The popularity of serverless technology has spiked due to its cost-effectiveness. Eliminating the requirement for businesses to invest in and maintain expensive infrastructure enables an allocation of resources towards other projects, including the advancement and introduction of more sophisticated and feature-rich software applications.
Serverless computing is a new concept that may be unfamiliar to some. Instead of depending on physical hardware, virtual computing resources are utilised within a cloud environment. This relieves businesses from managing physical servers and enables them to operate without the need for on-site presence.
Thus, the term “serverless”.
Nowadays, it is practically possible to deploy any service in a serverless environment, with major providers supporting this approach. Serverless is compatible with all primary cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure.
Now that we have established an understanding of serverless computing fundamentals, it may be worth exploring the technology that operates within such settings. With this in mind, let’s delve deeper into two tools, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), namely, AWS Athena and AWS Glue.
Comparison Between Amazon Web Services Athena And Glue:
It is crucial to note that the choice between Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Athena and Glue is not a matter of ‘either/or’. Instead, the two services fulfil unique purposes, and when utilised together, their combined advantages are genuinely remarkable. To gain better insight into these two offerings, let us delve deeper into them.
About Amazon Web Services Athena
Amazon Web Services Athena offers an interactive query tool to investigate your Amazon S3 data thoroughly. All services connect seamlessly, providing a convenient SQL query of S3 data. The process involves specifying the location, selecting the relevant schema, and posing desired questions.
Moreover, there is no prerequisite for the pre-organization of data before querying. Therefore, sizeable and intricate datasets stored in S3 can be analysed with rudimentary SQL language knowledge.
Here are some of Athena’s numerous benefits:
- No initial outlay is required as it is serverless.
- Access to all your data is possible with even fundamental SQL skills.
- With a pay-per-query model, you are only charged for the actual work you undertake.
- A variety of formats, such as CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet, are all supported.
- Parallel processing of queries leads to rapid response times.
Therefore, Amazon Web Services Athena is the optimal choice for analysing and querying substantial amounts of data stored on Amazon S3.
About the Anionic Water-Soluble Adhesive
AWS Glue of Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a streamlined set of resources that enable automated schema discovery and Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes. It is essentially a serverless data integration service that simplifies the process of finding, readying, transferring and merging data from various sources.
Glue Metastore, which is serverless and Hive-compatible, and Glue ETL, which is an enterprise data integration tool, are the most renowned features of Glue. These tools facilitate customers in running Spark jobs without the hassle of handling complex configurations or Spark infrastructure.
AWS Glue finds its applications in:
- Analytics
- Automated Machine Learning
- Application Programming
- Task Creation and Execution
- Establishing Operational Workflows
AWS Athena eases data interaction, and AWS Glue streamlines the process of consolidating data from multiple sources.
The graphical user interface (GUI) of AWS Glue is a valuable tool for managing several data integration processes. With this interface, users can conveniently develop and implement workflows to an Apache Spark (serverless) ETL engine.
AWS Glue Studio makes data cleaning, conversion, and collection easier.
Who Else Utilizes AWS Athena?
Here are the examples of companies that are using or have used AWS Athena:
- FINRA
- Siemens
- Cargotec
- Betterment
- Lockheed Martin Corporation
- LiveIntent
- Lenovo Group Ltd.
- Red Hat, Inc.
Some of the principal use cases for AWS Athena include:
- Communication and Computer Technology
- Computer Software
- ISPs
- Financial Services
- Marketing and Advertising
- Insurance
- Telecommunications
- Retail
- Healthcare and Medical Facilities
- Higher Education Institutions
Upsolver (a data lake ETL service) and Trianz are also partners of AWS Athena, enabling faster and more scalable solutions for both Athena and other AWS services.
Who Else Utilizes AWS Glue?
Here are some examples of companies that use AWS Glue:
- 21st Century Fox
- Newspaper Publishing Companies
- Mobile App Development Companies
- OLX Group
- OST
- myTomorrows
- Full 360
- Upserve
- Merck
- Expedia, an international travel and tourism company, was established in 1996.
- Autodesk
- NTT Docomo is widely used in Japan.
- HappyFresh
- Pilot Flying J
- Unicorn
- MediaMath
- A Prime Video on Amazon
What Are Your Charges for These Services?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Athena and AWS Glue have variable pricing, just like other cloud services. As both services operate on a pay-per-use model, it is beneficial to use their cost estimators to estimate the cost of these services. You can check AWS pricing for more information.
Conclusion
To optimize and enhance your Amazon S3 data hosting, it is crucial to investigate both AWS Athena and AWS Glue. The use of serverless technology can significantly boost your development and operations teams’ capability to analyze, manage, and work with data, which can potentially transform your business’s data utilization.
