Real-Time Analytics: Benefits, Limitations, and Tradeoffs

Abstract Real-time analytics is a relatively new branch of analytics. A common definition of real-time analytics is that it consists in analyzing data as quickly as possible over the most recent data possible. This defines the essence of the fundamental needs of users, but in no way is a specific requirement for the corresponding software systems due to the vagueness of the definition. As a result, different manufacturers of analytical data-management systems and researchers classify real-time analytics systems as extremely different systems, which differ in architecture, functionality, and even timing. The purpose of this article is to analyze the different approaches to providing real-time analytics, their advantages and disadvantages, and the tradeoffs that both designers and users of the systems inevitably have to make.