A data lake is a centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale.

What exactly is a data lake?

A data lake is a centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale.

Why is it called a data lake?

Data Lake. Pentaho CTO James Dixon has generally been credited with coining the term “data lake”. He describes a data mart (a subset of a data warehouse) as akin to a bottle of water…”cleansed, packaged and structured for easy consumption” while a data lake is more like a body of water in its natural state.