Modern businesses are using data analytics to make better decisions. To achieve this, they need to be able to store and retrieve large amounts of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. Cloud data warehouses can help.

When choosing a cloud-based data warehouse, there are numerous aspects to take into account, including the ability to scale, performance data integration security, compliance, and cost. To help you choose the best data warehouse for your business needs, evaluate these criteria against the expected usage scenarios and workflows.

The first step is to determine the amount of data your company expects to integrate each month and examine if there are seasonal patterns or spikes in the use of data. This will help you determine the anticipated usage and decide on the level of computing and storage your company needs. It is also important to consider whether you need real-time analytics in order to increase costs.

Finally, consider the amount of engineering resources your team can commit to startup and ongoing maintenance. If you choose a fully-managed DWaaS environment the vendor will handle most of these tasks. However, this could make it harder to view it now control the system and could not be suitable for teams with limited resources.

Some companies are embracing the hybrid approach to data warehouse, which combines the reliability of a relational database as well as the governance of a conventional database with the flexibility of a data lake and the machine learning capabilities. One popular option is Databricks. It is built using open source technology and comes with the added benefit being more accessible to non-technical users.