In 2014, the operational DBMS market (formerly OLTP) was evolving dramatically, with new, innovative entrants and incumbents supporting the growing use of unstructured data and NoSQL DBMS engines, as well as XML databases and NewSQL databases.
NoSQL databases typically have focused on scalability and have renounced to data consistency by not providing transactions as OLTP system do.
Recognizing this, Gartner started to publish the Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems in October 2013.
As customers order products from an online web store, an operational database can be used to keep track of how many items have been sold and when the company will need to reorder stock.
Operational databases can be used to manage mission-critical business data, to monitor activities, to audit suspicious transactions, or to review the history of dealings with a particular customer.