Revolution or evolution? reflections on in-memory appliances from an enterprise information logistics perspective

While the conceptual architecture of enterprise information logistics has been stable since the late 1980ies, IT hardware has been subject to radical change recently. Since in-memory appliances as a new technology might address many challenges of information logistics, we discuss its potentials first. Based on a case study of a global automotive company, we then compare potentials with actual achievements. We conclude that there are situations where in-memory appliances are a useful extension to existing IT support concepts, while other situations do not require such support. As a consequence, we regard in-memory appliances as an evolution, but not revolution of IT support from an enterprise information logistics perspective.