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* What Is Cortex Data Lake?

# What Is Cortex Data Lake?

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By [David Szabo](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/author/david-szabo/?ts=markdown "Posts by David Szabo")  
Sep 12, 2019  
2 minutes  
[Product Features](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/category/product-features/?ts=markdown)  
[Secure the Future](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/secure-the-future/?ts=markdown)  
[Cortex](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/tag/cortex/?ts=markdown)  
[Cortex Data Lake](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/tag/cortex-data-lake/?ts=markdown)  
[Cortex XDR](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/tag/cortex-xdr/?ts=markdown)

**Cortex Data Lake is an epic, scalable data infrastructure that's capable of ingesting, learning and signaling millions of events per second. It's the technology that enables Cortex XDR to detect and stop threats across network, cloud and endpoints, running over a dozen machine learning algorithms.**

![A conceptual image representing the power of Cortex Data Lake](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image2-230x120.png)

Cortex Data Lake is the powerful backbone of the Cortex platform. The relationship between Cortex Data Lake and Cortex XDR reminds me of a joke: The president and the first lady stop at a gas station, where the first lady recognizes the owner of a gas station as an old boyfriend. The president jokes that she could have been the wife of a gas station owner, and the first lady responds, "No dear, he'd be the President of the United States!"

## What can Cortex Data Lake do?

First, Cortex Data Lake ingests your Next-Generation Firewall logs, your Traps logs, and your Prisma Access logs. It ingests data with full fidelity, with over a hundred data points per network log, including metadata from WildFire, our malware prevention service. We designed and priced the product to store all these details for future AI processing; the higher the fidelity, the more accurate your machine learning will be. No wonder we were found to deliver the broadest coverage with the fewest missed attack techniques among 10 endpoint detection and response (EDR) vendors [in the recent MITRE evaluation](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2019/05/xdr-cortex-xdr-sets-standard-mitres-attck-evaluations/?ts=markdown).

What's the point of ingesting all this data? Let's see some of the things you can do with it:

* **Network traffic visibility** : The [Explore app](https://apps.paloaltonetworks.com/marketplace/explore) enables network operations teams to interact with their Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall traffic via a simple web UI.
* **SOAR** : With Demisto, you can orchestrate workflows on your firewall, cloud and endpoint data across your Cortex Data Lake, Splunk and other security information and event management (SIEM) instances. We hear lots of praise for this coexistence to help customers avoid forwarding huge volumes of firewall logs to their SIEMs.
* **Feed the data into applications:** We have [24 partner apps](https://apps.paloaltonetworks.com) and counting. The Cortex team and our partner ecosystem are busy building new apps every day to simplify, integrate and improve security operations.

Check out this [online calculator](https://apps.paloaltonetworks.com/logging-service-calculator) to find out how much data your organization could store.  
Learn more about how Cortex Data Lake enables [AI-based innovations for cybersecurity](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/detection-response/data-lake?ts=markdown).

**Happy log forwarding!**

*** ** * ** ***

## Related Blogs

### [Secure the Cloud](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/secure-the-cloud/?ts=markdown), [Secure the Future](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/secure-the-future/?ts=markdown)

[#### Palo Alto Networks Expands Cortex, Prisma Cloud Hosting to Singapore](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2020/07/cortex-singapore-cloud-hosting/)

### [Secure the Future](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/secure-the-future/?ts=markdown)

[#### Palo Alto Networks Expands Cloud Hosting Locations to the UK](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2020/07/cortex-uk-cloud-hosting/)

### [Products and Services](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/products-and-services/?ts=markdown), [Secure the Future](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/secure-the-future/?ts=markdown)

[#### Introducing Cortex XDR](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2019/02/introducing-cortex-xdr-new-wave-detection-response/)

### [Must-Read Articles](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/category/must-read-articles/?ts=markdown), [Product Features](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/category/product-features/?ts=markdown), [Uncategorized](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/category/uncategorized/?ts=markdown)

[#### From ILOVEYOU to AI Defenders -- 25 Years of Email Evolution](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/from-iloveyou-to-ai-defenders-25-years-of-email-evolution/)

### [News and Events](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/category/news-and-events/?ts=markdown)

[#### Cortex XDR Is the Only Endpoint Security Market Leader Certified in Both AVC EDR Detection and Anti-Tampering Tests](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/cortex-xdr-is-the-only-endpoint-security-market-leader-certified-in-both-avc-edr-detection-and-anti-tampering-tests/)

### [Playbook of the Week](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/category/playbook-of-the-week/?ts=markdown)

[#### Playbook Creation Reimagined: The Intuitive Approach to Security Automation](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/security-operations/playbook-creation-reimagined-the-intuitive-approach-to-security-automation/)

### Subscribe to the Blog!

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