We are back with our uber-popular Prediction Video Series, and today’s guest is Peter Corless, Director of Product Marketing at StarTree. In this interview, Corless shares his predictions for 2025, focusing on the evolving landscape of real-time data and analytics.

StarTree is a managed, real-time analytics platform that helps companies handle vast data volumes across different industries such as fintech, social media, and martech. By enabling petabyte-scale data processing in milliseconds or single-digit seconds, StarTree empowers companies to deliver real-time insights that drive critical decisions for web and mobile applications.

The rapid technological shifts of 2024 such as Apache Iceberg and Amazon S3 storage have exceeded expectations, driving faster change than initially anticipated. Looking forward to 2025, Corless predicts that Observability 2.0 will continue to play a central role, with companies consolidating tools into unified systems while disaggregating components like data storage and visualization. This hybrid approach will enable better flexibility and interoperability, allowing businesses to customize their tech stacks while ensuring efficient data management.

Corless’ second prediction is that we will see the rise of productized, end-to-end solutions designed for real-time data pipelines. With systems like Apache Kafka, Flink, and Pinot coming together, the complexity of real-time streaming and analytics will become more streamlined, enabling faster adoption and implementation of real-time solutions.

Governance and schema management will be key as real-time data streams become more prevalent in 2025. Corless highlights the need for pauseless solutions to handle data ingestion while balancing performance and cloud costs. Platform engineers and Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) will require specialized tools for system robustness, query management, and resource isolation, along with dynamic scaling to meet performance and cost demands.

On discussing Corless’ wishlist for 2025, he expresses skepticism about a single data lake file format, emphasizing the need for design-for-purpose tools. Since different formats serve distinct use cases, such as column stores for real-time analytics, Corless predicts a growing tension between consolidation and specialization.

AI‘s intersection with real-time data is another critical area for the coming year. Corless anticipates that generative AI (GenAI) will enhance database performance, enabling more efficient data processing. By combining AI with real-time data, companies can access reliable insights without the risk of hallucinations, which will improve decision-making capabilities.

StarTree’s focus for 2025 is to continue to push the boundaries of Observability 2.0, concentrating on integrating monitoring into the core infrastructure of business applications. By embedding analytics and observability into platforms like WebEx from the beginning, StarTree will ensure that data and insights are seamlessly integrated into business workflows. This will empower companies to make data-driven decisions faster and more effectively.

Guest: Peter Corless
Company: StarTree
Show: 2025 Prediction Series

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.