AWS Athena Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

• An AWS account with Athena enabled in your region
• A Glue Data Catalog database with tables pointing to S3 data
• An S3 bucket for Athena query results
• IAM credentials with Athena and S3 permissions

Step 1: Create an S3 Output Bucket

Athena requires an S3 location to store query results:

1. Go to S3 in the AWS Console
2. Create a bucket (e.g. my-athena-results)
3. Note the full path: s3://my-athena-results/vendo/

Step 2: Create an IAM Policy

Create a policy with the minimum required permissions:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "athena:StartQueryExecution",
        "athena:GetQueryExecution",
        "athena:GetQueryResults",
        "athena:StopQueryExecution"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:athena:*:*:workgroup/primary"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:ListBucket"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::my-athena-results",
        "arn:aws:s3:::my-athena-results/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:ListBucket"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3:::my-data-lake-bucket",
        "arn:aws:s3:::my-data-lake-bucket/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "glue:GetTable",
        "glue:GetTables",
        "glue:GetDatabase",
        "glue:GetDatabases",
        "glue:GetPartitions"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Replace bucket names with your actual S3 buckets.

Step 3: Create an IAM User

1. Go to IAM > Users > Create user
2. Attach the policy from Step 2
3. Create an access key (programmatic access)
4. Save the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key

Step 4: Configure in Vendo

1. Go to Sources > Add Source > AWS Athena
2. Enter your credentials:

3. Click Test Connection
4. Once verified, click Save

Troubleshooting

Query Failed — Access Denied

• Verify IAM permissions include Athena, S3 (both data and results buckets), and Glue
• Check that the S3 output location bucket exists and is writable
• Ensure the IAM user has s3:GetObject on the source data bucket

Database Not Found

• Verify the Glue Data Catalog database name is correct
• Check that the database exists in the same region as your Athena configuration
• Run SHOW DATABASES in the Athena console to list available databases

Slow Queries

• Athena scans data in S3 — use partitioned tables and columnar formats (Parquet, ORC) for best performance
• Queries against CSV or JSON data will scan more bytes and cost more
• Consider using Athena workgroups with query limits for cost control