The Impact of In-Memory Technology on the Agility of Data Warehouse-based Business Intelligence Systems - a preliminary Study among Experts

A vital aspect for organizations’ competitiveness in dynamic market conditions is to draw faster conclusions out of changing circumstances. The Information system itself must become more adaptable to better support corporate strategies. This is particularly challenging in the domain of Business Intelligence (BI) since the underlying architecture of decision support systems is not built upon agility, but on reliability and robustness. This paper investigates whether the characteristics of Data Warehouse-based BI impact the agility of BI. The focus is to identify if/how technological trends like in-memory (IM) databases can achieve more agility in BI. This paper explains the background research, proposes a hypotheses model, describes the research approach and shows the results of a survey among BI experts. The findings indicate that IM may act as a technology enabler for agile BI. If IM technology is used, the impact of some DWH/BI characteristics on BI agility is significantly positively influenced.