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What is a Data Lake?

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Data Cloud for Dummies

A data lake is a repository of data, typically stored in file format with variable organization or hierarchy. Built on object storage, data lakes allow for the flexibility to store data of all types, from a wide variety of sources. 

Data lakes typically contain a massive amount of data stored in its raw, native format. This data is made available on-demand, as needed; when a data lake is queried, a subset of data is selected based on the query’s criteria and presented for analysis. 

What is the Purpose?

A data lake is a comprehensive way for users to explore, refine, and analyze petabytes of information constantly arriving from multiple data sources. One petabyte of data is equivalent to 1 million gigabytes: about 500 billion pages of standard, printed text or 58,333 high-definition, two-hour movies. Data lakes are for users to explore and analyze data of high volume, variety, and velocity.

Data Lake Features

The characteristics of data lakes that distinguishes them from other types of big data storage are:

  • Open to all data, regardless of type or source

  • Data is stored in its original raw, untransformed state

  • Data is transformed only when provided for analysis based on matching query criteria

Benefits of Data Lakes

The source- and format-agnostic nature of data stored in a data lake offers several benefits for businesses, including:

  • Flexibility, as data scientists can utilize data in its rawest form for feature engineering and machine learning

  • Accessibility, as all data is centrally stored

  • Affordability, as data lake object storage is typically cost-effective

  • Compatibility with most open source data analytics technologies

  • Comprehensive, combining data from all of an enterprise’s data sources including IoT

Data Lake vs Data Warehouse

Both data lakes and data warehouses are big data repositories. The primary difference between a data lake and a data warehouse is in compute and storage. A data warehouse typically stores data in a predetermined organization with a schema. A data lake does not always have a predetermined schema. Also, whereas a data warehouse usually stores structured data as tables, a data lake stores structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data as files.

Comparison Chart: Data Lake and Data Warehouse


Data Lake
Data Warehouse

Type of data
Structured and unstructured from any source, raw
Structured, curated
Schema
Not predetermined
Predetermined
Typical users
Data scientists, developers, and data analysts
Data analysts


Data Lake in the Cloud

Snowflake GenAI

The sheer volume of big data—particularly the unfiltered data of a data lake—make on-premises data storage difficult to scale. Amazon S3, Snowflake, and Microsoft Azure Data Lake are a few cloud-based data storage service providers that enable data storage of varying sizes and speeds for processing and analysis. 

Snowflake as Data Lake

Snowflake introduced significant enhancements, further blending the benefits of data lakes with the efficiency of data warehousing and the scalability of cloud storage. 

Snowflake now supports Apache Iceberg tables, enhancing its ability to manage data lakehouse workloads. This integration enables users to treat Iceberg tables as standard Snowflake tables, thereby simplifying the management of diverse data formats and enhancing query performance.

Key to Snowflake's data lake strategy is its commitment to security, scalability, and cloud independence. The platform's architecture allows for independent scaling of storage and computing, ensuring optimal performance and cost efficiency. Snowflake's data lake also offers advanced security features like auditing, granular access control, and encryption, crucial for modern data management and compliance.

Explore the Snowflake Data Cloud's enhanced data lake capabilities with a free trial, and discover its full potential for unified data management and advanced analytics.


Guides
  • Snowflake Workloads Overview
  • Applications
  • Data Engineering
  • Data Lake
  • Collaboration
  • AI and Data Science
  • Data Warehousing
  • Marketing
  • Unistore
  • Cybersecurity

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Powered by Snowflake

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Workloads

Collaboration

Data Science & ML

Cybersecurity

Applications

Data Warehouse

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Data Engineering

Unistore

Pricing

Pricing Options

Value Calculator

Solutions

For Industries

Advertising, Media, and Entertainment

Financial Services

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Manufacturing

Public Sector

Retail / CPG

Technology

For Departments

Marketing Analytics

Product Development

IT

Finance

Company

Overview

About Snowflake

Investor Relations

Leadership & Board

Careers

Newsroom

Speakers Bureau

ESG at Snowflake

Snowflake Ventures

Why Snowflake

Overview

Why Snowflake

Customer Stories

Partners

Services

Solutions

For Industries

Advertising, Media, and Entertainment

Financial Services

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Manufacturing

Public Sector

Retail / CPG

Technology

For Departments

Marketing Analytics

Product Development

IT

Finance

Company

Overview

About Snowflake

Investor Relations

Leadership & Board

Careers

Newsroom

Speakers Bureau

ESG at Snowflake

Snowflake Ventures

The Data Cloud

Overview

Platform

Snowflake Marketplace

Snowpark

Powered by Snowflake

Live Demo

Workloads

Collaboration

Data Science & ML

Cybersecurity

Applications

Data Warehouse

Data Lake

Data Engineering

Unistore

Pricing

Pricing Options

Value Calculator

Resources

Learn

Resource Library

Developers

Quickstarts

Documentation

Hands-on Labs

Training

Guides

Connect

Community

Events

Webinars

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