aws Announcing replication support and Intelligent-Tiering for Amazon S3 Tables | AWS News Blog (opens in new tab)
AWS has expanded the capabilities of Amazon S3 Tables by introducing Intelligent-Tiering for automated cost optimization and cross-region replication for enhanced data availability. These updates address the operational overhead of managing large-scale Apache Iceberg datasets by automating storage lifecycle management and simplifying the architecture required for global data distribution. By integrating these features, organizations can reduce storage costs without manual intervention while ensuring consistent data access across multiple AWS Regions and accounts. ### Cost Optimization with S3 Tables Intelligent-Tiering This feature automatically shifts data between storage tiers based on access frequency to maximize cost efficiency without impacting application performance. * The system utilizes three low-latency tiers: Frequent Access, Infrequent Access (offering 40% lower costs), and Archive Instant Access (offering 68% lower costs than Infrequent Access). * Data transitions are automated, moving to Infrequent Access after 30 days of inactivity and to Archive Instant Access after 90 days. * Automated table maintenance tasks, such as compaction and snapshot expiration, are optimized to skip colder files; for example, compaction only processes data in the Frequent Access tier to minimize unnecessary compute and storage costs. * Users can configure Intelligent-Tiering as the default storage class at the table bucket level using the AWS CLI commands `put-table-bucket-storage-class` and `get-table-bucket-storage-class`. ### Cross-Region and Cross-Account Replication New replication support allows users to maintain synchronized, read-only replicas of their S3 Tables across different geographic locations and ownership boundaries. * Replication maintains chronological consistency and preserves parent-child snapshot relationships, ensuring that replicas remain identical to the source for query purposes. * Replica tables are typically updated within minutes of changes to the source table and support independent encryption and retention policies to meet specific regional compliance requirements. * The service eliminates the need for complex, custom-built architectures to track metadata transformations or manually sync objects between Iceberg tables. * This functionality is primarily designed to reduce query latency for geographically distributed teams and provide robust data protection for disaster recovery scenarios. ### Practical Implementation To maximize the benefits of these new features, organizations should consider setting Intelligent-Tiering as the default storage class at the bucket level for all new datasets to ensure immediate cost savings. For global operations, setting up read-only replicas in regions closest to end-users will significantly improve query performance for analytics tools like Amazon Athena and Amazon SageMaker.