM

Userexperience

Extensibility

Elastic appplatforms

Socialcollaboration

Semantic businessservices specs

Componentization

Real-timeanalytics

5

technology, except as it supports speed, capabilities, and

security. We have a dogmatic focus on simplicity and

outcomes . . . and speed is the competitive advantage.”

› Simplicity fuels application development agility. In-

memory computing platforms can dramatically accelerate

application development by simplifying the hoops that

developers normally have to jump through. Architecture is

the essential mechanism that integrates the functional

features of a product. An open, standardized, and

consistent architecture will help the technology

management team streamline its operations and

maintenance processes and improve its ability to meet the

requirements of business stakeholders for better

performance.8

› Innovation from high performance and simplicity

leads to new business opportunities. A simple

architecture with clearly segmented functionality,

combined with loose coupling and a minimalist approach

to architectural components on the in-memory platform,

enables firms to rapidly innovate their offerings while still

addressing the customer experience (See Figure 4). The

firms interviewed for this study all pointed to examples of

how the power of in-memory computing gave them the

horsepower to focus on innovating and solving problems,

from predictive insights that generated substantial cost

savings to real-time materials analysis and process

control to ensure consistent high-quality material output.

› Single data source capability enables an omnichannel

strategy. Forrester estimates that more than 30% of data

is duplicated. This often creates data quality issues and

inconsistencies, largely because each copy of data goes

through further transformation and integration that

changes its business context, and some copies are

refreshed from production systems on an infrequent

basis. In-memory helps deliver a single version of the

truth and 360-degree view of the customer, employee,

business, or partner.9 Over the long term, this “single

source of truth” simplifies data management and reduces

the cost that comes from managing multiple databases

and multiple copies of data.

› Integration drives successful applications. In-memory

can be used as a data services layer that mediates

between data sources and data-consuming applications

and services. One advantage of this is that companies

that juggle maintaining legacy apps with developing a

new multichannel (and device) architecture can support

integration via data access. With an in-memory platform,

all calculations can run on the same copy of data on the

fly. Rather than rebuilding everything from scratch,

developers can use in-memory components as the

integration engine to build applications dynamically,

sharing the same copy of data to save time and money

without sacrificing the functionality that the business

demands.

IN-MEMORY COMPUTING PLATFORMS ARE IDEAL

FOR TODAY’S MOST DEMANDING APPLICATIONS

In-memory applications are data-focused, but the

technology has implications in a diverse array of

development options, including mobile applications and

applications that require elasticity and scalability (especially

cloud applications). Elastic application platforms (EAPs) will

enable innovative new apps that benefit from high scalability

and elasticity, as well as enable cloud apps to support larger

enterprises and more sophisticated multitenant designs.

The speed and scalability of in-memory architectures will

enable apps that provide new levels of predictive simulation

and insight.10

In development scenarios such as mobile applications, last-

mile connectivity is a significant challenge, particularly over

3G/4G networks. In-memory databases enable a solution

for these cases of questionable and unpredictable

connection speed, providing immediate access to cached

data.11

All of these capabilities can be easily harnessed and

accessed by in-house development teams, allowing greater

flexibility and customization without “from scratch”

FIGURE 4

Simplicity Leads To Effectiveness, Ease, And Emotion

Source: “Brief: Product Innovation Must Focus On Simplicity To Enhance

Customer Experiences,” Forrester Research, Inc., September 3, 2014

Effectiveness

Ease

Emotion

UIsimplicity

Architecturalsimplicity

Businesssimplicity

6

development or change management. Some of the

demanding applications that are ideal for an in-memory

computing platform include the following:

› Real-time dynamic reporting. Enterprises that can

analyze their businesses dynamically, in real time, can be

consistently flexible and responsive to customer needs

and environmental changes. One example of this is

adding real-time and ad hoc reporting of financials or

sales during the monthly accounting cycle to immediately

enhance exception reporting and minimize errors. In-

memory technology can aggregate data at a very granular

level with any number of combinations in real time, all off

a single data set. This helps businesses find and fix

issues quickly. Manufacturing process control especially

benefits from this additional reporting power. The

manufacturing enterprises interviewed for this study all

cited the power of real-time reporting in optimizing their

supply chains, detecting issues and making process

manufacturing adjustments, optimizing materials quality

and cost management, and maximizing the efficiency of

freight and transportation.

› Real-time planning and optimization. In-memory

technology platforms are now combining application

services with web services and the development

environment and integrating with database architectures

to add both performance and integration to the mix.

