Data Lake vs Data Warehouse: Which is Best For You?
Data is a salient factor for every business. While it has always been a necessity, nothing in the past compares to the need for big data we see today. No matter if it is a startup or a multinational enterprise, data from the past and present are collected, processed, analyzed, and presented to help make better decisions. Business intelligence and data analytics are an imperative part of many enterprises now. But where does all this data go? It sure needs to be stored somewhere secure, private, and easy to access, right? Many of you might have heard of the terms data lake and data warehouse. These are data storage architectures that allow you to store a huge amount of data in one place. While their main purpose is the same, the two have nothing much in common. Do you know that 95% of businesses face a problem due to unstructured data? However, several SMEs and organizations tend to get confused between a data lake vs data warehouse. And without knowing what they are, there’s no way an enterprise can choose the right one for their requirements. What is a Data Warehouse? A data warehouse is a depository that stores data in one place before it is analyzed and presented using various BI tools. It is one of the first things you need to work on when revamping the business processes. All business intelligence applications require a data warehouse to deliver meaningful insights. The data warehouse combines components and technologies where raw data is structured and processed to derive information. A data warehouse is more of a traditional data storage system tried and tested by many businesses. Does that mean it’s the best, or does it mean it’s an older version and not as useful? It’s neither. The data warehouse has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages: Faster Data Retrieval The role of data warehouse in business intelligence is a lot more intricate than you would expect. Whether you want to retrieve data in less time or find a crucial piece of information without searching all over the enterprise, a data warehouse offers a quick and effective solution. Easy Integration The data warehouse can be integrated with numerous other systems so that it becomes easy to translate data and present it in an understandable format. If you want to know more about your customers, all you need to do is connect the data warehouse to your CRM system. Great Performance DWs usually have schema-on-write, SQL servers understand how the system works. That makes it simpler for the data warehouse to deliver good performance whenever its need arises. Identification and Correction of Errors DWs ensure that the data stored in them is not incorrect. It shows the errors that need to be fixed, the duplicates that have to be removed, etc., before proceeding to the next step. However, there is a difference between data warehousing and business intelligence. A data warehouse is not a business intelligence tool. DW deals with data acquisition, data cleansing, management, metadata, data transformation, backup, and more. Proven Storage Solution The data warehouse has been here long enough to easily find resources and tools to use with it. While it can be a little challenging to work with the latest functionalities, DW is a reliable and proven storage option for enterprises. Flexibility Third-party consulting companies offer Data warehousing services to help you build, manage, and upgrade the data warehouse in your enterprise. The advantage of DW is that it can be housed on-premises or can be stored and accessed from the cloud platforms. That said, DW has its share of disadvantages that makes enterprises consider data lakes. Let’s check the cons of data warehousing before reading about data lakes. Disadvantages: Time Taking Process Even though DWs are used to simplify the business processes, it might take a little more time to manually feed raw data to the data warehouse. That is something many enterprises are wary of. Limited Use of Data The confidential nature of data might result in restricted access to the data warehouse. And that can directly translate to limited use of data. Data warehousing might be a little less effective if only certain employees can access data. High Costs of Maintenance Data warehouse delivers its best when it’s upgraded to the latest version. While the process isn’t hard, the cost can be slightly on the higher end. Unless you can invest money to maintain and upgrade the DW, it won’t be as effective. What is a Data Lake? A data lake is a relatively new concept that has gained a lot of attention in recent times. A data lake is different from traditional storage systems as it stores data in its raw format. Of course, it can also hold structured and semi-structured data, including binary data. It is pretty much a single storage location for raw data and transformed data. The data lake architecture is flat, where every element has a label and a corresponding metadata tag for easy identification. The data collected from numerous sources are added in real-time to the DL in its original format. No changes are made to the data at this stage. Advantages: Variety and Volume Data lakes make it an easy job of handling big data, whether it is structured or unstructured. A data lake is schema-on-read, and this lets us read the format only when we read it back out. Fast Processing DLs are easy to update. You don’t require to spend too much time transferring data to the data lakes. It all happens in real-time. Accessibility Any user group can easily find the data they want by looking at the open data copies. Of course, you can control and restrict access to certain groups, but it’s still easy to get hold of what one wants without compromising data security. Cost-Effective Storage While data lake is not cheap, it is a cost-effective option when compared to data warehouses. That allows us to store
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