In today’s data-driven world, organizations generate and process vast amounts of information at an unprecedented scale. Data flows continuously across various systems, influencing real-time operations and long-term strategic decisions. To manage this complexity, many enterprises are turning to operational data stores (ODS)—a crucial intermediary layer that consolidates data from multiple sources and makes it immediately available for business needs.
Unlike a data warehouse, which is designed for deep analysis and historical insights, an operational data store focuses on real-time data processing. It acts as a temporary landing zone where data from various organizational functions—such as CRM, IT ticketing, HR, marketing, and customer service—is collected, transformed, and made accessible for immediate use. While data warehouses help organizations understand past trends, operational data stores provide visibility into current business conditions, enabling faster and more informed decision-making.
Organizations implement operational data stores for several key reasons. They support real-time decision-making, ensuring that executives and business analysts have up-to-date information. They also play a role in data governance and compliance, helping organizations enforce privacy policies and regulatory requirements. Additionally, operational data stores aid in modernizing legacy systems by acting as a bridge between traditional databases and modern data-as-a-service (DaaS) platforms. Efficient data processing is another major benefit, as an ODS ensures that raw data is cleaned and structured before being used for analysis or reporting.
To build an effective operational data store, organizations need a robust technological foundation. TiDB, an open-source distributed SQL database, is well-suited for this purpose due to its ability to handle large-scale, high-performance workloads. The ideal data store solution must meet four critical requirements: scalability to manage growing data volumes from multiple systems, performance to support real-time queries with minimal latency, reliability to ensure uptime even under heavy loads, and flexible querying capabilities to serve diverse business needs. With these capabilities, TiDB provides a strong foundation for organizations looking to implement an efficient and scalable operational data store.