Amazon S3 now supports sort and z-order compaction for Apache Iceberg tables

Amazon S3 now supports sort and z-order compaction for Apache Iceberg tables, available both in Amazon S3 Tables and general purpose S3 buckets using AWS Glue Data Catalog optimization. Sort compaction in Iceberg tables minimizes the number of data files scanned by query engines, leading to improved query performance and reduced costs. Z-order compaction provides additional performance benefits through efficient file pruning when querying across multiple columns simultaneously.

S3 Tables provide a fully managed experience where hierarchical sorting is automatically applied on columns during compaction when a sort order is defined in table metadata. When multiple query predicates need to be prioritized equally, you can enable z-order compaction through the S3 Tables maintenance API. If you are using Iceberg tables in general purpose S3 buckets, optimization can be enabled in the AWS Glue Data Catalog console, where you can specify your preferred compaction method.

These additional compaction capabilities are available in all AWS Regions where S3 Tables or optimization with the AWS Glue Data Catalog are available. To learn more, read the AWS News Blog, and visit the S3 Tables maintenance documentation and AWS Glue Data Catalog optimization documentation.