AWS Lake Formation is a service that allows you to set up a secure data lake in days. A data lake is a centralized, curated, and secured repository that stores your data, both in its original form and prepared for analysis. A data lake enables you to break down data silos and combine different types of analytics to gain insights and guide better business decisions.

Creating a data lake with Lake Formation allows you to define where your data resides and what data access and security policies you want to apply. Your users can then access the centralized AWS Glue Data Catalog which describes available data sets and their appropriate usage. Your users can then leverage these data sets with their choice of analytics and machine learning services, like Amazon EMR for Apache Spark, Amazon Redshift Spectrum, AWS Glue, Amazon QuickSight, and Amazon Athena.

For a list of regions where AWS Lake Formation is available, see the AWS Region Table.