What is real-time analytics?

Real-time analytics is the discipline that applies logic and arithmetic to data to supply insights for creating better decisions quickly. For a few use cases, real-time simply means the analytics is completed within a couple of seconds or minutes after the arrival of the latest data.

On-demand real-time analytics waits for users or systems to request a question then delivers the analytic results. Continuous real-time analytics is more proactive and alerts users or triggers responses as events happen.

Examples of real-time analytics include:

  1. Real time credit scoring, helping financial institutions to make a decision immediately whether to increase credit
  2. Customer relationship management (CRM), maximizing satisfaction and business results during each interaction with the customer
  3. Fraud detection at points of sale
  4. Targeting individual customers in shops with promotions and incentives, while the purchasers are within the store and next to the merchandise.

Real time analytics challenges

To be immediately useful, real-time analytics applications should have high availability and low response times. Yet they ought to still return answers to queries within seconds.

 In short, they ought to also handle big data. (Learn more about big data basics here). Real-time big data analytics are already utilized in financial trading.

Empowering End-Users

Businesses are getting increasingly digital. Real-time big data analytics must handle growing quantities and variety of knowledge. Different technologies exist to assist meet these demands. Some are supported specialized appliances (hardware and software systems).

However, it's also possible to use ordinary computer systems and any data source. The real-time analytics application must simply be designed to leverage the complete power of ordinary processors and memory.

This makes real-time analytics cheaper. When the appliance is additionally user-friendly, it puts the facility of real-time business intelligence directly into the hands of business users. This is often also where it should be, for the best business benefit.