Amazon S3 Tables now supports the Variant data type for Apache Iceberg V3
Amazon S3 Tables now supports the Variant data type defined in Apache Iceberg Version 3, enabling direct writing of semi-structured data like JSON without prior schema definition
Amazon S3 Tables now supports the Variant data type as defined in the Apache Iceberg Version 3 (V3) specification. This allows you to write semi-structured data such as JSON directly to S3 Tables without defining a fixed schema in advance, enabling faster data ingestion while maintaining efficient analytical query performance. With the Variant data type, Apache Iceberg V3-compatible engines shred your semi-structured data into hidden columns during write operations, generating Parquet column statistics that query engines use for optimizations like file pruning, reducing the amount of data scanned by analytical queries. S3 Tables also provides ongoing table maintenance, including compaction, for Variant columns, allowing you to consolidate data from small files into larger files that Iceberg engines can read more efficiently. This feature is available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm), and South America (São Paulo).