Unleash deeper insights with Amazon Redshift data sharing for data lake tables

Amazon Redshift has established itself as a highly scalable, fully managed cloud data warehouse trusted by tens of thousands of customers for its superior price-performance and advanced data analytics capabilities. Driven primarily by customer feedback, the product roadmap for Amazon Redshift is designed to make sure the service continuously evolves to meet the ever-changing needs of its users.

Over the years, this customer-centric approach has led to the introduction of groundbreaking features such as zero-ETL, data sharing, streaming ingestion, data lake integration, Amazon Redshift ML, Amazon Q generative SQL, and transactional data lake capabilities. The latest innovation in Amazon Redshift data sharing capabilities further enhances the service’s flexibility and collaboration potential.

Amazon Redshift now enables the secure sharing of data lake tables—also known as external tables or Amazon Redshift Spectrum tables—that are managed in the AWS Glue Data Catalog, as well as Redshift views referencing those data lake tables. This breakthrough empowers data analytics to span the full breadth of shareable data, allowing you to seamlessly share local tables and data lake tables across warehouses, accounts, and AWS Regions—without the overhead of physical data movement or recreating security policies for data lake tables and Redshift views on each warehouse.

By using granular access controls, data sharing in Amazon Redshift helps data owners maintain tight governance over who can access the shared information. In this post, we explore powerful use cases that demonstrate how you can enhance cross-team and cross-organizational collaboration, reduce overhead, and unlock new insights by using this innovative data sharing functionality.

Overview of Amazon Redshift data sharing

Amazon Redshift data sharing allows you to securely share your data with other Redshift warehouses, without having to copy or move the data.

Data shared between warehouses doesn’t require the data to be physically copied or moved—instead, data remains in the original Redshift warehouse, and access is granted to other authorized users as part of a one-time setup. Data sharing provides granular access control, allowing you to control which specific tables or views are shared, and which users or services can access the shared data.

Since consumers access the shared data in-place, they always access the latest state of the shared data. Data sharing even allows for the automatic sharing of new tables created after that datashare was established.

You can share data across different Redshift warehouses within or across AWS accounts, and you can also do cross-region data sharing. This allows you to share data with partners, subsidiaries, or other parts of your organization, and enables the powerful workload isolation use case, as shown in the following diagram. With the seamless integration of Amazon Redshift with AWS Data Exchange, data can also be monetized and shared publicly, and public datasets such as census data can be added to a Redshift warehouse with just a few steps.

Figure 1: Amazon Redshift data sharing between producer and consumer warehouses

The data sharing capabilities in Amazon Redshift also enable the implementation of a data mesh architecture, as shown in the following diagram. This helps democratize data within the organization by reducing barriers to accessing and using data across different business units and teams. For datasets with multiple authors, Amazon Redshift data sharing supports both read and write use cases (write in preview at the time of writing). This enables the creation of 360-degree datasets, such as a customer dataset that receives contributions from multiple Redshift warehouses across different business units in the organization.

Figure 2: Data mesh architecture using Amazon Redshift data sharing

Overview of Redshift Spectrum and data lake tables

In the modern data organization, the data lake has emerged as a centralized repository—a single source of truth where all data within the organization ultimately resides at some point in its lifecycle. Redshift Spectrum enables seamless integration between the Redshift data warehouse and customers’ data lakes, as shown in the following diagram. With Redshift Spectrum, you can run SQL queries directly against data stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), without the need to first load that data into a Redshift warehouse. This allows you to maintain a comprehensive view of your data while optimizing for cost-efficiency.

Figure 3: Amazon Redshift bridges the data warehouse and data lake by enabling querying of data lake tables in-place

Redshift Spectrum supports a variety of open file formats, including Parquet, ORC, JSON, and CSV, as well as open table formats such as Apache Iceberg, all stored in Amazon S3. It runs these queries using a dedicated fleet of high-performance servers with low-latency connections to the S3 data lake. Data lake tables can be added to a Redshift warehouse either automatically through the Data Catalog, in the Amazon Redshift Query Editor, or manually using SQL commands.

