From blogs.oracle.com
Some say data is the new oil.
This, of course, is a figure of speech. We all understand that data is not a fossil fuel. We can’t run our cars on it. Nor can we heat our homes with it, yet! But, in a less literal sense, the analogy of data as oil can apply. Similarly, as with oil, data only begins to have value when it is unearthed from the depths of data lakes, data warehouses, databases, and data repositories and is put to good use.