Businesses can now build on their reporting capabilities

and move to the next level: real-time planning and

optimization. Imagine the power of real-time dashboards

that display data consistently across key performance

indicators from different data sources. A global food

manufacturer and distributor that participated in this study

uses in-memory computing to compile and analyze

several threads of data that then feed into its production

cost planning model, including hedging against price

fluctuations for commodity ingredients that are the basis

of its manufactured products. The CIO at this

manufacturer said, “Three to four years ago, we suffered

from wide commodity pricing swings that killed our cost

structure — we were six months behind the curve. Now

we are able to respond relatively quickly [to commodity

price swings], and in a thoughtful way.” Getting the right

information at the right time is key to having the

competitive edge.

› In-depth analytics requiring a high level of precision

across broader data. In-memory platforms can act as an

analytics appliance, supporting real-time analysis at

different levels of memory and different levels of

application and business logic. This means consumer

businesses can analyze point-of-sale data in real time to

suggest additional or even replacement products,

increasing average purchase, customer engagement, and

customer loyalty. Each of the enterprises Forrester

interviewed for this study had a unique need for precise,

in-depth analytics — from real-time analysis of content

viewed for a digital content provider to in-process

materials analysis for a global steel producer. All were

clear about the benefits that in-memory provided. “We

couldn’t have done [our] forecasting project without the

performance and bandwidth in-memory provides,” noted

the CTO of a large shipyard

› The Internet of Things. Traditional “embedded”

applications are taking a new place of prominence as in-

memory capabilities capture machine (and even human)

data in real time and integrate with any other number of

processes and data sources, all in real time. Product

manufacturers are embedding intelligent connectivity into

their products and building new business processes and

models that can respond to that data. Manufacturing firms

often use connected world solutions to locate equipment,

prevent and detect theft, maintain real-time asset

inventory, and optimize supply chain processes. These

solutions enable real-time analysis of factory processes

such as fabrication, assembly, packaging, supply chain

automation, and warehouse monitoring. Transportation

firms have also implemented fleet management services

to track fuel usage, improve fleet efficiency, and monitor

vehicle maintenance status. A CIO at a large steel

producer who was interviewed for this study can now use

real-time defect data to make changes in robotics and

materials processing. His next goal is to give every

engineer and shop floor controller access to the data and

analysis on their mobile devices, wherever they are.

› Predictive analytics. Predictive analytics is a key

capability to make better decisions, avoid risks, and

create differentiated, more individualized customer

experiences. If an enterprise can take real-time analytics

to the next step, it can actually model the future. In-

memory features, such as supporting data mining across

multiple different data sources or even using in-database

scoring and optimization, enable real-time access and

integration of very large and complex data ecosystems.

Some direct marketers use predictive models to boost

their campaign response rates. One large online content

provider interviewed uses in-memory technology to

7

collect, structure, and visualize data on how users interact

with content. Focusing on analyzing small, actionable

pieces of information and using pattern recognition

algorithms, this company has created a powerful

predictive model to better understand and sell advertising

for that content. Companies Forrester spoke with for this

study are feeling empowered by data and performance

provided by their in-memory applications to do things like

analyze and predict commodity price changes, anticipate

project costs, and see patterns in changes to production

materials. The ability to see patterns and predict

outcomes can save time and money, allow enterprises to

anticipate customer needs, and provide innovation insight

to meet those needs, all in real time.

“[For us] . . . it comes down to high-

speed data collection and analysis,

from materials to shop floor controls.

. . . Collecting and analyzing

information every 5 milliseconds, we

could adjust the robotic welding

before it goes off track, or adjust the

process with data from real-time

defect analysis.”

— CIO at global steel producer

› Geo-info analytics or spatial processing. A prerequisite

to winning in the age of the customer is a deep

knowledge of customers, their surroundings, and their

real-time wants and needs. For example, retailers are

using presence awareness in their stores to manage

crowds or even target appropriate offers to individuals,

and insurance companies are tracking a customer’s

driving habits and adjusting premiums accordingly. Geo-

info analytics requires enormous performance for both

data management and application response. But it can

also open the door to untold levels of innovation in service

of the customer. In-memory technology has made the

opportunity for innovation in this area an exciting new

possibility for innovative businesses, as they can now

access huge amounts of data being created in real time

across channels and devices. Many of the CIOs Forrester

interviewed were thinking about how spatial processing

could be used in innovative ways. One speculated on

optimizing freight and transportation; another is

developing apps for tracking key product components to

optimize build processes. Consumer-oriented businesses

are actively using location tracking and analytics to

anticipate and serve customer needs, and they feel they

haven’t begun to scratch the surface of possibilities.

In-memory technology is beginning to reveal the possibilities

for innovation, simplicity, and integration in areas where

speed and scalability are requirements. With the

performance, integration, and simplicity of in-memory,

application developers can solve business problems more

quickly and effectively than ever before.

