The enterprise data volume has been increasing like never before. Statista said the enterprise data volume would have increased from one petabyte to 2.02 petabytes between 2020 and 2022. One petabyte is equivalent to 500 billion pages of standard printed text. Those numbers could grow more in the future as companies generate more data.
On-premise data warehouses are unprepared to manage large data volumes. They cannot scale to the changing needs. While companies can scale the on-prem data warehouse to handle peak load, they will always have to purchase more warehouses to accommodate the large data volumes. That can be expensive for companies in the long term.
That's why most companies are considering moving their data to cloud warehouses. A cloud data warehouse is a type of warehouse managed and hosted by a cloud services provider. Companies can gather data from disparate enterprise systems, store and manage it in a cloud-based centralized repository, and use it to make data-driven business decisions.
With the cloud data warehouse market estimated to grow at a CAGR of 27.38% by 2027, it's evident that the time for moving to a cloud data warehouse has arrived.
Why Are Cloud Data Warehouses Becoming Popular?
Besides the fact that cloud warehouses solve large data volume issues, here are some reasons why companies prefer to move their data to cloud data warehouses.
1. Flexible Storage
The rising popularity of cloud data warehouses can be accredited to their ability to increase and decrease storage space based on business demands. Earlier companies assessed, estimated, and purchased storage in advance. However, companies can no longer predict or estimate storage space due to the changing business landscape. Migration to a cloud data warehouse allows companies to add more storage anytime they want without worrying about advance procurement or pre-planning when they run out of storage space.
2. Scalability and Elasticity
Cloud data warehouses are elastic, i.e., scaling up or down is easy, depending on the changing business needs. Companies can apply for unlimited storage space almost immediately using APIs and dashboards and scale as per the requirements. They don't have to worry about real estate requirements, costs, complexities, or additional workforce required to purchase or manage the increasing workload.
3. Security and Disaster Recovery
Traditionally, on-premise data warehouses were considered more secure than cloud-based ones. However, in reality, cloud data warehouses are more secure. Advanced cloud encryption, multi-factor authentication, etc., ensure data is stored and exchanged securely. Many cloud data warehouses also use virtual private networks (VPNs) to limit the chances of a breach. The security team can also replicate the data and take automatic backups and snapshots for a given region to prevent data loss during disasters. This enables others in the company to work with duplicate data without disrupting work.
4. More Data-driven Insights
As market trends are dynamic, companies cannot rely on only historical data to make decisions. They need real-time data for accurate decision-making. Cloud data warehouses allow real-time data streaming and processing, which enables companies to make quick and informed decisions. A cloud data warehouse's powerful computing capabilities can help companies quickly process data from various sources. The database administrator can integrate data sources, and the warehouse can automatically adjust the fluctuations in volume to improve accuracy in business intelligence.
Besides real-time data and accuracy, companies can use cloud data warehouses to support advanced capabilities like Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These capabilities enable companies to make better predictions and improve business outcomes. All in all, the capabilities of a cloud data warehouse can help companies make better business decisions and gain a competitive edge.
5. Cost-efficiency
Besides scalability, cost-efficiency is one of the primary reasons for the popularity of cloud data warehouses. Unlike on-prem data warehouses, the cloud counterparts don't require investment in expensive hardware, maintenance, and workforce to monitor and manage them. Companies don't have to invest additionally in warehouses to collect and store more data.
Cloud data warehouse vendors offer flexible pricing options like pay-as-you-go, allowing companies to purchase storage space and compute power whenever needed. So, companies don't have to pay for computing and storage if the demand is low or there's no peak season, as with on-prem data warehouses. It helps the company minimize expenses on networking and hardware and might even reduce dependency on server rooms.
Things To Remember While Moving Data to Cloud Data Warehouse
Companies will eventually move their data to the cloud-based warehouse as enterprise data volume increases. Here are a few best practices companies must remember to follow while migrating.
- Build a well-defined data warehouse migration strategy before starting the migration process. It will prevent the systems and teams from getting overwhelmed during migration.
- Assess the existing data warehouse to understand how the existing applications, systems, data models, and other dependencies interact with each other. It will help identify and mitigate the risks before migrating to the new warehouse.
- Identify and include key stakeholders from all business units to understand how migration will impact their teams and processes. It will also help the data teams to gauge how different tools and applications will be used in the new warehouse. Ensure that the key stakeholders are continuously updated throughout the migration process, so they can fully leverage cloud data warehouses' potential.
- Choose a migration approach, such as lift and shift, refactoring, and redesign and migrate, depending on the assessment of the existing data warehouse and other factors.
- Create a contingency plan, like keeping the legacy data warehouses operational for more time post-migration to have backup and ensure business continuity if the migration process fails. An ideal solution is to take help from experts like Wissen for hassle-free migration.
Contact us to learn more about how we can guide your company through the data warehouse migration process.
