Understanding Data Lakes

As I did the research for Analytics: The Agile Way, I encountered a relatively new concept in the business and tech landscape: the data lake. In this post and the next, I'll broach the subject and describe why they matter.

Let's begin by examining data lakes in contrast to data warehouses. The latter are predicated upon strictly defined schema—typically either of the star or snowflake variety. That is, they require writing and storing data in a very structured manner or shape. Data warehouses require the strict manipulation of data; they do not store data in its "natural state."

The tightly controlled process of data warehousing often meets certain business needs—often reporting. Still, it fails to meet others. (More on that in my next post on the subject.)