Amazon Redshift Overview

Origin of the Name

Two theories exist about the Redshift name:

1. Physics Reference

   • Named after the astronomical phenomenon of redshift

   • References Hubble's law about galaxy distances and redshift

2. Oracle Reference

   • Wordplay on "shifting away from Oracle's red" branding

   • Reference to competing with Oracle's database solutions

Core Characteristics

• Fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse

• Cost-effective compared to on-premises solutions (e.g., Teradata, Netezza)

• PostgreSQL compatible

  • Supports JDBC and ODBC drivers

  • Compatible with most BI tools out of the box

• Features parallel processing

• Uses columnar data storage

  • Optimized for complex queries

  • Enhanced analytics capabilities

Redshift Spectrum

• Feature allowing direct querying of S3 data

• Enables data lake architecture

• Benefits:

  • Reduces time from data collection to insight

  • Eliminates need for complete ETL processing

  • Allows querying of raw data directly

Data Lake Integration

• S3 bucket serves as the data repository

• Supports various data types:

  • Transaction logs

  • Sensor readings

  • Social media streams

  • Weather data

• Analytics tools (e.g., QuickSight, Excel) can query data through Spectrum