Athena lets you run SQL queries straight against data in S3 — no database to load, no servers to run. You point it at your files, define a table (usually via the Glue Data Catalog), and query. You pay per query, based on data scanned.
What the Data Engineer exam tests
Know Athena is serverless and queries S3 in place, uses the Glue Data Catalog for tables, and — the money detail — that converting to a columnar format like Parquet and partitioning slashes the data scanned, cutting both cost and runtime.
Test yourself
An analyst wants to run occasional SQL queries on log files in S3 without setting up or paying for a running database. What’s the best fit?
- Amazon Redshift
- Amazon Athena
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon EMR
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Athena is serverless, queries S3 directly, and charges only per query — ideal for occasional analysis. Redshift (A) and RDS (C) mean provisioning something you pay for continuously; EMR (D) is heavier cluster-based processing.
Related topics
AWS Glue · Amazon Redshift · Kinesis Data Streams
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