From a user experience standpoint, there is little difference between querying a local Redshift table vs. a data lake table. SQL queries can be reused verbatim to perform the same aggregations and transformations on data residing in the data lake, as shown in the following examples. Additionally, by using columnar file formats like Parquet and pushing down query predicates, you can achieve further performance enhancements.

The following SQL is for a sample query against local Redshift tables:

SELECT top 10 mylocal_schema.sales.eventid, sum(mylocal_schema.sales.pricepaid) FROM mylocal_schema.sales, event
WHERE mylocal_schema.sales.eventid = event.eventid
AND mylocal_schema.sales.pricepaid > 30
GROUP BY mylocal_schema.sales.eventid
ORDER BY 2 DESC;

The following SQL is for the same query, but against data lake tables:

SELECT top 10 myspectrum_schema.sales.eventid, sum(myspectrum_schema.sales.pricepaid) FROM myspectrum_schema.sales, event
WHERE myspectrum_schema.sales.eventid = event.eventid
AND myspectrum_schema.sales.pricepaid > 30
GROUP BY myspectrum_schema.sales.eventid
ORDER BY 2 desc;

To maintain robust data governance, Redshift Spectrum integrates with AWS Lake Formation, enabling the consistent application of security policies and access controls across both the Redshift data warehouse and S3 data lake. When Lake Formation is used, Redshift producer warehouses first share their data with Lake Formation rather than directly with other Redshift consumer warehouses, and the data lake administrator grants fine-grained permissions for Redshift consumer warehouses to access the shared data. For more information, see Centrally manage access and permissions for Amazon Redshift data sharing with AWS Lake Formation.

In the past, however, sharing data lake tables across Redshift warehouses presented challenges. It wasn’t possible to do so without having to mount the data lake tables on each individual Redshift warehouse and then recreate the related security policies.

This barrier has now been addressed with the introduction of data sharing support for data lake tables. You can now share data lake tables just like any other table, using the built-in data sharing capabilities of Amazon Redshift. By combining the power of Redshift Spectrum data lake integration with the flexibility of Amazon Redshift data sharing, organizations can unlock new levels of cross-team collaboration and insights, while maintaining robust data governance and security controls.

For more information about Redshift Spectrum, see Getting started with Amazon Redshift Spectrum.

Solution overview

In this post, we describe how to add data lake tables or views to a Redshift datashare, covering two key use cases:

Adding a late-binding view or materialized view to a producer datashare that references a data lake table
Adding a data lake table directly to a producer datashare

The first use case provides greater flexibility and convenience. Consumers can query the shared view without having to configure fine-grained permissions. The configuration, such as defining permissions on data stored in Amazon S3 with Lake Formation, is already handled on the producer side. You only need to add the view to the producer datashare one time, making it a convenient option for both the producer and the consumer.

An additional benefit of this approach is that you can add views to a datashare that join data lake tables with local Redshift tables. When these views are shared, you can relegate the trusted business logic to just the producer side.

Alternatively, you can add data lake tables directly to a datashare. In this case, consumers can query the data lake tables directly or join them with their own local tables, allowing them to add their own conditional logic as needed.

Add a view that references a data lake table to a Redshift datashare

When you create data lake tables that you intend to add to a datashare, the recommended and most common way to do this is to add a view to the datashare that references a data lake table or tables. There are three high-level steps involved:

Add the Redshift view’s schema (the local schema) to the Redshift datashare.
Add the Redshift view (the local view) to the Redshift datashare.
Add the Redshift external schemas (for the tables referenced by the Redshift view) to the Redshift datashare.

The following diagram illustrates the full workflow.

Figure 4: Sharing data lake tables via Amazon Redshift views

The workflow consists of the following steps:

Create a data lake table on the datashare producer. For more information on creating Redshift Spectrum objects, see External schemas for Amazon Redshift Spectrum. Data lake tables to be shared can include Lake Formation registered tables and Data Catalog tables, and if using the Redshift Query Editor, these tables are automatically mounted.
Create a view on the producer that references the data lake table that you created.
Create a datashare, if one doesn’t already exist, and add objects to your datashare, including the view you created that references the data lake table. For more information, see Creating datashares and adding objects (preview).
Add the external schema of the base Redshift table to the datashare (this is true of both local base tables and data lake tables). You don’t have to add a data lake table itself to the datashare.
On the consumer, the administrator makes the view available to consumer database users.
Database consumer users can write queries to retrieve data from the shared view and join it with other tables and views on the consumer.

