A data warehouse is a repository of historical data that allows analysts to examine data from different sources to get actionable insights. A data warehouse can be installed on the premises or in the cloud. The choice you make depends on your business’s requirements and other factors like cost and scalability, control, security and resources.
Data warehouses are made to store large amounts of historical enterprise data and performing in-depth data analysis for reporting and business intelligence (BI). They can store both relational and non-relational data. They are usually structured, meaning that the data is loaded and extracted before being transformed in order to conform to the predefined schemas before being stored. This makes it easier to run queries against them than directly against an operational source system.
Traditional on-premises warehouses require expensive hardware and software in order to be hosted. Their storage capacity is limited to their compute capacity, and they must regularly delete old data in order to keep enough space for the latest data. A data warehouse enables you to run historic queries that are not possible with operational systems as they only update with real-time information.
A cloud-based data store or managed service is completely automated and highly efficient solution. It is a great option for companies that require the analysis of large quantities of data in the long term. It is typically a more affordable alternative to on-premise data warehouses as it eliminates the need to invest in large servers and provides flexible pricing. You can pay by throughput or hourly use or an amount that is fixed.