Part 6/14:
Traditional analytics were predominantly internal, catering to CXOs with reports generated overnight or hourly. While useful internally, such batch processes lag significantly behind user expectations for immediacy. In contrast, real-time analytics push data directly to consumers—be it users, business partners, or internal teams—empowering data-driven decisions on the fly.
Three key dimensions define the importance of real-time OLAP systems:
Data Freshness: How quickly after an event occurs does it become available for analysis? For customer-facing applications, seconds matter; hours or days are unacceptable.
Query Latency: How fast can the system respond? Milliseconds are necessary for a seamless, interactive experience.