如何通过AWS Quicksight连接Redshift Spectrum外部表及空表问题咨询

Question 1: How to connect to external schemas/tables on Redshift Spectrum via AWS QuickSight? #

Here's a practical, step-by-step breakdown to get this working smoothly:

• First, nail down permissions: Make sure the QuickSight service role (typically named aws-quicksight-service-role-v0) has the right access to your Redshift cluster, Glue Data Catalog, and the underlying S3 bucket. Key permissions you need to add include:
  • redshift:GetClusterCredentials to access the Redshift cluster
  • glue:GetDatabase and glue:GetTable to read metadata from the Glue catalog
  • s3:SelectObjectContent and s3:GetObject to pull data from your S3 bucket
    You can attach these via an inline policy or managed policy to the QuickSight role in the IAM console.
• Set up the Redshift data source in QuickSight:
  1. Head to the QuickSight console, go to Data sources > New data source, and pick Amazon Redshift.
  2. Choose between Direct connection or VPC connection (use this if your Redshift cluster is in a private VPC). Enter your cluster endpoint, database name, and port.
  3. For authentication, select IAM role, then choose the QuickSight service role you configured earlier (or create a new one if needed).
• Access your external schemas/tables:
  Once the data source is connected, jump to the Data preparation screen. Select your Redshift database, and you'll see your external schema (like s3) listed alongside internal schemas. Expand it to view your external tables, then select the tables you need to import or use directly for analysis.

Question 2: Redshift can query external tables but QuickSight shows empty tables—do I need to migrate data? Is Redshift only for handling Parquet files? #

Let's break this down clearly:

Why QuickSight shows empty tables #

The most common issue here is a permission mismatch. When you query the external table in Redshift, you're using the IAM role specified in your CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA statement (which has access to S3 and Glue). But QuickSight uses its own service role to access the data—if that role doesn't have the same S3/Glue permissions, it can't retrieve the data, leading to empty tables. Double-check the QuickSight role's permissions first; fixing this will almost certainly resolve the issue without migrating data.

Do you need to migrate data to Redshift? #

No, you don't have to! Redshift Spectrum is built specifically to let you query data directly in S3 without loading it into Redshift. Migrating only makes sense if you need:

• Faster query performance for frequently accessed datasets
• Complex joins or aggregations that benefit from Redshift's dedicated compute power
• Integration with Redshift-specific features like materialized views or Redshift ML
  If you do decide to migrate, you can use a simple INSERT statement to copy data from the external table to an internal Redshift table:

INSERT INTO your_internal_table SELECT * FROM s3.your_external_table;

Is Redshift only for handling Parquet files? #

Absolutely not! Redshift is a fully managed data warehouse with a wide range of use cases:

• It supports multiple data formats: CSV, JSON, ORC, Parquet, Avro, and more
• It's optimized for large-scale OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) workloads, like running complex reports, ad-hoc queries, and data modeling
• You can use it for ETL processing, real-time data ingestion (via services like Kinesis Firehose), cross-cluster data sharing, and even integrating machine learning models with Redshift ML
• It works seamlessly with other AWS services like Athena, EMR, and QuickSight for end-to-end data analytics pipelines

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Tsimp. Dim