What techniques should I use to store my data?

As a business grows, it starts to collect more and more data. Even if a business isn’t specifically trying to collect data, it’ll end up with more than it expected just because it’s expanding its operations and reaching a broader audience.

This means that growing businesses have to invest in data storage solutions even if they don’t plan on collecting data in a large-scale way. This is just good business; even organizations without broad data strategies can still use data for insight.

To compound this, customers and clients are creating more data points than they ever have before. Even if a business is holding steady and they’re not aiming to collect more data, they’ll end up getting more data than they anticipated. As more and more operations take place online, the kinds of data that businesses can collect will grow.

Not only does this mean businesses collect more data about their customers and their operations; it also means they collect data in different formats. Businesses don’t always end up collecting structured data; they also collect unstructured data like pictures and videos.

That means businesses have to figure out storage solutions for large amounts of data, and sometimes that data isn’t structured. Considering every business has their own priorities, it can be very difficult to actually find a solution that works.

Businesses often can’t even figure out what type of solution they should implement. There are dozens of different strategies for storing business data in a large-scale way, and businesses need to learn which strategies are best for which situations.

Some solutions are more standardized and structured, while other tools offer a looser, more decentralized approach to storing business data.

The three most common data storage techniques are cloud databases, data warehouses, and data lakes. Most businesses will use one of these three techniques for managing their business data.

Businesses without a data strategy need to know what each of these strategies are, how they differ from one another, and which use cases they meet most effectively.