Operational data stores (ODS) are used to aggregate data from multiple data sources.

It is used as a/for:

1. Central repo for other apps to access.
2. Central data store for reporting.
3. Real-time notifcations when relying on multiple data source.

How does it differ from a data warehouse (DWH)?

@stitch

The data in ODS (tactical) is overwritten and replaced with new values according to business needs. This is known as the active snapshot. DWS (strategic) on the other hand keep historical transactions of all records.

Data can also be accumulated in the ODS before pushing it to the DWH too.

In general, ODS serves OLTP traffic and DWH serves OLAP traffic. DHW process heavy read requests rather than frequent updates to improve performance.

Ref.