The Value of Nstream’s Real-Time UIs vs. Traditional UIs
The Value of Nstream’s Real-Time UIs vs. Traditional UIs
Imagine a tool that empowers businesses to harness the full potential of streaming data by showing real-time updates at the granular level of real-world objects; the possibilities would be endless.
Real-time UIs present a paradigm shift –– both from a technology standpoint and business users’ expectations once they interact with real-time UIs.
Nstream’s real-time UIs employ tech innovations that empower users to make full use of their streaming data to better see, understand, and react to the real-time state of their business.
Nstream’s real-time UI vs. traditional UIs
Real-time UIs allow you to see the state of your business in real real-time, as it changes at network-level latency (often in milliseconds), rather than an echo of what your business looked like 1, 10, 60 minutes, or a few hours ago.
Standard web apps may give the impression of real-time responsiveness but often have delays when connecting to backend services as they query or poll whenever they need the UI updated with the latest data.
A true real-time UI updates instantly, pushing data at network-level latency (often in milliseconds) with backend application states. In a real-time UI, data streams dynamically to present the desired view, and the interface responds immediately to any user actions.
When UIs are real-time, the connection between user-facing interfaces and backend systems is instantaneous, enabling significantly improved business outcomes across different use cases. For example, this would enable an online retailer to maintain a live view of items’ status to ensure the supply chain is running smoothly, as well as give customers the ability to track delivery progress with second-by-second accuracy.
What are the benefits of a real-time UI?
The benefits of a real-time UI are many and significant; employing a real-time UI is more than a ‘nice-to-have’ feature. In fact, real-time UIs are critical to making the best use of your streaming data. Here are a few business benefits that real-time UIs enable:
Real-time business visibility: Gain real-time visibility into the entire business – from functional operations down to the real-world object (such as a truck, customer, prospect, financial transaction, point-of-sale record, IoT device, or other assets). Real-time visibility and situational awareness help businesses increase agility, enhance operations, and deliver a stronger customer experience.
Improved decision-making: Make better data-driven decisions rooted in the current state of the business rather than on stale data or predictions of current state. This is vital in a business landscape where things change quickly and thousands of events happen every second.
Increased efficiency and productivity: Identify areas to add sophisticated automation (like automated workflows and/or triggers) to streamline processes. For example, a bank could automate text and email notifications if fraudulent activity is detected. This automation informs the customer immediately so they can act, building trust and loyalty by demonstrating a commitment to their security.
Competitive advantage: Real-time business logic leads to real-time business decisions. To remain competitive with behemoth companies that boast vast amounts of resources, enterprises must employ applications with real-time business logic that enable visibility, analysis, and automation on top of real-time streaming data. Falling behind in real-time capabilities leaves your business vulnerable to disruption and customer churn.
While some large tech companies have successfully leveraged the benefits of real-time UIs, many enterprises have faced challenges and failed to capitalize on them fully. Falling behind in real-time capabilities leaves your business vulnerable to disruption and customer churn because competitors with real-time capabilities will attract these customers away from you.
Nstream’s real-time UIs vs. traditional UIs: At a glance.
| Nstream’s real-time UIs | Traditional UIs | |
| Frequency of updates: | Updates are reflected in real-time, at network-level latency (mostly in milliseconds). As real-world objects change, updates are pushed to the UI. | Updates are queried/polled at specified intervals (e.g., every 5 mins, 15 minutes, etc.), or users manually query for updates. |
| Delayed updates due to batch processing/querying/polling can hinder highly time-sensitive use cases, such as offering customers personalized in-store coupons. | ||
| Visibility: | Full real-time visibility into the state of the business/deployment. | Limited visibility to real-time state of business, events, systems, functions, etc. |
| Granularity: | View functional operations and zoom in to view real-world objects, such as assets, transactions, customers, etc., with real-world object-level dashboards. | View a certain aspect or function of your business. |
| Limited visibility into how all aspects of your business are working together can make it challenging and time-consuming to identify the root of problems versus the symptoms. | ||
| Decision-making/problem resolution: | Monitor the state of your operations and respond to changes in real-time. | |
| Monitor for and identify early indicators of anomalies and take action before events spiral out of control for enhanced security, customer experience, and more. | View snapshots of your business to identify patterns and make business decisions that are not time sensitive. | |
| Accessibility: | Access via a web browser; no installation of proprietary software or bespoke app download required. | Accessibility depends on the vendor. Many require installing proprietary vendor software, app download, etc. |
| Integration: | Easily integrates with BI (Tableau, Thoughtspot, Looker, etc.), enterprise applications (ServiceNow, Twilio, etc.), microservices, and custom UIs (Angular, React). | Varying integration capabilities depending on the vendor. |
| Examples: | Real-time interactive map view of 20M+ IoT devices. Can isolate to an individual IoT device level. | Stale view of a deployment of IoT devices where state updates once an hour. Cannot isolate to individual IoT device level. |
Real-time UIs can benefit companies across an assortment of use cases. Here are two examples.
Palo Alto traffic application
[Add GIF here showing the UI zooming from the city view into a specific intersection]
The real-time UI of the Palo Alto traffic application empowers users to interpret and act upon real-time traffic information.
Users can zoom in or out to focus on specific traffic lights or entire blocks for a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of a traffic situation. This information empowers users to make informed decisions, save time, and contribute to smoother traffic flow.
For example, automating traffic light timings can proactively reduce congestion, resulting in a more convenient and reliable commuting experience.
View Real-time status and interactions of Palo Alto traffic
Cellular data app
For telco companies with cell towers nationwide, the value of real-time data lies in the ability to diagnose network performance issues effectively.
For example, if a cell tower reports poor performance or disruption, the telco company requires contextual data to understand the problem. With real-time data, the UI can promptly display areas of poor cell service, enabling the company to troubleshoot, minimize outages, and enhance customer satisfaction swiftly.
View Real-time performance/monitoring of a cellular network
Nstream’s real-time UIs and enterprise integrations
Nstream’s real-time UIs can be built using even the most complex data sources. There is no need to change your streaming data technologies or invest in a host of new tools — Nstream seamlessly integrates with the systems and sources you already have in place. Users of the Nstream Platform also have access to our pre-built, auto-configured real-time user interface templates to help enhance the overall user experience and functionality of your UIs.
Interested in learning more about how real-time UIs are created? Watch this video for an inside look at building real-time applications plus a walkthrough of a real-time UI.