Oracle Updates Its TimesTen in-Memory Database

Databases and applications that run in large caches of dynamic memory for high-transaction systems are getting closer looks from more enterprises in 2012.
This is an IT segment that has gained a significant amount of traction in the last couple of years as workloads get bigger and more demands are put on processing skyrocketing scads of human- and machine-created data.
In answer to the market, Oracle said Jan. 12 that it has updated its TimesTen in-Memory database, giving it performance improvements for both online transaction (OLTP) and analytics (OLAP) data processing management.
This is the first update for TimesTen since 2009, Marie-Anne Meimat, Oracle vice president of Development for TimesTen, told eWEEK.
TimesTen has been providing this database since it opened its doors in 1996. Oracle acquired the company in 2005; Meimat was a founder of the company.
Since all of the data–as well as the application–is in-memory, and not separated by networking into slower servers and storage arrays, the direct in-memory approach reduces the number of instructions required to do work, resulting in a much faster database. Financial services companies, stock brokerages, telco providers, Web-based retail companies and other large-scale, high-transaction IT systems users are the main markets for in-memory DRAM-centered databases.
Key new features within the TimesTen In-Memory Database 11g Release 2 are parallelized replication and new functionality for analytics applications using real-time in-memory data management, Meimat said.
“We also have parallelized the sending of log records from an active node to a standby node, and the apply of the transactions on the standby node,” Meimat said. “These new features enable systems to handle more concurrent users, higher volumes of requests and more sessions.”
TimesTen is now shipping with Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management, enabling Oracle BRM to achieve faster response time, higher throughput and support more subscribers than prior releases, Meimat said.
The TimesTen In-Memory Database for Exalytics also is available for Oracle’s Exalytics In-Memory Machine as an application-tier in-memory database cache. This new release enables Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite a 20-times faster response time improvement for visualization and up to five times more data to be stored in memory with advanced columnar compression capabilities, Meimat said.
The updated database is available now, Meimat said.