Amid the hype about big data appliances, in-memory computing and noSQL databases, many data-intensive South African businesses are still doing just fine using industry-standard databases and analytics tools that have been around for years.

One example is the specialist credit bureau, Inoxico, which has built a real-time ‘data beneficiation’ business that draws on millions of records from multiple sources using a standard Microsoft SQL server database and commodity hardware. “We haven’t encountered any limitations with this technology as yet,” says André Stürmer, CEO of Inoxico. “I don’t foresee us having to move to something more exotic for a year or two.”