Glossary · letter D
Data Lake
Repository of raw-format data
Definition
A storage system holding all company data in its original format — logs, files, tables, documents, video — without prior processing. A Data Lake contrasts with a Data Warehouse, which stores filtered, report-ready data.
Business application
A company wanting to build ML models on historical operational data needs a Data Lake as a source layer. An analyst or data scientist can then explore data without the schema constraints of a Data Warehouse.