By choosing the right database, you can maximize your business potential, improve performance, increase efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. This insightful report examines the benefits of using a simplified data architecture containing cloud-based HTAP (hybrid transactional and analytical processing) database capabilities. You'll learn how this data architecture can help data engineers and data decision makers focus on what matters most: growing your business. Relational databases helped in discovering and understanding trends within the business but were expensive in terms of multiuser or per-processor licensing, as well as difficult to set up and maintain. SQL itself required a robust understanding of its structure and commands. Seeking to avoid the complexity of building SQL-based queries for relational databases, along with their restrictions, a new breed of databases emerged: not only SQL (NoSQL) databases. The first generation of NoSQL databases focused on key-value stores (Berkeley DB and similar), text searching (Elasticsearch), and later document stores such as CouchDB and MongoDB.