Why a Data Lake Makes Your Life Easier

Data Lake vs Data Warehouse

A Data Warehouse is pre-fed with structured data. Business and IT have then jointly determined which building blocks are 'transported' modularly to the Data Warehouse. Data is migrated to a Data Warehouse in the Cloud. Once the data is stored modularly in the Data Warehouse, we will gradually translate your wishes into relevant insights.

A Data Lake, the word says it all, is a lake of data. This consists of much rougher data. So you can store your history and temporary data and easily recall them. In a Data Lake, you often store more complex and larger amounts of data. A Data Lake offers the solution to store all available data, structured and unstructured. Still without an intended application.

So the biggest difference between a Data Lake and a Data warehouse is how data is stored and how easy it is to access unstructured data.

The biggest benefits of a Data Lake

Good thing we know the difference now, but is one better than the other? Above all, one is more than the other. Then we don't mean 'the Lake', but the amount of data. The biggest benefits we see in practice?

• It makes life easier for Data Engineers, Business Intelligence Consultants and Data Scientists, because a Data Lake is much more flexible than a Data Warehouse. An experiment is just a few minutes away
• Building a good Data Warehouse takes a lot of time compared to a Data Lake. Functionalities are easier and faster to call up. Where you used to work with a database, you can now work with data and information (derivative data) at different layers for different use cases and target groups within the Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2:

1. Curated zone (analytics, star schedules)
2. Cleansed zone (business driven)
3. Sensitive zone (PII data)
4. Laboratory zone (data science)
5. Raw zone (immutable data)

• A so-called Proof of Value is faster, so that it can be tested earlier and so that the business gets value delivered faster
• It's easier to search in unstructured data, so you have new insights ready more quickly. Interrelationships and connections between new data are worth exploring
• A Data Lake is part of a Modern Data Warehouse. With the latest architecture that Microsoft is making available, the Data Lake Architecture, automating processes will be simple and also auditable and GDPR compliant

Our BI colleagues: “”It makes our lives easier and therefore we have more time to work on cool puzzles that deliver value. You no longer have to spend months delivering a Data Warehouse”.

From the Golden Path principle, we want to work - just-in-time, measurable, irrefutable and scalable. Safe in the cloud and on the Agile Scrum way of work. We are closely following new tech trends such as setting up a Data Lake.

Choosing your Data Management Strategy

It does not necessarily mean that a Data Lake is better than a Data warehouse. Its application varies by organization and depends on the purpose it pursues. When making an informed choice, it is useful to consider the following points when choosing your Data Management strategy:

1. What business strategy do we have? And which data strategy is a good fit for that?

2. What laws & regulations are we dealing with? What option do we use to ensure that we can best meet our Data Governance requirements?

3. Is our data trusted, understood and accurate? In other words — what does our current Data Architecture look like? How is Data Security arranged? And how do we want to deal with Data Storage in the future?

That is why we choose this architecture for all our new projects because it can grow with future customer demands. And our clients are therefore flexible and scalable.

• ‍Learn how we helped Humanitas build a Modern Data Warehouse ‍
• How do we grow towards data capability with Air Miles?

Do you want to know how to take the first steps in choosing your Data Management strategy, what architecture choices you face and what the roadmap means for internal & external stakeholders? You can read that in the next blog!

A Data Lake makes your life easier, but it's not the only option.

Whichever choice you make with your organization. You don't necessarily have to put everything in a single tool or database. We always advise you to choose the best solution from the Azure Stack. In our view, the Data Lake is an economical and safe choice when you look at the current data demands in the market and the rapidly changing business rules. Your Data Lake can also be easily linked to the Azure Data Factory and data can be (temporarily) stored in Workspaces via Azure Synapse. Insights? They are either loaded from the SQL database or directly from the Data Lake and presented via Power BI. Futureproof guaranteed!

Would you like to have a free chat about the best solution for your organization? Contact Hans. Do you want to know how colleagues Xander and Stephan put this application into practice with clients on a daily basis and whether that's also something for you? TeamValue | Business Intelligence Consultant