First, the vast amount of information accessible on the Internet has fostered applications that process unprecedented volumes of data. Second, the Internet gives users much more control over their application experience, making it difficult for site operators to predict what information users will request and what processing will need to be performed on their behalf. To meet these twin demands, e-business applications and their supporting software infrastructures must be more flexible and many times faster than ever before. Ad targeting is precise and immediate. Information portals deliver stock quotes and news in real time .
Online shoppers receive personalized catalog views and cross-sell recommendations .
Though the Internet's bandwidth is often blamed as the bottleneck, the software infrastructure that sits behind the network has the most significant impact on application performance. Web servers, application servers, application code, and database systems all factor into the performance equation. The performance demands are too extreme, and the corporate database systems, where most of the processing occurs, are too far removed from the end users. With its efficiency and small footprint, it can manage data from the application tier, where it is closer to end user interaction. Monitoring high volumes of Web site events to more effectively tailor content and structure to individual users.