Running ETL jobs on Amazon S3 tables with AWS Glue - Amazon Simple Storage Service
Step 1 – PrerequisitesStep 2 – Create a script to connect to table bucketsStep 3 – Create a AWS Glue job that queries tables

Running ETL jobs on Amazon S3 tables with AWS Glue

AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service that makes it easy for analytics users to discover, prepare, move, and integrate data from multiple sources. You can use AWS Glue jobs to run extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines to load data into your data lakes. For more information about AWS Glue, see What is AWS Glue? in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

An AWS Glue job encapsulates a script that connects to your source data, processes it, and then writes it out to your data target. Typically, a job runs extract, transform, and load (ETL) scripts. Jobs can run scripts designed for Apache Spark runtime environments. You can monitor job runs to understand runtime metrics such as completion status, duration, and start time.

You can use AWS Glue jobs to process data in your S3 tables by connecting to your tables through the integration with AWS analytics services, or, connect directly using the Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint or the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg. This guide covers the basic steps to get started using AWS Glue with S3 Tables, including:

Choose your access method based on your specific AWS Glue ETL job requirements:

  • AWS analytics services integration (Recommended) – Recommended when you need centralized metadata management across multiple AWS analytics services, need to leverage existing AWS Glue Data Catalog permissions and fine-grained access control with Lake Formation, or are building production ETL pipelines that integrate with other AWS services like Athena or Amazon EMR.

  • Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint – Recommended when you need to connect to S3 tables from third-party query engines that support Apache Iceberg, build custom ETL applications that need direct REST API access, or when you require control over catalog operations without dependencies on AWS Glue Data Catalog.

  • Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg – Use only for legacy applications or specific programmatic scenarios that require the Java client library. This method is not recommended for new AWS Glue ETL job implementations due to additional JAR dependency management and complexity.

Note

S3 Tables is supported on AWS Glue version 5.0 or higher.

Step 1 – Prerequisites

Before you can query tables from a AWS Glue job you must configure an IAM role that AWS Glue can use to run the job. Choose your method of access to see specific prerequisites for that method.

AWS analytics services integration (Recommended)

Prerequisites required to use the S3 Tables AWS analytics integration to run AWS Glue jobs.

Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint

Prerequisites to use the Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint to run AWS Glue ETL jobs.

  • Create an IAM role for AWS Glue.

    • Attach the AmazonS3TablesFullAccess managed policy to the role.

    • Attach the AmazonS3FullAccess managed policy to the role.

Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg

Prerequisites use the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg to run AWS Glue ETL jobs.

  • Create an IAM role for AWS Glue.

    • Attach the AmazonS3TablesFullAccess managed policy to the role.

    • Attach the AmazonS3FullAccess managed policy to the role.

    • To use the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg you need to download the client catalog JAR and upload it to an S3 bucket.

      Downloading the catalog JAR

      1. Check for the latest version on Maven Central. You can download the JAR from Maven central using your browser, or using the following command. Make sure to replace the version number with the latest version.

        wget https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/software/amazon/s3tables/s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime/0.1.5/s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime-0.1.5.jar

      2. Upload the downloaded JAR to an S3 bucket that your AWS Glue IAM role can access. You can use the following AWS CLI command to upload the JAR. Make sure to replace the version number with the latest version, and the bucket name and path with your own.

        aws s3 cp s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime-0.1.5.jar s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/jars/

Step 2 – Create a script to connect to table buckets

To access your table data when you run an AWS Glue ETL job, you configure a Spark session for Apache Iceberg that connects to your S3 table bucket. You can modify an existing script to connect to your table bucket or create a new script. For more information on creating AWS Glue scripts, see Tutorial: Writing an AWS Glue for Spark script in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

You can configure the session to connect to your table buckets through the any of the following S3 Tables access methods:

  • S3 Tables AWS analytics services integration (Recommended)

  • Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint

  • Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg

Choose from the following access methods to view setup instructions and configuration examples.

AWS analytics services integration (Recommended)

As a prerequisites to query tables with Spark on AWS Glue using the AWS analytics services integration, you must Integrate your table buckets with AWS analytics services

You can configure the connection to your table bucket through a Spark session in a job or with AWS Glue Studio magics in an interactive session. To use the following examples, replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

Using a PySpark script

Use the following code snippet in a PySpark script to configure a AWS Glue job to connect to your table bucket using the integration.

spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("SparkIcebergSQL") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog","s3tables") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.catalog-impl", "org.apache.iceberg.aws.glue.GlueCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.glue.id", "111122223333:s3tablescatalog/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.warehouse", "s3://amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket/warehouse/") \
    .getOrCreate()
Using an interactive AWS Glue session

If you are using an interactive notebook session with AWS Glue 5.0, specify the same configurations using the %%configure magic in a cell prior to code execution.

