Published on may 5, 2023
Athena recently received a new feature, Provisioned Capacity, which enables users to run SQL queries on fully managed compute capacity for a fixed price.
Using Athena, users can analyse data in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) data lakes and 30 different data sources, including on-premises data sources or other cloud systems, using standard SQL queries. Athena offers provisioned capacity as an optional feature.
Provisioned Capacity enables users to pre-purchase query processing capacity for a specified period of time and choose a number of concurrent queries to run. As a result, users can manage their query performance and costs more effectively, particularly in critical workloads that require consistent and predictable query performance.
It is possible for users to increase their capacity units at any time to meet their needs or to reduce their provisioned capacity after at least eight hours.
Data Processing Units (DPU) represent four virtual CPUs and 16 GB of RAM, with one unit representing four vCPUs. Stormacq recommends that users provision 24 DPUs for eight hours at a minimum, ideally when Athena spends at least $100 per month.
By reserving capacity in advance, users are able to avoid queuing delays, prioritise queries, and gain more predictable query performance. In order to determine how much capacity users may require, the company provides guidelines.
It is possible for users to set the capacity of their account through the Athena console, the AWS SDK, or the CLI, and select the workgroups whose queries they wish to use the capacity for. In Athena, workgroups allow users to set limits on the amount of data each query or the entire workgroup can process by dividing users, teams, applications, or workloads.
Queries associated with the designated workgroup will be executed on the provisioned capacity. Furthermore, the capacity can be shared among several workgroups provided they use the same version of the Athena engine.
Athena Provisioned Capacity is currently available in the US East (Ohio, N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) and Europe (Ireland, Stockholm) AWS Regions. Athena’s pricing details can also be found on its pricing page.
