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Cloud Storage
Cloud storage refers to a model of data storage where digital information is kept on remote servers accessed through the internet, rather than on local hard…
Cloud storage refers to a model of data storage where digital information is kept on remote servers accessed through the internet, rather than on local hard drives or physical media. Popular cloud storage services like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage allow users to store, retrieve, and manage large amounts of data without maintaining physical hardware. These services offer scalability, durability, and accessibility, making them crucial components of modern data architectures. Data analysts and engineers often use cloud storage to host data lakes, backup datasets, or serve as a central repository for various data processing and analytics workflows. When working with tools like DuckDB, you can directly query data stored in cloud storage using syntax like:
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SELECT * FROM read_parquet('s3://my-bucket/data.parquet');
Related terms
storage layer →
The storage layer refers to the component of a data system responsible for persistently storing and managing data.
Object storage →Object storage is a data storage architecture that manages data as discrete objects — each with data, metadata, and a unique identifier — in a flat namespace, accessed over HTTP APIs rather than a traditional file system hierarchy.
storage →DuckDB uses an efficient columnar storage format optimized for analytical queries.
Snowflake (data cloud) →Snowflake is a cloud data platform that separates storage, compute, and services into independent layers, letting you scale query power without moving the underlying data.
S3 bucket →An S3 bucket is a fundamental storage container in Amazon Web Services' Simple Storage Service (S3).
Parquet →Apache Parquet is a columnar storage file format designed for efficient data processing and analytics.
