The term “data lakehouse” is a metaphor, just like “data warehouse” and “data lake”. These metaphors communicate conceptually what the technology tries to do physically. As such, a data lakehouse is a data structure that tries to combine the characteristics of a data warehouse and a data lake. In that sense, almost every modern data management offering can be considered a data lakehouse.

A lakehouse is described by its advocates as a combination of a data lake and a data warehouse that implements warehouse-like data structures and data management functions on low-cost storage that is typically used for data lakes.

The emerging “data lakehouse” concept describes a hybrid data management environment that combines the characteristics of a data warehouse and a data lake.