After these steps are complete, database consumer users with access to the datashare views can reference them in their SQL queries. The following SQL queries are examples for achieving the preceding steps.

Create a data lake table on the producer warehouse:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema.test (c1 INT)
stored AS parquet
location 's3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/myfolder/';

Create a view on the producer warehouse:

CREATE VIEW mylocal_db.mylocal_schema.myspectrumview AS SELECT c1 FROM myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema.v_test
WITH no schema binding;

Add a view to the datashare on the producer warehouse:

ALTER datashare mydatashare ADD SCHEMA mylocal_db.mylocal_schema;
ALTER datashare mydatashare ADD VIEW myspectrumview;
ALTER datashare mydatashare ADD SCHEMA myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema;

Create a consumer datashare and grant permissions for the view in the consumer warehouse:

CREATE database myspectrum_db FROM datashare myspectrumproducer OF account '123456789012' namespace 'p1234567-8765-4321-p10987654321';
GRANT usage ON database myspectrum_db TO usernames;

Add a data lake table directly to a Redshift datashare

Adding a data lake table to a datashare is similar to adding a view. This process works well for a case where the consumers want the raw data from the data lake table and they want to write queries and join it to tables in their own data warehouse. There are two high-level steps involved:

Add the Redshift external schemas (of the data lake tables to be shared) to the Redshift datashare.
Add the data lake table (the Redshift external table) to the Redshift datashare.

The following diagram illustrates the full workflow.

Figure 5: Sharing data lake tables directly in an Amazon Redshift datashare

The workflow consists of the following steps:

Create a data lake table on the datashare producer.
Add objects to your datashare, including the data lake table you created. In this case, you don’t have any abstraction over the table.
On the consumer, the administrator makes the table available.
Database consumer users can write queries to retrieve data from the shared table and join it with other tables and views on the consumer.

The following SQL queries are examples for achieving the preceding producer steps.

Create a data lake table on the producer warehouse:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema.test (c1 INT)
stored AS parquet
location 's3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/myfolder/';

Add a data lake schema and table directly to the datashare on the producer warehouse:

ALTER datashare mydatashare ADD SCHEMA myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema;
ALTER datashare mydatashare ADD TABLE myspectrum_db.myspectrum_schema.test;

Create a consumer datashare and grant permissions for the view in the consumer warehouse:

CREATE database myspectrum_db FROM datashare myspectrumproducer OF account '123456789012' namespace 'p1234567-8765-4321-p10987654321';
GRANT usage ON database myspectrum_db TO usernames;

Security considerations for sharing data lake tables and views

Data lake tables are stored outside of Amazon Redshift, in the data lake, and may not be owned by the Redshift warehouse, but are still referenced within Amazon Redshift. This setup requires special security considerations. Data lake tables operate under the security and governance of both Amazon Redshift and the data lake. For Lake Formation registered tables specifically, the Amazon S3 resources are secured by Lake Formation and made available to consumers using the provided credentials.

The data owner of the data in the data lake tables may want to impose restrictions on which external objects can be added to a datashare. To give data owners more control over whether warehouse users can share data lake tables, you can use session tags in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). These tags provide additional context about the user running the queries. For more details on tagging resources, refer to Tags for AWS Identity and Access Management resources.

Audit considerations for sharing data lake tables and views

When sharing data lake objects through a datashare, there are special logging considerations to keep in mind:

Access controls – You can also use CloudTrail log data in conjunction with IAM policies to control access to shared tables, including both Redshift datashare producers and consumers. The CloudTrail logs record details about who accesses shared tables. The identifiers in the log data are available in the ExternalId field under the AssumeRole CloudTrail logs. The data owner can configure additional limitations on data access in an IAM policy by means of actions. For more information about defining data access through policies, see Access to AWS accounts owned by third parties.
Centralized access – Amazon S3 resources such as data lake tables can be registered and centrally managed with Lake Formation. After they’re registered with Lake Formation, Amazon S3 resources are secured and governed by the associated Lake Formation policies and made available using the credentials provided by Lake Formation.

