Short answer
A data warehouse, such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery or Databricks, is a central store for analytics data from many systems. ELT (extract, load, transform) tools such as Fivetran copy data from sources like the CRM into the warehouse, where it is transformed for reporting.
Data Warehouse and ELT explained
Firms use warehouses to combine CRM, financial, marketing and operational data for reporting and analytics that no single system can produce. ELT tools load raw data quickly and transformation happens inside the warehouse, often with tools such as dbt. Increasingly, platforms like Salesforce Data 360 connect to warehouses through zero-copy access instead of duplicating data.
Deciding whether the CRM or the warehouse is authoritative for each metric avoids conflicting numbers.
How Vantage Point helps: we connect Salesforce and HubSpot to data warehouses and design which system owns which metrics.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ETL and ELT?
ETL transforms data before loading it into the warehouse. ELT loads raw data first and transforms it inside the warehouse.
Do I still need a data warehouse if I have Data 360?
Often yes. Data 360 activates customer data in Salesforce; a warehouse remains the analytics hub. Zero-copy lets them work together.