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S3 + Athena Analytics (no-warehouse)

AWS architecture template · Athena queries S3 directly at $5/TB scanned — no cluster to provision. 10–100× cheaper than Redshift for infrequent or ad-hoc analytics workloads.

S3 + Athena Analytics (no-warehouse) is a free AWS architecture template built with S3, Athena, CloudWatch, IAM and Kinesis. Open it in TheArchitect to edit the diagram, estimate monthly cost, and export the CloudFormation or Terraform that deploys it.

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Kinesis IngestS3 Data Lake (…S3 Curated ZoneAthena (server…Athena RoleScan Cost Alarm
S3 + Athena Analytics (no-warehouse) architecture diagram

AWS services in this template

  • S3×2
  • Athena
  • CloudWatch
  • IAM
  • Kinesis

Deployment notes

Deploy-ready

  • Use Parquet/ORC format and partition data by date/region to minimise data scanned (and cost).
  • Athena charges per TB scanned — unpartitioned CSV on large datasets can be expensive. Convert to Parquet first.
  • Cost comparison: Redshift dc2.large ~$180/mo always-on. Athena: $5/TB scanned — often <$5/mo for infrequent queries.

Generated CloudFormation — 6 resources

Logical IDResource type
KinesisIngestkinesisAWS::Kinesis::Stream
S3DataLakeraws3AWS::S3::Bucket
S3CuratedZones3AWS::S3::Bucket
AthenaserverlessSQLathenaAWS::Athena::WorkGroup
AthenaRoleiamAWS::IAM::Role
ScanCostAlarmcloudwatchAWS::CloudWatch::Alarm
View the full CloudFormation template
{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Description": "Generated by TheArchitect — https://www.thecloudarchitect.dev",
  "Metadata": {
    "TheArchitect": {
      "Edges": [
        {
          "From": "S3DataLakeraws3",
          "To": "AthenaserverlessSQLathena",
          "Label": "query source"
        },
        {
          "From": "AthenaserverlessSQLathena",
          "To": "S3CuratedZones3",
          "Label": "results + CTAS"
        },
        {
          "From": "AthenaRoleiam",
          "To": "AthenaserverlessSQLathena",
          "Label": "query role"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "Resources": {
    "KinesisIngestkinesis": {
      "Type": "AWS::Kinesis::Stream",
      "Properties": {
        "StreamModeDetails": {
          "StreamMode": "PROVISIONED"
        },
        "ShardCount": 1
      }
    },
    "S3DataLakeraws3": {
      "Type": "AWS::S3::Bucket",
      "Properties": {
        "BucketName": "cost-analytics-raw",
        "VersioningConfiguration": {
          "Status": "Suspended"
        },
        "BucketEncryption": {
          "ServerSideEncryptionConfiguration": [
            {
              "ServerSideEncryptionByDefault": {
                "SSEAlgorithm": "AES256"
              }
            }
          ]
        },
        "PublicAccessBlockConfiguration": {
          "BlockPublicAcls": true,
          "BlockPublicPolicy": true,
          "IgnorePublicAcls": true,
          "RestrictPublicBuckets": true
        }
      }
    },
    "S3CuratedZones3": {
      "Type": "AWS::S3::Bucket",
      "Properties": {
        "BucketName": "cost-analytics-curated",
        "BucketEncryption": {
          "ServerSideEncryptionConfiguration": [
            {
              "ServerSideEncryptionByDefault": {
                "SSEAlgorithm": "AES256"
              }
            }
          ]
        },
        "PublicAccessBlockConfiguration": {
          "BlockPublicAcls": true,
          "BlockPublicPolicy": true,
          "IgnorePublicAcls": true,
          "RestrictPublicBuckets": true
        }
      }
    },
    "AthenaserverlessSQLathena": {
      "Type": "AWS::Athena::WorkGroup",
      "DependsOn": [
        "AthenaRoleiam"
      ],
      "Properties": {
        "Name": "cost-analytics-wg",
        "Description": "Athena workgroup — enforces per-query data scan limits and saves results to curated S3.",
        "WorkGroupConfiguration": {
          "EnforceWorkGroupConfiguration": true,
          "PublishCloudWatchMetricsEnabled": true,
          "BytesScannedCutoffPerQuery": 10737418240,
          "ResultConfiguration": {
            "OutputLocation": "s3://cost-analytics-curated/athena-results/"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "AthenaRoleiam": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Role",
      "Properties": {
        "RoleName": "cost-analytics-athena-role",
        "Description": "Athena query execution role — S3 read on raw + write on curated, Glue Data Catalog read",
        "AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Principal": {
                "Service": "athena.amazonaws.com"
              },
              "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "ScanCostAlarmcloudwatch": {
      "Type": "AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm",
      "Properties": {
        "AlarmName": "cost-athena-scan-spike",
        "AlarmDescription": "Alert when total data scanned per day exceeds 100 GB — unexpected cost spike",
        "Namespace": "AWS/Athena",
        "MetricName": "DataScannedInBytes",
        "Statistic": "Sum",
        "Period": 86400,
        "EvaluationPeriods": 1,
        "Threshold": 107374182400,
        "ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold",
        "TreatMissingData": "notBreaching"
      }
    }
  }
}

Generated by TheArchitect from the diagram above. Review values such as names, CIDR ranges and instance sizes before deploying to your account.

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