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A cloud data warehouse is a centralized data storage and analytics system hosted in the cloud, designed to handle large-scale analytical workloads efficiently.
Unlike traditional on-premise databases, cloud warehouses scale automatically and separate storage from compute.
Examples include:
Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Amazon Redshift
Azure Synapse
Cloud data warehouses support:
Massive datasets
High concurrency
SQL-based analytics
BI tool integrations
Cost-based scaling
They are optimized for analytical queries rather than transactional workloads. Columnar storage, query optimization, and distributed execution enable fast performance even on large datasets.
From a BI standpoint, cloud data warehouses serve as the single source of truth. All dashboards, reports, and AI models pull from the same governed data.
Benefits include:
Scalability
Reliability
Lower maintenance
Pay-as-you-go pricing
Faster analytics development
Cloud data warehouses are the backbone of modern BI and analytics stacks, enabling real-time insights, self-service analytics, and AI-powered decision-making.




