Amazon Athena Training Summary

Overview of Amazon Athena

Serverless Query Service: Athena is a serverless service that allows you to analyze data in S3 using SQL.
Built on Presto: Utilizes the Presto engine for SQL queries.
Direct Analysis: Analyzes data directly in S3 without the need to move it.
Supports Various Formats: Works with CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, Parquet, among others.
Cost-Effective: Charges are based on the amount of data scanned per terabyte, with no need for database provisioning.

Reporting and Dashboards: Athena is often used with Amazon QuickSight for creating visual reports and dashboards.

Ad-hoc querying
Business intelligence (BI)
Analytics and reporting
Log analysis from various AWS services (e.g., VPC flow logs, ELB logs, CloudTrail)

Columnar Data Types: Use Apache Parquet or ORC for cost savings and performance, as they scan only needed columns.
Data Compression: Implement data compression to reduce the amount of data to scan.
Data Partitioning: Organize data in S3 with a clear structure to improve query efficiency.
Larger Files: Prefer larger files over many small ones to reduce overhead and improve scan efficiency.