Gartner Research

How to Avoid Data Lake Failures

Published: 10 August 2018

Summary

Business and IT leaders are overestimating the effectiveness and usefulness of data lakes in their data and analytics strategies. Data and analytics leaders can avoid data lake failures by comparing their skills, expectations and infrastructure capabilities with the scenarios in this report.

Included in Full Research

  • Failure Scenario 1: “Enterprise Data Lake”
    • Governance Challenges
    • Semantic Consistency Challenges
    • Performance and Flexibility Challenges
    • Political and Cultural Challenges
    • How to Avoid This Failure Scenario
  • Failure Scenario 2: “Data Lake Is My Data and Analytics Strategy”
    • Mistaken Attempts to Replace Strategy Development With Infrastructure
    • Lack of Organizational Clout or Social Capital
    • Underestimation of the Immaturity of Data Management Capabilities
    • Misunderstanding of the Diverse Requirements of a Data and Analytics Platform for Digital Business
    • How to Avoid This Failure Scenario
  • Failure Scenario 3: “Infinite Data Lake”
    • Outdated or Irrelevant Data
    • Continuation of Immature Data Life Cycle Management Capabilities
    • Eventual Performance and Cost Challenges
    • How to Avoid This Failure Scenario

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