Snowflake Data Lake – A Cloud-based Data Storage Solution

 Data lakes are data storage repositories that ensure massive volumes of data in its native form – structured, semi-structured, or unstructured – can be stored for processing at a later date. In the past, data storage solutions had various components like data warehouses, data marts, and more. But now, with cloud-based platforms like the Snowflake data lake, all these are not required.

Snowflake data lake is a high-performing cloud-based solution that provides unlimited storage and computing capabilities. Users have the option of scaling up or down in data storage usage and pay only for the resources used. This is critical for businesses as there is no need to invest in additional hardware and software to meet extra storage requirements whenever there is a spike in demand.

Another advantage of the Snowflake data lake is that it has optimized computing capabilities. Even when multiple users simultaneously execute several intricate queries, there is hardly any drop in speed or performance.

Snowflake Data Lake has an extendable architecture that ensures loading of databases within the same cloud environment quickly and seamlessly. Hence, businesses do not need a specific data warehouse or a data lake to operate on. For example, data generated via Kafka can be transferred first to a cloud bucket from where the data is converted to a columnar format with Apache Spark. Next, this is loaded directly to the conformed data zone. Hence, businesses do not have to choose between a data lake or a data warehouse.

The efficiency of Snowflake Data Lake is also increased manifold by the ability of the platform to load native data and help cutting-edge analysis in mixed data formats.