GridGain CTO: why in-memory is on the up
Oh no, it’s 2019 prediction season again for the IT industry.
Guess what?
Open source is gaining increasing traction in the enterprise and cloud-native software application development is becoming a more accepted norm in what is ultimately always a multi-cloud hybrid world of mobile centric devices made more intelligent by AI and the machine learning that works to feed the new neural brains behind our devices.
Yeah okay we know that part, so how about going one layer further down?
GridGain founder and CTO Nikita (he’s a he, not a she) Ivanov sent the Computer Weekly Developer Network one comment that does indeed go one lower, if not one louder.
Ivanov contends that in-memory computing solutions and traditional disk-based databases are converging.
He explains that in-memory data grids are powerful for accelerating existing systems built on disk-based databases, while in-memory databases are used mainly to build greenfield systems.
“Nearly every business undergoing a digital transformation will eventually need to employ in-memory computing architectures that keep all vital data in-memory, providing the speed and scale they need to deliver acceptable application performance for customers, employees and the supply chain in the face of massive data growth. The primary question is how well traditional relational databases which are adding in-memory capabilities on top of disk-based architectures can compete with the new generation of in-memory computing solutions, which were designed from the ground up to use memory first and disk only as backup,” said Ivanov.
He surmises that in-memory data grids are already a mainstream solution in many industries for application processing.
His opinions is that this trend will accelerate in 2019 as more enterprises recognise the need for greater performance and scalability and the solutions become increasingly affordable as the cost of RAM declines.
“I’m certain that adoption of data grids and other in-memory computing technologies – including in-memory databases and non-volatile memory – will continue to surge as organisations increasingly recognise these technologies are essential to the success of their vital digital transformation initiatives,” said Ivanov.
His comments are interesting, if arguably somewhat loaded, contrived and self-serving (GridGain develops advanced and distributed in-memory data processing technologies, after all)… but the general trend is certainly worth tracking in modern application development terms.