Google Cloud Digital Leader Practice Exam

An organization needs to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data in its raw, native format in the same repository. Which cloud data management solution should they use?

1. Data lake

2. Data warehouse

3. Database

4. Data mesh

The correct answer is: Data lake

The appropriate choice for storing structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data in its raw, native format is a data lake. A data lake is designed to handle diverse data types and allows organizations to ingest data in its original format without requiring transformation or structuring beforehand. This flexibility enables businesses to perform various analytics and processing tasks on the data later, tailoring its structure as needed for specific applications or analysis methodologies. In contrast, a data warehouse is optimized for structured data that has been processed and organized for query and analysis, making it less suitable for raw or unstructured formats. A traditional database has a more rigid schema, primarily catering to structured data and requiring significant upfront design and structuring efforts. Lastly, a data mesh is a decentralized approach to data architecture but does not inherently provide a single repository for diverse data types in raw format like a data lake does. Thus, for the needs of the organization highlighted in the question, a data lake is clearly the best solution.