Help Center/ GaussDB(DWS)/ FAQs/ General Problems/ What Are the Differences Between a Data Warehouse and the Hadoop Big Data Platform?
Updated on 2023-04-26 GMT+08:00
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What Are the Differences Between a Data Warehouse and the Hadoop Big Data Platform?

The Hadoop big data platform can be regarded as a next-generation data warehousing system. It has the characteristics of modern data warehouses and is widely used by enterprises. Because of the scalability of MPP, the MPP-based data warehousing system is sometimes classified as a big data platform.

However, data warehouses greatly differ from the Hadoop platform in function and user experience in different scenarios. For details, see the following table.

Table 1 Feature comparison between data warehouses and the Hadoop big data platform

Feature

Hadoop

Data Warehouse

Number of compute nodes

1000s

Max 256

Data volume

Over 10 PB

Max 10 PB

Data type

Relational, semi-relational, unstructured (voice, images, and video)

Relational only

Latency

Medium to high

Low

Application ecosystem

Innovative/AI

Traditional/BI

Application development API

SQL and other programming language APIs, such as MapReduce

Standard database SQL

Scalability

Unlimited, with comprehensive programming APIs

Limited, supported by UDFs

Transaction support

Limited

Comprehensive

Data warehouses and the Hadoop platform work together in different scenarios. GaussDB(DWS) on the public cloud can seamlessly integrate with Hadoop-based MRS on the public cloud to provide the SQL-over-Hadoop data sharing across platforms and services. GaussDB(DWS) serves as a data warehouse for managing massive data while relishing the openness, convenience, and innovation of the Hadoop platform. You can also enjoy the upper-layer applications of conventional data warehouses, especially BI applications, using GaussDB(DWS).

Parent topic: General Problems