Oracle Unveils In-Memory Applications for JD Edwards

April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

Oracle last week announced a slew of new in-memory applications that will be delivered across its line of ERP and CRM suits. The new in-memory offerings include two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications that will run in-memory on its new line of all-in-one Engineered Systems.

Oracle has come under pressure from rival SAP to bolster its in-memory offerings, particularly after SAP announced in January that its HANA in-memory database can now be used to run transaction and analytic workloads simultaneously on the same server.

Oracle isn’t trying to combine transactional and analytic workloads at this time. Instead, it’s unveiling new in-memory versions of existing line of business applications that are designed to run blindingly fast on its own Engineered Systems hardware, such as Exalogic and Exalytics. To that end, Oracle unveiled 13 new in-memory applications last week at the Collaborate 2013 conference in Denver, Colorado.

The in-memory lineup includes two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications, including In-Memory Sales Advisor and In-Memory Project Portfolio Management offerings, both of which will become available in May. The remainder of the new in-memory applications are designed to work with E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle SCM (supply chain management), Siebel CRM, and Hyperion EPM (enterprise performance management) suites.

Oracle claims that the in-memory apps can up to 20 times faster than equivalent applications running on traditional hardware, “transforming batch processing to real-time and shortening response time with improved UI rendering.” The big speedup is the result of using DRAM, flash memories, and 20 GB InfiniBand network adapters, the company says.

While some of the apps may run at 20x the old speed, the new EnterpriseOne apps won’t see anything like that. According to Oracle’s estimates, the order-to-cash processes interactive response time, the financial close runs, and the materials requirements planning will all run five to eight times faster than the old method. The job (project) status inquiry routine will run four times faster.

Obviously, the new in-memory JD Edwards applications won’t run on IBM Power Systems gear. Over the last several years, Oracle has been giving its EnterpriseOne customers more reasons not to run their apps on Power Systems and IBM i. Oracle would love to be the sole IT provider to its EnterpriseOne customers, many of which still run their ERP on IBM servers, databases, and operating systems. Breaking these old bonds with IBM isn’t easy, but the work Oracle is doing with in-memory processing and Engineered Systems is certainly keeping the conversation lively and interesting.