The term Data Lakes is primarily found in the fields of Big Data and Smart Data, Digital Transformation, and Artificial Intelligence. A Data Lake is a large, central repository where companies can collect and store vast amounts of data from various sources – without immediately sorting or structuring it.
The special thing about data lakes is that all types of data can be stored there – for example, texts, images, videos, or numbers. Unlike traditional databases, which only accept structured data, raw data can also be saved here without prior processing. This allows for flexible use: only when the data is actually needed is it selected and prepared accordingly.
A practical example: A retailer collects data from its online shops, tills, supply chains, and customer reviews. All of this data, even if it looks very different, can be stored in the data lake. Later, the company can selectively analyse data to, for instance, better understand customer purchasing behaviour or make predictions using Artificial Intelligence.
With a data lake, companies therefore lay the foundation for sensibly analysing large amounts of data and gaining valuable insights from them.
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