Which data type of database is being used by experience platform in the background to store data, Relational databases(SQL) or Non-relational databases (Hadoop)?

[jantzen_belliston-Adobe]

Hello Friends, 

I would like to understand how data is stored in the adobe experience cloud platforms. 

I have studied and found that: 

1. A dataset (like a table in SQL) is created with the JSON schema. 

2. This definition of a dataset is stored in the catalog. This is not stored in the data lake.

3. Actual data is stored in the data lake. 

4. With the query service, we can write a query in SQL format which can be converted into a format which understands by a data lake. 

But I am not able to understand what is a data lake, and how the data is stored in the background. 

If data lake is a Hadoop platform then data should be stored in a file form. 

Can you please explain to me, how actual data is stored in the background and which database is being used to store it? 

Note: I do not have access to experience platforms I am just reading documentation to understand it. 

Thanks in advance. 

Parvesh. 

[jantzen_belliston-Adobe]

Does Seth's answer give you the info you need? If not, can you provide additional details to help the community better solve your question?

[parveshp7822672 · Accepted solution]

Hi Parvesh, 

The data lake is powered by Azure Data Lake. Which is Hadoop and some other technologies. Adobe's Catalog is proprietary as well as some of the organization like data sets, batches and other pieces.  

Query service is an interface to make *SQL-like queries.  So, it's structured like sql calls but we have built in functions and libraries to help accomplish what some of Adobe's solutions do such as sessionization etc. The queries will query the data lake as well as profile service.  

I hope that helps,

Seth

[parveshp7822672 · Accepted solution]

Thanks!