---
title: "Forbes: How To Select The Right Cloud Data Platform: Cloud Data Warehouse, Cloud Data Lake Or Cloud Data Lakehouse"
description: Learn how Next Pathway's SHIFT platform, now enhanced with AI, simplifies the migration of complex data warehouses and ETL workloads to cloud targets, ensuring faster deployment.
---

[Next Pathway Blog ](https://blog.nextpathway.com)

# [Forbes: How To Select The Right Cloud Data Platform: Cloud Data Warehouse, Cloud Data Lake Or Cloud Data Lakehouse](https://blog.nextpathway.com/how-to-select-the-right-cloud-data-platform-forbes)

 Written by [Chetan Mathur](https://blog.nextpathway.com/author/chetan-mathur) | 12/19/22 8:46 PM

Many organizations continue to maintain legacy data warehouses and data lakes using a variety of legacy technologies. Chances are your organization is delivering massive amounts of structured business and operational data to your data warehouse for critical reporting. In addition, you are probably populating tremendous amounts of structured and unstructured data into your data lake for data science and [AI. ](https://blog.nextpathway.com/optimizing-cloud-migration-strategies-with-ai-and-ml-a-comprehensive-guide)Your technology is aging, your costs are rising and your users are demanding more and more data be ingested along with better analytics capabilities. These factors are compelling you to examine the cloud as a remedy.

To make the best CDP choice, I strongly recommend the following steps:

Step 1: Understand your current architecture and data sources.  
Step 2: Develop a target cloud reference architecture.  
Step 3: Execute based on a roadmap.

Don’t be intimidated by the choices available in the cloud market. Realize that most organizations will ultimately be best served with a multicloud strategy. The best advice I have is to start your cloud journey with incremental steps. Remember, this is a journey, not a destination; start with a good architectural foundation and give yourself the flexibility to modify and grow your cloud presence based on the evolving needs of your business.

You can read the full article here: [How To Select The Right Cloud Data Platform: Cloud Data Warehouse, Cloud Data Lake Or Cloud Data Lakehouse](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/12/19/how-to-select-the-right-cloud-data-platform-cloud-data-warehouse-cloud-data-lake-or-cloud-data-lakehouse/?sh=513339954012)

Next Pathway is the Automated Cloud Migration company. Powered by the [SHIFT™ Migration Suite](https://www.nextpathway.com/shift-migration-suite/), Next Pathway automates the end-to-end challenges companies experience when migrating applications to the cloud. For more information, please visit nextpathway.com.

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