Amazon Athena enhances Apache Iceberg table operations and file format support

Amazon Athena has added SQL commands and file formats that simplify the storage, transformation, and maintenance of data stored in Apache Iceberg tables. These new capabilities enable data engineers and analysts to combine more of the familiar conveniences of SQL with the transactional properties of Iceberg to enable efficient and robust analytics use cases.

Today's launch adds CREATE TABLE AS SELECT (CTAS), MERGE, and VACUUM commands that streamline the lifecycle management of your Iceberg data: CTAS makes it fast and efficient to create tables, MERGE synchronizes tables in one step to simplify your data preparation and update tasks, and VACUUM helps you manage storage footprint and delete records to meet regulatory requirements such as GDPR. We've also added support for AVRO and ORC so you can create Iceberg tables with a broader set of file formats. Lastly, you can now simplify access to Iceberg-managed data by using Views to hide complex joins, aggregations, and data types.

All new features in this launch are supported in Athena engine version 3 and can be used with the Athena drivers, API, or console and are available in all supported regions.

To learn more about the new Iceberg features in Athena, see Using Iceberg tables in the Athena user documentation.