Databases vs. Data Warehouses vs. Data Lakes

A database stores the current data required to power an application. A data lake stores current and historical data for one or more systems in its raw form for the purpose of analyzing the data.

A database stores the current data required to power an application whereas a data warehouse stores current and historical data for one or more systems in a predefined and fixed schema for the purpose of analyzing the data.

Both data lakes and data warehouses store current and historical data for one or more systems. Data warehouses store data using a predefined and fixed schema whereas data lakes store data in their raw form.

An organization can choose to use a data lake, a data warehouse, or both when they want to analyze data from one or more systems in order to gain insights. Data lakes are a good option when an organization wants to store raw data in its original raw format. Data warehouses are a good choice when an organization wants to store data in a highly structured format.

Data lakes are used to store current and historical data for one or more systems. Data lakes store data in its raw (untransformed) form, which allows developers, data scientists, and data engineers to run ad-hoc analytics.

No, data warehousing is not dead. The need for analytics to help a company gain insights and make decisions is not going away.

Data lakes are an alternative approach to data warehousing. A data lake can be a powerful complement to a data warehouse when an organization is struggling to handle the variety and ever-changing nature of its data sources.

Big data and data warehouses are two different concepts. Big data refers to data that has high volume, velocity, and variety. Big data could be stored in a data lake or a data warehouse.

To get started using a database, you'll typically begin by creating a database and then learning to run the CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations. Each database will have its own unique flavor of how to get started. To learn how to use MongoDB, visit Get Started with MongoDB.

Databases utilize storage engines, which manage how data is stored and retrieved. To learn more about MongoDB storage engines, visit FAQ: MongoDB Storage.