Dive Brief:
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Big data has brought about new challenges — and storing enormous amounts of data is key among them. But some experts say data lakes may be the key to conquering that challenge.
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Defined as a massive storage platform, a data lake can hold all types of data in its rawest form until it is needed for analytics or data mining.
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Data lakes are designed for gathering and processing data for storage or later use.
Dive Insight:
IDC analyst Ashish Nadkarni said at this point, the idea of data lakes as a corporate resource is still in its initial stages.
Data lakes are a “concept, not a technology," said Gartner analyst Nick Heudecker. "You can use several technologies to build a data lake. At its core, a data lake is a data storage strategy."
Therefore, the business value of a data lake comes from a company's ability to apply data-science skills to the lake.
"Data lakes aren't a replacement for existing analytical platforms or infrastructure,” Heudecker said. “Instead, they complement existing efforts and support the discovery of new questions."
