IBM Announces New Capabilities to Deliver Real-Time Analytics via the Cloud

ARMONK, N.Y., May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new IBM SmartCloud capabilities, including DB2 with BLU Acceleration that can result in as much as 25 times faster reporting and analytics, and SmartCloud availability for SAP's in-memory database, the SAP High Performance Analytics Appliance (SAP HANA).

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New BLU Acceleration technology from IBM Research and Development labs adds innovative Dynamic In-memory analytics to DB2 database software on IBM SmartCloud to help companies and governments tackle Big Data by making it dramatically simpler, faster and more economical to analyze massive amounts of data. For example, Cognos Business Intelligence with Dynamic Cubes powered by DB2 with BLU acceleration delivers speed of thought analytics – with 18 times faster data loading and 14 times faster answers.

IBM also announced that its open IBM SmartCloud, built on decades of hosting experience, is now available for SAP HANA. The new offering includes a physical SAP HANA Appliance on IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications, hosted on SmartCloud Enterprise+. In addition, a virtual SAP HANA Appliance is now available on IBM SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) for early stage development and test.

"Clients are looking to leverage big data and analytics at the speed of business," said Jim Comfort, general manager of IBM SmartCloud Services. "Today's news shows how IBM is delivering mission-critical cloud services to provide essential analytics innovations to business users at the point of impact."

With IBM's DB2 10.5 with BLU Acceleration, typical queries in an analytics workload have been shown to be more than 1,000 times faster than other leading databases. Innovations in BLU Acceleration include:

• "Dynamic in-memory" columnar processing providing not only dramatic analytics performance – up to 25 times faster -– but also the ability to scale for expanding Big Data needs without the limitations imposed by traditional in-memory systems.  
• "Load and go" simplicity which allows clients access to blazing-fast analytics transparently to their applications, without the need to develop a separate layer of data modeling.  
• "Parallel vector processing" for high-performance data analysis in parallel across different processors.  
• "Actionable compression," providing as much as 10 times storage space savings where data no longer has to be decompressed to be analyzed.

IBM DB2 also provides unprecedented affordability built on a long history of partnership with SAP to optimize for SAP workloads. IBM DB2 is the only business proven database software truly optimized for SAP applications and available on all SAP supported hardware environments. It provides the widest choice of support for server, storage and virtualization technology for SAP deployments and available integrated with SAP applications as one product. IBM DB2 improves SAP application response time by up to 40 percent, reduces SAP data storage needs by up to 70 percent and dramatically saving on energy costs, administration and hardware investment.

In addition, IBM Cognos software helps companies realize a greater return on investments in SAP applications with faster access to the data businesses need to make smarter decisions. When Cognos software is integrated with SAP applications, it enhances the value of SAP data by adding the perspective and context needed to derive insight from it.

The integrated managed service combining SAP HANA and IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications helps business leaders the information they need to make decisions quickly, drilling down into critical marketing, sales and supply chain insights.

For example, within minutes of launching a new product, a client can access data on where it's doing well, what customers are saying, whether the pricing is competitive, what competitors are saying, how the supply chain is meeting demand, and more. With the power of IBM's enterprise-grade SmartCloud, the IBM SAP HANA Appliance is truly scalable across an organization.

Migros Genossenschaftsbund, a retailer in Switzerland, is using the SAP HANA Appliance with technology from IBM. Globus, the premier department store subsidiary of Migros Group, sells in the highly competitive consumer marketplace. With the IBM SAP HANA Appliance, Globus has gained valuable insight into sales patterns for 800,000 products across various time frames, shops and regions. Database volume was reduced from some 550 GB to about 130 GB, a reduction of 75 percent. Globus can identify slow-selling products 98 percent faster.

"With the IBM SAP HANA Appliance, we can now process more complex and comprehensive requests within seconds, providing a range of new insights that were simply not available without in-memory processing," said Alexander Weiss, Team Leader, Processes and Business Warehouse, Migros Genossenschaftsbund.

The IBM SAP HANA Appliance on SmartCloud exemplifies the two companies' work together over the past 40 years, consistently delivering enterprise value to thousands of clients.

With IBM, clients have access to the widest range of hardware and database combinations to support their SAP implementations. Through a variety of pre-defined usage scenarios ranging from 128GB to 1TB, the IBM SAP HANA Appliance on SmartCloud delivers great flexibility and seamless integration with legacy systems.

Both the physical and virtual SAP HANA Appliances on SmartCloud are offered on a 'bring your own license' (BYOL) model; however, a license can be purchased through IBM when working with IBM Global Business Services.

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About IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications
IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications is designed to deliver SAP environments through a security-rich, cost-effective and scalable cloud infrastructure that can offer faster provisioning, greater flexibility and improved service delivery and quality. This offering provides SAP platform as a service (PaaS) on IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ for all SAP Business Suite and SAP Business Objects products. IBM is a certified Global SAP Partner for cloud services.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud. Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ibmcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.

CONTACT
Nathan Strauss
IBM Media Relations
212-671-9423
[email protected] 

SOURCE IBM