A method is described of pre-processing real-time data to be processed by one or more real-time analytics services. The method includes: receiving, at a stateless ingress node, data from one or more client devices; transforming the data in real-time at the stateless ingress node; determining in real-time, at the stateless ingress node, a real-time analytics service for the transformed data; and forwarding in real-time the transformed data to the determined real-time analytics service for stateful processing.