# Data Lakes
#data #bigdata
A data lake is a centralized, highly flexible storage repository that stores large amounts of structured and unstructured data in its raw, original, and unformatted form. In contrast to data warehouses, which store already “cleaned” relational data, a data lake stores data using a flat architecture and object storage in its raw form. Data lakes are flexible, durable, and cost-effective and enable organizations to gain advanced insight from unstructured data, unlike data warehouses that struggle with data in this format.
