AWS Glue 6.0 now generally available with 30% price reduction and Iceberg v3 support

AWS Glue version 6.0 is now generally available, offering a 30% price reduction and full support for Apache Iceberg v3, newer versions of Apache Hudi and Delta Lake, along with runtime upgrades to Apache Spark 4.1, Python 3.13, and Scala 2.13. Iceberg v3 introduces the VARIANT data type with automatic shredding, deletion vectors for efficient row-level updates, geometry and geography data types, and flexible schema evolution. New features to improve developer productivity include Spark Declarative Pipelines, Real-Time Mode streaming for low-latency processing, and Arrow-native Python UDFs for enhanced PySpark performance. These enhancements support large-scale ETL, recurring batch workloads, streaming analytics, and AI application development. AWS Glue 6.0 is available across all AWS commercial regions, AWS GovCloud (US), and AWS China regions. Users can select Glue 6.0 from the version dropdown in the AWS Glue console or SageMaker Unified Studio, or migrate existing jobs using the Generative AI Upgrade Agent for Apache Spark.

Why it matters

This update is particularly relevant for data engineers and analytics developers who use AWS Glue for large-scale data processing and data lake management