Friday 03 September 2010
In-memory data grids store information that applications need in memory across a pool of servers, instead of reading it off disks, resulting in major performance gains. The Coherence product is one of the more mature in a space occupied by offerings from IBM as well as smaller companies like GigaSpaces and a number of open-source projects. Microsoft is also developing a system dubbed “Velocity.” o date, such systems have breathed rarefied air, mostly supporting large-scale Web sites and high-throughput transactional systems, such as stock trading applications. The in-memory data grid market in total generated less than US$100 million in revenue during 2008, according to Gartner, which prefers the term “distributed caching platforms.
But some observers believe that in-memory approaches to data management could eventually gain serious traction in cloud-computing deployments. The technologies would help applications that weren’t originally designed for elastically scalable infrastructure systems like Amazon Web Services to run more effectively, albeit “via some re-engineering,” Gartner analyst Massimo Pezzini said in a recent report. Beyond vendor trepidation, other factors stand in the way of broader customer adoption, such as the complexity of deploying and managing the systems and limited support from systems integrators and ISVs, according to Pezzini.
Amitive Unity 5.0, offered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and aimed at enabling “community SCM for both large and small companies that outsource manufacturing.
Amitive said that Unity 5.0 introduces architectural updates to let communities of supply chain owners, customers and supply partners leverage the “true value of cloud computing” in any public or private cloud environment. Supply chain solution provider Amitive has delivered what it is calling the industry’s first supply chain management (SCM) solution “delivered in the cloud,” Amitive Unity 5.0, offered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and aimed at enabling “community SCM for both large and small companies that outsource manufacturing.” This latest version provides further value by allowing Amitive’s customers to take advantage of critical advancements in the scalability, security and reliability of today’s more mature cloud environment.
Amitive is a catalyst enabling us to team with our retail customers to centralize information, bridge process gaps and create real-time, cross-community visibility,” Pichler said. “With this model, we can drive the highly efficient product velocity of our global business network to serve our customers better than our competitors. We built Amitive Unity 5.0 to fully leverage the two most powerful tenants of true cloud computing,” said Amar Singh, CEO of Amitive. “First, companies should not have to pay for ‘just-in-case’ computing power in advance, and secondly, they should not be pinned down to one cloud environment. Cloud is all about dynamic choice and scalability, and Amitive Unity 5.0 is the only SCM software that lives up to the true cloud computing moniker.
