Streaming data is data that is continuously generated from thousands of data sources, often also sent simultaneously as data records, at a small scale (about a few kilobytes). Streaming data includes a wide variety of data, such as log files generated by customers using your mobile or web applications, online shopping data, in-game player activity, information from social networking sites, financial trading floors, or geospatial services, as well as telemetry data from connected devices or instruments in a data center. This data is processed incrementally, either by record or sequentially based on a sliding time window, and can be used for a variety of analyses, including correlation, aggregation, filtering and sampling.

The information derived from this type of analysis allows companies to gain insights into all aspects of their business and customer activity, such as service usage (for metering/billing), server activity, website hits, and the geographic location of equipment, people, and objects, so that they can respond quickly to new situations.