Accelerate data lake operations with Apache Iceberg V3 deletion vectors and row lineage

This article explains how Apache Iceberg V3's deletion vectors and row lineage capabilities improve data lake operations across AWS services.

• Deletion vectors replace positional delete files with efficient binary Puffin format, reducing write amplification and storage costs
• Row lineage adds _row_id and _last_updated_sequence_number metadata fields for precise change tracking and audit trails
• V3 support available across EMR 7.12, AWS Glue, SageMaker, S3 Tables, and Glue Data Catalog
• Use cases include GDPR compliance, ecommerce inventory updates, healthcare data tracking, and media recommendation engines
• Enable V3 by setting format-version=3 table property; existing V2 tables upgrade atomically without data rewrites
• Configure merge-on-read mode for delete, update, and merge operations to maximize deletion vector benefits

Iceberg V3 delivers faster writes, lower storage costs, comprehensive audit trails, and efficient incremental processing across AWS analytics services without custom implementations.