Data discovery: How to find out what’s on your Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP volumes

This article presents a solution for discovering and cataloging file metadata from Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP volumes using AWS analytics services.

• Creates continuously refreshed, SQL-queryable catalog of FSx file metadata using Iceberg tables
• Uses ONTAP snapshots, S3 Access Points, Lambda, and Athena for metadata extraction and querying
• Deployed as AWS CDK application; scales to millions of files per volume
• Enables SQL queries to answer capacity, lifecycle, and compliance questions
• Supports natural-language querying via Amazon Q Developer and S3 Tables MCP server
• Includes Amazon QuickSight dashboards for visualization and stakeholder sharing
• Captures file path, size, modification time, age, and extension metadata
• Partitions data by volume and date for historical trend analysis

The solution provides enterprise storage administrators with visibility into petabyte-scale file systems through multiple query interfaces—SQL, natural language, and visual dashboards—without creating redundant data copies.