6 Predictions For Business Intelligence In 2012

When we set New Year's resolutions in our house, we tend to tweak the list for a few weeks, figuring out what's more wishful thinking versus realistically achievable. Then up they go, taped to the kitchen cupboard over last year's lists. It's always a chuckle, sometimes an inspiration, to compare last year's list with this year's.

With this approach in mind, here's a look at the top BI trends from 2011 and what's in store for 2012.

In-Memory Analysis

In-memory technology continued to take center stage in 2011, with its ability to provide speed-of-thought analysis on ever-increasing amounts of data. SAP's in-memory appliance, HANA, became generally available in June. Oracle later announced its own in-memory appliance, Exalytics, at its Oracle Open World conference in October. The appliance combines capabilities from in-memory database TimesTen with new visual discovery capabilities. It was expected to be released late last year, but it's still not available, and Oracle has yet to provide an update on release plans. IBM Cognos released its dynamic query mode, or in-memory for relational databases, last fall. SAS has also begun supporting in-memory as part of its industry solutions.

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