Time-Series Database

A time-series database is a database optimised for storing and querying data points indexed by time, such as streams of sensor readings. It efficiently handles high write rates, time-based aggregation, and retention policies, making it well suited to industrial telemetry and process monitoring.

Unlike general-purpose databases, time-series databases use storage and indexing designed around timestamps, enabling fast downsampling, rollups, and range queries over huge volumes of measurements. They commonly support compression, automatic data expiry, and continuous queries. Time-series databases matter in industry because automation systems generate enormous streams of tag values, and analysing trends, detecting drift, and feeding dashboards or machine-learning models all depend on storing and retrieving that temporal data efficiently.