Post by Prateek Jalgaonkar

Choosing S3 + Glue vs Redshift – The Real Tradeoff I see this debate often: “Should we use S3 + Glue + Athena?” or “Should we centralize in Redshift?” The real answer is: It depends on workload patterns. Here’s how I think about it: ✅ S3 + Glue + Athena Best for: • Cheap storage • Large batch workloads • Exploratory analytics • Data lake flexibility ✅ Redshift Best for: • Structured reporting • Complex joins • BI dashboards • Performance-sensitive queries But here’s the real question: Where does transformation logic live? If your transformations are scattered: • Glue jobs • Redshift SQL • Python scripts You’ve already lost architectural clarity. The best architecture is not tool-driven. It’s workload-driven. Design around: • Query patterns • Concurrency • Data freshness needs • Cost tolerance Tools are secondary. Architecture is decision clarity. #AWS #DataEngineering #CloudArchitecture #DataPlatforms #SystemDesign #AnalyticsEngineering #HealthcareTech