Query usage based organization for very large databases

A method for defining large databases, comprising:

• receiving an identification of a collection of data in a cloud store, the cloud store accessible via a public access network for storing data in a location independent manner;
• determining, based on an expected usage of the collection, whether to intake the collection into an object store, the object store having a predefined format under the control of the user;
• selecting, if the collection remains in the cloud store, a catalog organization for the collection, the catalog organization defining a structure for accessing the data in the manner called for by the expected usage, the expected usage defining a computational intensity and storage demand of a query directed to the collection;
• and
• generating the catalog organization by associating elements of the collection with a created entry in the catalog organization, wherein selecting the catalog organization includes:
• determining an intended query usage and:
• generating a name and source, if the query usage is not foreseeable;
• generating an index on a subset of fields, if a keyword lookup query is expected;
• and
• generating a columnar organization of the data, if data analytics are expected.