13.1.2: Serverless Analytics Architectures

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Page ID: 48146

Felix Amoruwa
De Anza College

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Serverless Analytics Architectures

Modern cloud analytics often use serverless architectures where the cloud provider auto-manages compute. Data pipelines are event-driven: for example, streaming data can be ingested through services like AWS Kinesis or Azure Event Hubs, while batch data arrives via cloud storage or file upload. Figure 1 (below) illustrates a typical AWS serverless data lake–centric pipeline: data flows from sources (streaming apps, SaaS, on-premises DBs) into S3 “raw” zone; AWS Glue jobs perform ETL into “clean” and “curated” zones; then query engines like Athena and Redshift (via Spectrum) analyze the data; and Amazon QuickSight provides dashboards. This fully managed design lets data engineers focus on data and analytics logic without provisioning servers.
Data Lake Pipeline. Details in caption.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Serverless Data Lake Analytics Pipeline Architecture. Illustrates a typical cloud serverless analytics pipeline showing data flowing from diverse sources through ingestion, storage zones, processing, and visualization layers using managed services. (CC BY 4.0; Felix Amoruwa) Access to a detailed description of Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)

In general, cloud analytics architectures follow a four-layer model: Data Ingest → Data Storage → Data Processing → Data Serving. New data is ingested from various sources (stream or batch), then stored in a scalable cloud data lake or warehouse. The processing layer (e.g. Spark, SQL engines) transforms and analyzes data, and the serving layer delivers results (via data marts, APIs, dashboards) to users. Figure 2 shows this four-layer cloud data platform concept. Cloud providers offer fully managed components for each layer, enabling self-service across analytics roles.
4-Layer Cloud Data Platform. Details in caption.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Typical four-layer cloud data platform architecture (ingest, storage, processing, serving). (CC BY 4.0; Felix Amoruwa) Access to a detailed description of Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)

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