A team wants to run standard SQL against a folder of CSV files stored in S3 for ad hoc questions, without loading the files into a database or provisioning a cluster. Which service is the best fit?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
Amazon Athena is a serverless interactive query service that runs standard SQL directly against files in S3, including CSV, so no database has to be loaded or cluster provisioned. Billing is based on data scanned. Redshift Spectrum also reads S3 but requires a Redshift cluster to run queries. DataBrew prepares data through visual recipes, and S3 Inventory produces listings of objects rather than query results.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Spectrum queries S3 data, but it depends on an existing provisioned Redshift cluster, which the scenario explicitly avoids.
- C. DataBrew is a visual preparation tool for cleaning and transforming datasets and does not offer general interactive SQL over files.
- D. S3 Inventory generates scheduled reports listing objects and their metadata, and it cannot answer questions about the contents of the files.