data warehouse

Definitions

1. A central repository of structured, cleaned, and organized data optimized for analytical queries and reporting. Unlike operational databases designed for fast transactions, data warehouses use columnar storage and pre-defined schemas to support complex aggregations across large datasets. Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift are leading cloud data warehouses.

   In plain English: A big, organized database built specifically for answering business questions — like a library where all the data has been cleaned up and cataloged so you can find answers quickly.

   Example: The analytics team runs their quarterly revenue reports against the data warehouse, where sales data from six source systems is unified and deduplicated.

Related Terms

• Data Pipeline
• data lake
• data mesh
• Database
• dbt
• Window Function
• Block Device