Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced system tables in Amazon Athena, giving data teams a way to analyze query activity, audit usage, and track how much data different users and workloads scan.
Once enabled, the feature captures query activity across Athena workgroups and makes it available within minutes of a query completing. AWS stores the records in read-only Apache Iceberg tables on Amazon S3 Tables and handles maintenance tasks such as compaction and snapshot management. Customers can configure how long the records are retained.
Teams can query the query_executions table to build cost allocation dashboards that show data scanned by user, workgroup, or table. They can also join usage records with other data using SQL without maintaining a separate ETL pipeline. The records are accessible through Athena and other Iceberg-compatible engines, including Amazon Redshift, Amazon EMR, and DuckDB.
The feature is available in AWS Regions that support both Athena and Amazon S3 Tables. Customers can enable it through the Athena console or API.
For more information, visit AWS.