%%configure
{"conf": "spark.sql.extensions=org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions --conf spark.sql.defaultCatalog=s3tables --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tables=org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.catalog-impl=org.apache.iceberg.aws.glue.GlueCatalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.glue.id=111122223333:s3tablescatalog/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.warehouse=s3://amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket/warehouse/"}
Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint

You can configure the connection to your table bucket through a Spark session in a job or with AWS Glue Studio magics in an interactive session. To use the following examples, replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

Using a PySpark script

Use the following code snippet in a PySpark script to configure a AWS Glue job to connect to your table bucket using the endpoint. 

spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("glue-s3-tables-rest") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog", "s3_rest_catalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.type", "rest") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.uri", "https://s3tables.Region.amazonaws.com/iceberg") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.warehouse", "arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.sigv4-enabled", "true") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-name", "s3tables") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-region", "Region") \
    .config('spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.io-impl','org.apache.iceberg.aws.s3.S3FileIO') \
    .config('spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest-metrics-reporting-enabled','false') \
    .getOrCreate()
Using an interactive AWS Glue session

If you are using an interactive notebook session with AWS Glue 5.0, specify the same configurations using the %%configure magic in a cell prior to code execution. Replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

%%configure
{"conf": "spark.sql.extensions=org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions --conf spark.sql.defaultCatalog=s3_rest_catalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog=org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.type=rest --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.uri=https://s3tables.Region.amazonaws.com/iceberg --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.warehouse=arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.sigv4-enabled=true --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-name=s3tables --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-region=Region --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.io-impl=org.apache.iceberg.aws.s3.S3FileIO --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest-metrics-reporting-enabled=false"}
Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg

As a prerequisite to connecting to tables using the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg you must first download the latest catalog jar and upload it to an S3 bucket. Then, when you create your job, you add the the path to the client catalog JAR as a special parameter. For more information on job parameters in AWS Glue, see Special parameters used in AWS Glue jobs in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

You can configure the connection to your table bucket through a Spark session in a job or with AWS Glue Studio magics in an interactive session. To use the following examples, replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

Using a PySpark script

Use the following code snippet in a PySpark script to configure a AWS Glue job to connect to your table bucket using the JAR. Replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("glue-s3-tables") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog", "s3tablesbucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.catalog-impl", "software.amazon.s3tables.iceberg.S3TablesCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.warehouse", "arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .getOrCreate()
Using an interactive AWS Glue session

If you are using an interactive notebook session with AWS Glue 5.0, specify the same configurations using the %%configure magic in a cell prior to code execution. Replace the placeholder values with the information for your own table bucket.

%%configure
{"conf": "spark.sql.extensions=org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions --conf spark.sql.defaultCatalog=s3tablesbucket --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket=org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.catalog-impl=software.amazon.s3tables.iceberg.S3TablesCatalog --conf spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.warehouse=arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket", "extra-jars": "s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/jars/s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime-0.1.5.jar"}

Sample scripts

The following example PySpark scripts can be used to test querying S3 tables with an AWS Glue job. These scripts connect to your table bucket and runs queries to: create a new namespace, create a sample table, insert data into the table, and return the table data. To use the scripts, replace the placeholder values with the information for you own table bucket.

Choose from the following scripts based on your S3 Tables access method.

S3 Tables integration with AWS analytics services
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession

spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("SparkIcebergSQL") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog","s3tables")
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.catalog-impl", "org.apache.iceberg.aws.glue.GlueCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.glue.id", "111122223333:s3tablescatalog/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tables.warehouse", "s3://amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket/bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .getOrCreate()

namespace = "new_namespace"
table = "new_table"

spark.sql("SHOW DATABASES").show()

spark.sql(f"DESCRIBE NAMESPACE {namespace}").show()

spark.sql(f"""
    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS {namespace}.{table} (
       id INT,
       name STRING,
       value INT
    )
""")

spark.sql(f"""
    INSERT INTO {namespace}.{table}
    VALUES 
       (1, 'ABC', 100),
       (2, 'XYZ', 200)
""")

spark.sql(f"SELECT * FROM {namespace}.{table} LIMIT 10").show()
Amazon S3 Tables Iceberg REST endpoint
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession

spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("glue-s3-tables-rest") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog", "s3_rest_catalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.type", "rest") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.uri", "https://s3tables.Region.amazonaws.com/iceberg") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.warehouse", "arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.sigv4-enabled", "true") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-name", "s3tables") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest.signing-region", "Region") \
    .config('spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.io-impl','org.apache.iceberg.aws.s3.S3FileIO') \
    .config('spark.sql.catalog.s3_rest_catalog.rest-metrics-reporting-enabled','false') \
    .getOrCreate()

namespace = "s3_tables_rest_namespace"
table = "new_table_s3_rest"

spark.sql("SHOW DATABASES").show()

spark.sql(f"DESCRIBE NAMESPACE {namespace}").show()

spark.sql(f"""
    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS {namespace}.{table} (
       id INT,
       name STRING,
       value INT
    )
""")

spark.sql(f"""
    INSERT INTO {namespace}.{table}
    VALUES 
       (1, 'ABC', 100),
       (2, 'XYZ', 200)
""")

spark.sql(f"SELECT * FROM {namespace}.{table} LIMIT 10").show()
Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession

#Spark session configurations
spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("glue-s3-tables") \
    .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions") \
    .config("spark.sql.defaultCatalog", "s3tablesbucket") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.catalog-impl", "software.amazon.s3tables.iceberg.S3TablesCatalog") \
    .config("spark.sql.catalog.s3tablesbucket.warehouse", "arn:aws:s3tables:Region:111122223333:bucket/amzn-s3-demo-table-bucket") \
    .getOrCreate()

#Script
namespace = "new_namespace"
table = "new_table"

spark.sql(f"CREATE NAMESPACE IF NOT EXISTS s3tablesbucket.{namespace}")
spark.sql(f"DESCRIBE NAMESPACE {namespace}").show()

spark.sql(f"""
    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS {namespace}.{table} (
       id INT,
       name STRING,
       value INT
    )
""")

spark.sql(f"""
    INSERT INTO {namespace}.{table}
    VALUES 
       (1, 'ABC', 100),
       (2, 'XYZ', 200)
""")

spark.sql(f"SELECT * FROM {namespace}.{table} LIMIT 10").show()

Step 3 – Create a AWS Glue job that queries tables

The following procedures show how to setup AWS Glue jobs that connect to your S3 table buckets. You can do this using the AWS CLI or using the console with AWS Glue Studio script editor. For more information, see Authoring jobs in AWS Glue in the AWS Glue User Guide.

The following procedure shows how to use the AWS Glue Studio script editor to create an ETL job that queries your S3 tables.

Prerequisites

  1. Open the AWS Glue console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/glue/.

  2. From the Navigation pane, choose ETL jobs.

  3. Choose Script editor, then choose Upload script and upload the PySpark script you created to query S3 tables.

  4. Select the Job details tab and enter the following for Basic properties.

    • For Name, enter a name for the job.

    • For IAM Role, select the role you created for AWS Glue.

  5. (Optional) If you are using the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg access method, expand Advanced properties and for Dependent JARs path, enter the S3 URI of the client catalog jar your uploaded to an S3 bucket as a prerequisite. For example, s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket1/jars/s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime-0.1.5.jar

  6. Choose Save to create the job.

  7. Choose Run start the job, and review the job status under the Runs tab.

The following procedure shows how to use the AWS CLI to create an ETL job that queries your S3 tables. To use the commands replace the placeholder values with your own.

Prerequisites

  1. Create an AWS Glue job.

    aws glue create-job \
--name etl-tables-job \
--role arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/AWSGlueServiceRole \
--command '{
    "Name": "glueetl",
    "ScriptLocation": "s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket1/scripts/glue-etl-query.py",
    "PythonVersion": "3"
}' \
--default-arguments '{
    "--job-language": "python",
    "--class": "GlueApp"
}' \
--glue-version "5.0"
    Note

    (Optional) If you are using the Amazon S3 Tables Catalog for Apache Iceberg access method, add the client catalog JAR to the --default-arguments using the --extra-jars parameter. Replace the input placeholders with your own when you add the parameter.

    
                            "--extra-jars": "s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/jar-path/s3-tables-catalog-for-iceberg-runtime-0.1.5.jar"

  2. Start your job.

    aws glue start-job-run \
--job-name etl-tables-job

  3. To review you job status, copy the run ID from the previous command and enter it into the following command.

    aws glue get-job-run --job-name etl-tables-job \
--run-id jr_ec9a8a302e71f8483060f87b6c309601ea9ee9c1ffc2db56706dfcceb3d0e1ad