Amazon Redshift adds ALTER TABLE for Iceberg tables and writes via the AWS Glue Data Catalog mount

Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift now supports writing directly to Apache Iceberg tables via the AWS Glue Data Catalog (awsdatacatalog) mount and ALTER TABLE DDL statements to modify the schema, partitioning, and properties of Apache Iceberg tables. With write access through the auto-mounted awsdatacatalog, you can land Redshift transformations in your data lake for any engine to query without creating external schemas—particularly useful for Iceberg tables federated with AWS Lake Formation.

Supported ALTER TABLE operations include ADD/DROP/ALTER columns, RENAME COLUMN, SET TABLE PROPERTIES to overwrite the default compression type, and ADD/DROP/REPLACE PARTITION FIELD to adapt partitioning strategies as data volumes grow. Previously, updating the structure of Iceberg tables required deleting the table and its data, adding complexity and latency to data pipelines.

Tables modified by Redshift remain compatible with other Iceberg-compatible engines, including Amazon EMR and Amazon Athena, preserving cross-engine interoperability. AWS Lake Formation permissions are supported for Iceberg write operations.

What to do

• Visit the Referencing Iceberg tables in Amazon Redshift and Altering table definitions sections in the Amazon Redshift Database Developer Guide to get started.

Source: AWS release notes

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