Unevenly Distributed #2: Lakehouses Without Borders — Agnostic Data ft. Viktor Kessler (Co-Founder, Vakamo)
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Sep 15, 2025 Viktor Kessler, Co-founder of Vakamo and expert in data systems, dives into the world of data agnostic lakehouses. He discusses how these architectures enhance flexibility and interoperability, making migration between systems less daunting. The conversation also highlights Iceberg's rising prominence in data storage, offering an open-source alternative. Kessler shares insights on modern data access control and metadata management, stressing the importance of aligning data strategies with business goals to avoid vendor lock-in.
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Migration Pain Drives Need For Open Formats
- Repeated platform migrations create huge cost and pain for companies over time.
- Viktor argues open table formats like Iceberg can break that cycle and reduce future migrations.
Lakehouse = Storage, Compute, Catalog
- Lakehouse combines object storage, decoupled compute, and a catalog to deliver warehouse-like functionality on lakes.
- Iceberg and other table formats add transactional and schema features to make lakes act like databases.
Open Community Propelled Iceberg
- Iceberg's Apache governance and community-driven development helped it gain broad adoption.
- Viktor views Iceberg's open, community-first path as a key reason it outpaced alternative table formats.