Overview
Amazon Redshift was the first cloud data warehouse, launching in 2012 and kickstarting the modern data stack era. It's a fully managed, petabyte-scale warehouse deeply integrated with AWS services. Redshift Serverless now offers on-demand pricing.
Key Features
- ✓ Columnar Storage: MPP architecture for analytics
- ✓ Redshift Serverless: Pay-per-use option
- ✓ Spectrum: Query S3 data directly
- ✓ ML Integration: Built-in ML functions
- ✓ Data Sharing: Share data across accounts
- ✓ AQUA: Advanced query accelerator
Pros
- 👍 Deep AWS ecosystem integration
- 👍 Mature and battle-tested
- 👍 Cost-effective for steady workloads
- 👍 Serverless option available
- 👍 Strong security features
Cons
- 👎 Requires more tuning than competitors
- 👎 Vacuum/analyze maintenance
- 👎 Concurrency can be limited
- 👎 Less modern than Snowflake/Databricks
- 👎 Pricing complexity
Best For
AWS-native organizations with steady, predictable workloads. Good value when you can commit to reserved instances.
Founded: 2012 HQ: Amazon Web Services