Billing considerations for sharing data lake tables and views

The billing model for Redshift Spectrum differs for Amazon Redshift provisioned and serverless warehouses. For provisioned warehouses, Redshift Spectrum queries (queries involving data lake tables) are billed based on the amount of data scanned during query execution. For serverless warehouses, data lake queries are billed the same as non-data-lake queries. Storage for data lake tables is always billed to the AWS account associated with the Amazon S3 data.

In the case of datashares involving data lake tables, costs are attributed for storing and scanning data lake objects in a datashare as follows:

When a consumer queries shared objects from a data lake, the cost of scanning is billed to the consumer:
- When the consumer is a provisioned warehouse, Amazon Redshift uses Redshift Spectrum to scan the Amazon S3 data. Therefore, the Redshift Spectrum cost is billed to the consumer account.
- When the consumer is an Amazon Redshift Serverless workgroup, there is no separate charge for data lake queries.
Amazon S3 costs for storage and operations, such as listing buckets, is billed to the account that owns each S3 bucket.

For detailed information on Redshift Spectrum billing, refer to Amazon Redshift pricing and Billing for storage.

Conclusion

In this post, we explored how Amazon Redshift enhanced data sharing capabilities, including support for sharing data lake tables and Redshift views that reference those data lake tables, empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data by bringing the full breadth of data assets in scope for advanced analytics. Organizations are now able to seamlessly share local tables and data lake tables across warehouses, accounts, and Regions.

We outlined the steps to securely share data lake tables and views that reference those data lake tables across Redshift warehouses, even those in separate AWS accounts or Regions. Additionally, we covered some considerations and best practices to keep in mind when using this innovative feature.

Sharing data lake tables and views through Amazon Redshift data sharing champions the modern, data-driven organization’s goal to democratize data access in a secure, scalable, and efficient manner. By eliminating the need for physical data movement or duplication, this capability reduces overhead and enables seamless cross-team and cross-organizational collaboration. Unleashing the full potential of your data analytics to span the full breadth of your local tables and data lake tables is just a few steps away.

For more information on Amazon Redshift data sharing and how it can benefit your organization, refer to the following resources:

Please also reach out to your AWS technical account manager or AWS account Solutions Architect. They will be happy to provide additional guidance and support.

About the Authors

Mohammed Alkateb is an Engineering Manager at Amazon Redshift. Prior to joining Amazon, Mohammed had 12 years of industry experience in query optimization and database internals as an individual contributor and engineering manager. Mohammed has 18 US patents, and he has publications in research and industrial tracks of premier database conferences including EDBT, ICDE, SIGMOD and VLDB. Mohammed holds a PhD in Computer Science from The University of Vermont, and MSc and BSc degrees in Information Systems from Cairo University.

Ramchandra Anil Kulkarni is a software development engineer who has been with Amazon Redshift for over 4 years. He is driven to develop database innovations that serve AWS customers globally. Kulkarni’s long-standing tenure and dedication to the Amazon Redshift service demonstrate his deep expertise and commitment to delivering cutting-edge database solutions that empower AWS customers worldwide.

Mark Lyons is a Principal Product Manager on the Amazon Redshift team. He works on the intersection of data lakes and data warehouses. Prior to joining AWS, Mark held product leadership roles with Dremio and Vertica. He is passionate about data analytics and empowering customers to change the world with their data.

Asser Moustafa is a Principal Worldwide Specialist Solutions Architect at AWS, based in Dallas, Texas. He partners with customers worldwide, advising them on all aspects of their data architectures, migrations, and strategic data visions to help organizations adopt cloud-based solutions, maximize the value of their data assets, modernize legacy infrastructures, and implement cutting-edge capabilities like machine learning and advanced analytics. Prior to joining AWS, Asser held various data and analytics leadership roles, completing an MBA from New York University and an MS in Computer Science from Columbia University in New York. He is passionate about empowering organizations to become truly data-driven and unlock the transformative potential of their data.