What is an open data warehouse?

An open data warehouse is an open-source alternative to proprietary systems like Teradata or Snowflake, offering enterprises cost-effective data portability and scalable query performance while providing more control over the data used for decision-making. Unlike proprietary warehouses that typically handle only structured data, open data warehouses integrate a data lake's flexible, scalable storage with the high performance of a massively parallel SQL query engine, allowing companies to store and analyze semi-structured and unstructured data as well. Tools like Trino, Apache Parquet, and Apache Iceberg form the backbone of these systems, with Trino enabling low-latency, interactive analytics, Parquet offering efficient data storage, and Iceberg providing metadata-rich table formats for effective data management. Open data warehouses eliminate vendor lock-in and reduce costs, empowering business users by making data accessible through SQL, which can be integrated into BI tools for non-technical users. Despite the increased responsibilities on data teams, this open approach supports decentralized data management models like data mesh, promoting widespread data-driven decision-making across organizations.