Big Data

Dell Data Lakehouse and Iceberg: The New Gold Standard

Modern Data Architecture: Dell Data Lakehouse and Iceberg helps enterprises stay ahead.
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With recent developments in the data ecosystem, such as Databricks’ acquisition of Tabular and Snowflake’s introduction of the Polaris Catalog, many are questioning the implications of Iceberg on data management, particularly in BI, ML and GenAI.

Laying the Foundation

Community-driven standardization on table formats. Apache Iceberg is a community-driven project with contributors from major companies like Apple, AWS, Alibaba and Netflix. It promises a development environment for high-performance and large-scale analytics free from single-vendor constraints. It has emerged as the leader in modern table formats, providing enterprises with ownership and flexibility in data storage.

Engine-layer excellence. Central to this evolution is the partnership between Iceberg and OS Trino, which is driving innovation in SQL query engine technology. Originally conceived at Netflix, this architecture, known as Icehouse, is deployed across on-premises, hybrid and multicloud environments and has been adopted by industry giants like Pinterest, Apple and many others.

Gradual transition to modern architecture. Transitioning to Iceberg from legacy formats is a gradual process, requiring robust platform support. The Dell Data Lakehouse addresses this need, facilitating data architecture transitions with minimal disruption. Lakehouses and lake storage offer unprecedented performance at scale and lower costs. The standardization of Iceberg makes the case for this transition to Lakehouse even more compelling, due to its flexibility and compatibility with future industry changes.

AI’s inexhaustive demand for data. The growth of AI has created an even greater need for high-quality data. Lakehouses keep data zones inside a single platform, reducing data duplication and data movement, thereby eliminating data silos, and increasing data quality. Iceberg’s features such as snapshot maintenance, schema evolution and time travel are critical for developing and maintaining sophisticated data pipelines to continually feed LLM tuning and RAG workflows.

The Dell Data Lakehouse: A Compelling Offering

For the first time in over 40 years of data warehousing history, the industry recognizes the importance of providing enterprises optionality by storing data in open formats, like Iceberg, within an object storage-based lake. The Dell Data Lakehouse, which includes a powerful query engine powered by Starburst and leverages the Icehouse architecture of OS Trino and Iceberg, is a groundbreaking solution that addresses modern data management and analytics needs.

Here’s why it stands out:

  • Open and future-proof architecture. The Dell Data Lakehouse supports Iceberg, ensuring customers are not locked into a single vendor. This openness fosters innovation and flexibility, allowing organizations to adapt to evolving data needs without being constrained by proprietary systems.
  • High performance and scalability. By natively querying Iceberg tables, and integrating with Iceberg features like snapshot maintenance, schema evolution and time travel, the Dell Data Lakehouse delivers unparalleled performance that scales with organizational needs.
  • Turnkey. The Dell Data Lakehouse System Software makes the entire stack, including Iceberg, a turnkey solution by abstracting away complexity from underlying layers such as operating system, container orchestration and metadata management.
  • Comprehensive data management. Integrations with a growing ecosystem of tools, including BI, AI and ML platforms, across hybrid environments using open formats like Iceberg help facilitate and democratize data access.
  • Connected data silos. By federating in and around the lake, teams can securely discover and validate relevant data for experimentation, ad-hoc analytics, model tuning and more.
  • Cost-effective and predictable. By separating compute and storage and leveraging a lake architecture, the Dell Data Lakehouse offers a cost-effective, predictable, scalable solution.
  • Security and governance. Apache Iceberg integrates with Dell Data Lakehouse’s built-in access control to simplify data governance. This integration allows data lake administrators to assign granular access permissions to Iceberg tables.

Amidst rapid industry evolution, the Dell Data Lakehouse emerges as a leader in data management, analytics, ML and GenAI across hybrid environments. This architectural design represents a transformative leap forward, ensuring organizations stay ahead in today’s data-driven world.

To get a full, hands-on experience, visit the Dell Demo Center to interactively explore the Dell Data Lakehouse with labs hand-picked for you by Dell Technologies’ experts. You can also contact your Dell account executive to explore the Dell Data Lakehouse for your data needs.

Greg Findlen

About the Author: Greg Findlen

Greg is Senior Vice President of Product Management of Data Management at Dell Technologies. He is focused on efforts in the data management space to build solutions to enable customers better unlock the value from the data they generate each day across their organization. Prior to this role, he spent years leading engineering teams focused on developing products that scale across Dell’s enterprise portfolio of products, such as APEX, CloudIQ and others. Greg has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry and joined the company in 2006. Since joining Dell he has held a variety of positions across the Infrastructure Solutions Group and has led key functions including development, data analytics, pricing, business operations, program management and strategy development. Greg also served as a leader of the Dell and EMC integration which drove all key aspects of the merger planning related to the products and engineering teams. Prior to his time at Dell, he worked in the semiconductor test industry and drove quality improvement efforts, supplier relationships, and engaged across development and operations roles.