In our latest Tacnode webinar, “Just How Real Is Real Time, Really?”, we unpacked the reality behind real-time claims—what’s real, what’s not, and what’s actually required to achieve sub-second insights in production systems. Led by Matt Livingston (Account Executive) and Boyd Stowe (Senior Solutions Architect), the conversation spanned architecture, use cases, and the business costs of getting it wrong.
Here are the top 5 moments from the session:
Boyd kicked off the conversation by clarifying a common misconception: most systems claiming to be “real-time” are closer to near real-time (1–5 seconds latency) or even batch (minutes or more). True real-time means sub-second responsiveness—and in many industries, that distinction matters.
“If it takes longer than a second, it’s not real-time. It’s just fast batch.”
Finance and fraud prevention were highlighted as domains where true real-time matters—and is worth the cost. Boyd shared vivid examples from his past work where fraud scores were calculated in milliseconds, triggering dynamic responses like sandboxing fraudulent users or flagging law enforcement.
“You can’t let a fraudulent transaction linger for five minutes while your architecture catches up.”
Achieving real-time isn’t just a checkbox—it’s a massive engineering commitment. Boyd outlined a typical stack: load balancers, caching layers, event buses (like Kafka or Kinesis), multiple databases (for ingestion, analytics, and features), ML inference models, and rules engines—all orchestrated under sub-second SLAs.
“You’re easily touching six or more systems per transaction, and if one link fails, the whole thing slows or breaks.”
Boyd shared a real-world example of a streaming media company where 18 engineers were fully consumed just keeping the real-time stack operational. None of them were doing product innovation anymore—they were simply keeping the lights on.
“If it takes longer than a second, it’s not real-time. It’s just fast batch.”
So how do you design real-time systems without overwhelming complexity? Boyd introduced the concept of HTAP (Hybrid Transactional/Analytical Processing) engines—like what Tacnode offers—that let you run high-speed ingestion and analytics on the same data in the same place, eliminating the need for most streaming and ETL pipelines.
“You don’t need ten different tools stitched together. One intelligent platform can do it all—instantly.”