# Online store

Feast uses online stores to serve features at low latency. Feature values are loaded from data sources into the online store through *materialization*, which can be triggered through the `materialize` command.

The storage schema of features within the online store mirrors that of the original data source. One key difference is that for each [entity key](https://docs.feast.dev/v0.45-branch-1/getting-started/concepts/entity), only the latest feature values are stored. No historical values are stored.

Here is an example batch data source:

![](https://2783236921-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2Fa3RSXCncUVeRY5AxUMEo%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-ac0d2d4c2f0034a273fae1fe979abbb4d4f5a1f7%2Fimage%20\(6\).png?alt=media)

Once the above data source is materialized into Feast (using `feast materialize`), the feature values will be stored as follows:

![](https://2783236921-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2Fa3RSXCncUVeRY5AxUMEo%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-700231a14936785ceda411190e509aa3c710d015%2Fimage%20\(5\).png?alt=media)

Features can also be written directly to the online store via [push sources](https://docs.feast.dev/v0.45-branch-1/reference/data-sources/push) .