A data lake is a central location that holds a large amount of data in its native, raw format. Compared to a hierarchical data warehouse, which stores data in files or folders, a data lake uses a flat architecture and object storage to store the data.‍ Object storage stores data with metadata tags and a unique identifier, which makes it easier to locate and retrieve data across regions, and improves performance. By leveraging inexpensive object storage and open formats, data lakes enable many applications to take advantage of the data.

Source: Databricks