8

Key Recommendations

R. Buckminster Fuller once said, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” Enterprise application

development teams can and must change. The business-as-usual software design and development practices have

failed to overcome the perpetual struggle of delivering great software on time and on budget. Ever-escalating

standards of what constitutes good customer and employee experience will further render them obsolete. In-memory

computing platforms can transform this struggle with performance, simplicity, and the freedom to innovate.

Development pros should consider the following to maximize their benefits from in-memory technology:

› Build an in-memory development road map. Savvy enterprise application developers will work with their

business partners to determine what the customer and business needs truly are, and then match the right

capabilities with the right desired outcomes. In-memory vendors are providing the platforms that allow integration

with legacy applications and creating in-house custom applications that can precisely hit the sweet spot of

present and future business needs.

› Don’t be afraid to build applications in-house. In-memory development platforms are often containerized, with

application programming interfaces (APIs) and integration points that make custom development much simpler

than in days past. One of the respondents in this study saw his in-memory development platform as being almost

“off the shelf” but still capable of customizing to his company’s specialized needs. The key is performance,

simplicity, and integration.

› Look for in-memory platforms that are modular, simple, and able to grow with the business. Cloud and on-

premises applications, data warehousing platforms, analytics tools, and other factors may vary across the

organization. It is critical to have the right tool at the right time for the job, as well as have the key integration

points that allow a common set of performance-driven capabilities across a diverse array of devices and

channels. —

› Position IT as a partner in empowering the business. Technologies like in-memory have the potential to

transform IT from the office of “no” to one of “yes,” a particularly welcome shift given the demands of modern

business. With the agility, simplicity, and performance of in-memory technology, it’s easy to seize the opportunity

to leverage enhanced capabilities to develop or rebuild the kinds of applications that truly meet business needs.

9

Appendix A: Methodology

In this study, commissioned by Intel and SAP, Forrester interviewed 10 technology and application development

professionals in organizations in North America in order to evaluate how they are using and/or planning to use in-memory

development platforms and technology to solve pressing business problems, the decision-making process they went through

to decide on in-memory technology, and what business impact they have seen to date. Survey participants included

decision-makers and technology leaders in a range of industries. Questions provided to the participants asked about

computing strategies and budgets, how in-memory is currently being used in their company, future plans for in-memory, the

process used to decide on technology strategies in general and for in-memory in particular, and the business impact of in-

memory on their organizations. The study began in November 2014 and was completed in February 2015.

Appendix B: Supplemental Material

RELATED FORRESTER RESEARCH

“Brief: In-Memory Data Platform Is No Longer An Option — It’s A Necessity!” Forrester Research, Inc., August 22, 2014

“Market Overview: In-Memory Data Platforms,” Forrester Research, Inc., December 26, 2014

“The Age Of The Customer Changes Everything For AD&D Leaders,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 23, 2014

“Maximize Employee Value By Aligning With Customer Imperatives,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 9, 2014

“Transform Application Delivery To Improve Business Agility,” Forrester Research, Inc., July 10, 2014

“Increase Flexibility By Embracing Future Business And Technology Trends,” Forrester Research, Inc., October 24, 2014

“The 10 Most Important Technology Trends In Business Application Architecture Today,” Forrester Research, Inc., September 23, 2013

“Brief: Product Innovation Must Focus On Simplicity To Enhance Customer Experiences,” Forrester Research, Inc.,

September 3, 2014

“The Future Of Mobile Application Development,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 28, 2015

10

Appendix C: Endnotes

1 Source: “Brief: In-Memory Data Platform Is No Longer An Option — It’s A Necessity!” Forrester Research, Inc., August 22,

2014.

2 Source: “Market Overview: In-Memory Data Platforms,” Forrester Research, Inc., December 26, 2014.

3 Source: “The Age Of The Customer Changes Everything For AD&D Leaders,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 23, 2014.

4 Source: “Maximize Employee Value By Aligning With Customer Imperatives,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 9, 2014.

5 Source: “Transform Application Delivery To Improve Business Agility,” Forrester Research, Inc., July 10, 2014.

6 Source: “Increase Flexibility By Embracing Future Business And Technology Trends,” Forrester Research, Inc., October

24, 2014.

7 Source: “Increase Flexibility By Embracing Future Business And Technology Trends,” Forrester Research, Inc., October

24, 2014.

8 Source: “Brief: Product Innovation Must Focus On Simplicity To Enhance Customer Experiences,” Forrester Research, Inc.

September 3, 2014.

9 Source: “Brief: In-Memory Data Platform Is No Longer An Option — It’s A Necessity!” Forrester Research, Inc., August 22,

2014.

10 Source: “The 10 Most Important Technology Trends In Business Application Architecture Today,” Forrester Research, Inc.,

September 23, 2013.

11 Source: “The Future Of Mobile Application Development,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 28, 2015.