Database vs Data Warehouse | Difference between Transactional Database & Data Warehouse with Example

Understanding fundamental differences between a database and a data warehouse.
The primary purpose of a database is to store and process day to day transactional data for efficient handling of data processing operations.

For example, a retail store database needs to store prices for all the items and manage inventory data amongst many other things. Every time an item is sold, the transaction is recorded in database and the inventory data is updated along with other processes.

The processes usually involved are create, read, update and delete sort of data processing operations.
A database is designed to handle such processes efficiently.

The primary purpose of a data warehouse is for analytics and reporting, that is supporting business intelligence activities.
Analytical processing usually involves running complex queries for data analysis and thus data warehouses are designed for relatively efficient processing of such queries.

So, the main difference between a database and a data warehouse is that databases are designed and optimized for day-to-day transactional processes whereas data warehouses are designed and optimized for analytical processing.