In lakehouse architecture, which statement best describes the typical roles of Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers?

• A. Silver contains raw data.
• B. Gold is where unprocessed data resides.
• C. Bronze is raw data, Silver is cleaned, Gold contains business-ready aggregates.
• D. Bronze is archived data.

Answer: (C)

In lakehouse architecture, data passes through progressive refinement stages. Bronze holds raw, unprocessed data as it arrives from sources—files, streams, sensors—preserving the original records. Silver cleans, deduplicates, validates, and harmonizes the data, producing a consistent, analysis-ready dataset. Gold sits at the top with business-ready outputs: aggregated metrics, derived facts, and dimensioned datasets optimized for BI and reporting. This arrangement matches the statement that Bronze is raw, Silver is cleaned, and Gold contains business-ready aggregates. The other options misstate the roles: Silver isn’t for raw data, Gold isn’t unprocessed, and Bronze isn’t simply archival data.