Why Choose Amazon Redshift for Data Warehousing?
As one of the most popular platforms today, Amazon Redshift offers enterprise businesses everything they need for building a data warehouse or data lake.
With a cloud-based, petabyte-scale data warehouse service, there are a lot of positives to Redshift’s technologies and capabilities… but we should always consider the negatives, right? Let’s take a look.
There are a lot of positives to Redshift’s technologies and capabilities… but we should always consider the negatives, right? Let’s take a look.
Compelling Pros of Using Redshift for Enterprise IT Demands
CONSULTING & TRAINING
Because of its history and popularity, there are plenty of helpful resources and online training options for Redshift, which is a benefit that newer solutions don’t necessarily have.
ADMINISTRATION
With the tooling available from Amazon Redshift, some of the manpower is removed from managing a database (ie., automated backup processes, easy cluster creation, scaling up or down). With just a few simple clicks, users can take care of these tasks themselves.
QUERYING & PERFORMANCE
If you already know PostgreSQL you’re pretty well set for Redshift, since the SQL language is very similar. Plus, developers can use the database query tool of their choice, as most in the market work with Amazon Redshift. Columnar compression and data partitioning of data result in improved performance and faster query processing.
“Upscaling is easy and immediate with Redshift, which is horizontally scalable and doesn’t interrupt your existing cluster application…”
SCALABILITY
Upscaling is easy and immediate with Redshift, which is horizontally scalable and doesn’t interrupt your existing cluster application, making the transition smooth and quick.
AFFORDABLE PRICING
Redshift offers pricing models for flexibility, depending on an organization’s size and needs. When compared to traditional on-premise data storage, Redshift is much less expensive. Learn more about Redshift’s pricing options here.
SECURITY
Security features offered by Amazon Redshift include:
- Robust identity and access management
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
- Encryption in-transit and at rest
- SSL connections
Read more about Redshift’s security capabilities here.
ECOSYSTEM & SERVICES
With the infinite amount of AWS services available, it may be beneficial to bundle different software options along with Redshift to maximize productivity and pricing benefits.
Warning: Cons of Using Redshift in Enterprise IT
NOT MULTI-CLOUD
Unlike Snowflake which supports a multi-cloud warehousing strategy, Redshift is only available on AWS. Be sure to look at the data warehousing solutions provided by other cloud providers that you already use, if applicable.
“Be sure to look at the data warehousing solutions provided by other cloud providers that you already use, if applicable.”
MANAGEMENT
We mentioned that some manpower is removed with Redshift, but it’s not eliminated completely. Staff is still needed to maintain sort order, among other tasks. However, Amazon Redshift has made recent improvements to automate more operations.
COST CUSTOMIZATION
Redshift’s pricing options, while overall less expensive, haven’t caught up with the customization of other data warehouses like Snowflake. As more data gets integrated into the Redshift data warehouse, it’s important to monitor performance. If performance degrades, customer satisfaction issues arise. Increasing cluster size just increases costs. Of course, getting ahead of the challenge with an off-the-shelf ELT adaptor like K3 can solve the problem for you.
Get ahead of the data integration challenge with an off-the-shelf ELT adaptor like K3. Let it solve the problem for you.
MULTIPLE USERS
Because of Redshift’s lack of separation of compute and storage, simultaneous query execution from multiple users can cause performance issues. Even cluster resize actions can cause some disruption in service to the end-user, where downtime is never appreciated.
In addition, Redshift architecture includes a Master Node, which creates a single point of failure for the environment.
REDSHIFT OR NOT, YOU NEED LOW CODE ETL
While Amazon Redshift is a comprehensive solution for data warehousing, it also has some limitations to consider. If you go with Redshift, be sure to move your data seamlessly with K3 – intuitive visual data mapping at scale without the hindrance of on-premise infrastructure or a pricey database.
K3 Enterprise’s prebuilt APIs directly connect with Redshift for rapid data collection and deposit so you can query petabytes of structured and semi-structured data across your data warehouse, data lake, and operational databases.
K3 is your comprehensive solution for every data move. We’d love to help you maximize your Redshift experience.
