Real-time, AI-ready operational data

Power AI applications with real-time operational data, vector search and enterprise context in one open, scalable architecture

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Real-time data. Real edge.

Challenges

Many AI apps rely on static content, delayed pipelines or isolated systems. But the highest-value use cases depend on operational data that constantly changes—transactions, customer interactions, events, and app signals. When data is hard to access or slow to activate, AI stays stuck in pilots instead of supporting real-world decisions and actions.

Solution

watsonx.data helps organizations turn operational data into AI-ready context through open formats, fit-for-purpose engines and intelligent access across the enterprise data estate. For real-time workloads, DataStax database capabilities are built on Apache Cassandra to support high-throughput reads and writes, low latency, vector search and always-on availability.

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From data source to action in real time 01 Connect live operational data

Capture events, transactions, interactions and application signals as they happen. Stream event data through real-time processing platforms, while storing operational data directly in a high-performance NoSQL engine for low-latency access.

 02 Process, store and serve real-time data.

Continuously enrich and process live streams, then store and serve them through watsonx.data using Datastax Cassandra-based NoSQL capabilities. Support high-throughput reads and writes while combining operational data with vector search and enterprise context.

 03 Power real-time applications and AI

Deliver real-time context to personalized experiences, IoT, banking, retail and supply chain use cases. Give teams the scale, security and openness needed to support decisions in milliseconds.
Why use watsonx.data for real-time AI?
Simpler operations, flexible control

Streamline database operations with automation and simplified management. Reduce the effort required for provisioning, monitoring, patching and tuning so teams can focus on building applications while maintaining the operational control their organization requires.
Fast, scalable, always-on performance

Support high-throughput workloads with low latency, elastic scalability and familiar APIs. Deploy across cloud, private cloud or on-premises environments to move real-time applications from development to production with confidence.
Unify data and govern with confidence.

Bring operational, analytical and vector data together in a fit-for-purpose architecture for real-time and AI-ready use cases. Enable low-latency access to live data while maintaining enterprise-grade security, governance and openness across the data estate.
Where real-time data creates AI advantage
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Personalized mobile experiences

Support recommendations, trips and orders, wallets, payments and rewards with always-on access to fast-changing operational data.
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Supply chain and logistics

Power fleet tracking, inventory visibility and shipment updates with real-time ingest and processing.
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Retail and digital commerce

Deliver responsive search, personalization and campaign experiences at scale with low latency and high throughput.
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Banking and fraud detection

Support payment processing, fraud detection and trading systems that depend on fast reads, writes and contextual retrieval.
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IoT and telemetry

Ingest and act on application signals, device events and network performance data in real-time.

Proven for real-time, production-scale workloads

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Bud Financial builds customer intelligence platform
Bud Financial uses IBM DataStax Astra DB within watsonx.data to enrich financial transactions in under five milliseconds with greater than 97% accuracy.
A farmer examines the crop quality in the field.
SupPlant supplies live crop insights
SupPlant uses IBM DataStax Astra DB within watsonx.data to turn agricultural and satellite data into real-time irrigation insights for farmers.
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Bay Point deploys secure RAG solution
Bay Point built Atlas using IBM DataStax Astra DB within watsonx.data, enabling clients to interact conversationally with secure data rooms and receive relevant insights faster.
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Making open knowledge Gen-AI-ready
Wikimedia Deutschland used IBM DataStax Astra DB within watsonx.data to enable semantic search across Wikidata.

Real-time database capabilities. Two ways to deploy.

Choose Astra DB for a fully managed database service, or HCD for self-managed software that you deploy and operate in your datacenter or cloud environment.

Astra DB

SaaS

  • Fully managed database-as-a-service
  • Runs across AWS, Google Cloud and Microsof t Azure
  • IBM DataStax operates and manages the database service
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Hyper-Converged Database

Software

  • Self-managed database software
  • Deploy in your datacenter, private cloud or cloud environment
  • Your organization manages the database and underlying infrastructure 
Explore HCD
Take the next step

Choose the deployment model that f its your needs. Start with fully managed Astra DB, explore self-managed HCD software or speak with an IBM expert about the broader watsonx.data architecture.

  1. Start Astra DB free trial
  2. Explore HCD software