In-memory processing and Microsoft Dynamics: What can users expect (and when)?

Although it was less than a decade-and-a-half ago, the year 2000 was ancient times in terms of RAM prices. Computer memory cost $1 per megabyte back then, but today that price has dropped to 0.4 cents per megabyte. As Microsoft noted in a white paper (PDF) last summer, a typical server that today costs $50,000 can boast enough processor cores (32) and enough RAM (1 terabyte) to comfortably fit and properly crunch entire databases.

So last fall Redmond quietly introduced a feature into the second community technology preview release of SQL Server 2014 that Microsoft Dynamics users should be enjoying before long as well: In-memory database processing.

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