A real-time database is essential for a data streaming environment as it enables organizations to thrive in production with real-time use cases. Streaming technologies have exploded in scale and throughput, making real-time databases like Aerospike a differentiator for various industries. Real-time databases can handle high-performance distributed workloads with over 1 million transactions per second at under 100-millisecond throughput at 99th percentiles. However, streaming systems introduce latency, which may not be significant if the application pipeline has minimal latencies. Financial services and AdTech firms often connect their real-time databases directly to data sources and destinations to minimize hops and reduce latency. Streaming platforms typically need a database for high-performance distributed workloads and for managing operational-analytical gaps. Real-time databases are critical in narrowing the gap between operational and analytical systems, with modern databases like Snowflake offering improved analytics tools that enable real-time operational workloads. Aerospike provides seamless integration with streaming platforms, its robust real-time database architecture, and unique capabilities that elevate data architectures with streaming.