Madan Sheina, Lead Analyst, Information Management

Oracle recently unveiled a faster version of its Exalytics in-memory analytics database. The company claims the X3-4 version delivers up to 25× performance improvements over its predecessor, thanks largely to pure and simple hardware upgrades – i.e. more memory.

Ovum does not doubt the sheer speed of Exalytics, particularly for data analysis where ASAP is simply not quick enough. We see the most immediate applicability for such an ultra-responsive analytics infrastructure in driving more agile business planning and budgeting processes, but there are also a raft of other emerging use cases. Certainly benefits are to be gained from the raw power of Exalytics, but companies must consider carefully their strategies for realizing the benefits in business-critical applications.

Exalytics X3-4 reflects the accelerating pace of doing business today

Nowadays, data analysis is a deft mix of data scale and processing speed: whether it is about …