Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) systems enable the real-time execution of a huge number of transactions by a massive volume of people.
To understand what an OLTP database is, we need to differentiate between operational and Transactional Data.
Operational Data vs Transactional Data
Operational data refers to all data used by OLTP systems to run the business (transactions, inventory, and employee records). On the other hand, transactional data refers to data generated by specific business events.
OLTP databases deal with transactional data. As you can imagine, OLTP finds lots of use cases in banking. You’ll find them in systems that process deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and balance inquiries in banking, as well as online banking systems.
OLTP relies on databases capable of quickly storing and retrieving data. They ensure that data is maintained accurately in line with ACID principle.