# Data Lake

> A data lake stores raw data of any type — structured, semi-structured and unstructured — at low cost and large scale, to be processed later. It trades upfront structure for flexibility.

*Source: https://www.lazlosoftwaresolution.com/glossary/data-lake*

Lakes suit machine learning and exploratory analytics where you want to keep everything and decide how to use it later. The "lakehouse" pattern adds warehouse-like structure and governance on top of lake storage.