Athena Federated Query lets you run SQL across data sources beyond S3 — like RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift, or on-premises databases — using data source connectors, without moving the data.
What it enables
Normally Athena queries S3. Federated Query uses Lambda-based connectors so a single SQL query can join S3 data with a live DynamoDB table or an RDS database. The tell is “query multiple/different data sources with one SQL query without ETL-ing them together first.”
Test yourself
An analyst needs to run one SQL query that joins data in S3 with live data in a DynamoDB table, without first copying the data together. What enables this?
- Redshift Spectrum
- Athena Federated Query
- A Glue ETL job
- AWS DMS
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Athena Federated Query uses connectors to query and join across sources like S3 and DynamoDB in a single SQL statement, no data movement. Redshift Spectrum (A) targets S3 from Redshift; a Glue job (C) would ETL the data first; DMS (D) migrates databases.
Related topics
Amazon Athena · AWS Glue · Amazon DynamoDB
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