TLDR: What are the pros/cons of using an in-memory database vs locks and concurrent data structures?

I am currently working on an application that has many (possibly remote) displays that collect live data from multiple data sources and renders them on screen in real time. One of the other developers have suggested the use of an in memory database instead of doing it the standard way our other systems behaves, which is to use concurrent hashmaps, queues, arrays, and other objects to store the graphical objects and handling them safely with locks if necessary. His argument is that the DB will lessen the need to worry about concurrency since it will handle read/write locks automatically, and also the DB will offer an easier way to structure the data into as many tables as we need instead of having create hashmaps of hashmaps of lists, etc and keeping track of it all.

I do not have much DB experience myself so I am asking fellow SO users what experiences they have had and what are the pros & cons of inserting the DB into the system?