Data Warehouse vs Big “Data Lake”. What are the similarities and what are the differences?

Even though Big “Data Lake” is a metaphor, I do not really like it.
This name highlights that it is something limited, isolated from other systems. I would better call this concept a “Big Data Ocean”, because the data added to the system can interact with the surrounding systems. In my opinion, data warehouses are a bit outdated. At the earlier stage, such systems enabled companies to aggregate a lot of data in one central storage and arrange this data. All this was done with the acceptable speed. Now there are a lot of cheap storage solutions, so we can keep enormous volumes of data and process it much faster than with data warehouses.

The possibility to store large volumes of data is a common feature of data warehouses and a Big “Data Lake”. With a flexible architectures and broad capabilities for data analysis and discovery, a Big “Data Lake” provides a wider range of business opportunities. A modern company should adjust to changes very fast. The structure that was good yesterday may become a limitation today.