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AWS Serverless Analytics Platform

(Blueprint)

Event-Driven Bronze → Silver → Gold Architecture

with Automated Data Quality & QuickSight Dashboards

Demo using synthetic E-Commerce data (Mockaroo)

Typical Data & Reporting Challenges

Why many teams modernize toward automated cloud pipelines

The Problem

Many organizations operate with fragmented data sources and a high degree of manual effort before reporting and analytics become reliable.

Common Challenges

  • Data lives across multiple systems and formats
  • Manual exports and reconciliations slow teams down and introduce errors
  • Missing or inconsistent data-quality checks
  • Scaling and performance become harder as data volume grows

Common Business Impact

  • Slower decision-making due to longer time-to-insight
  • Inconsistent KPIs caused by different data states and definitions
  • High operational overhead for reporting and corrections
  • Limited visibility into anomalies and data issues

The Solution – AWS Blueprint

A serverless AWS blueprint that automates ingestion, transformation, and quality monitoring (event-driven), and prepares analytics-ready data for BI and dashboards.

Solution Architecture

Three-Layer Medallion Architecture on AWS

Bronze Layer

Raw data ingestion from source systems

CSV/JSON files stored in S3, cataloged via Glue Crawlers

S3 + EventBridge

Silver Layer

Cleaned and standardized Parquet format

Type casting, partitioning, data standardization

AWS Glue + Athena

Gold Layer

Star schema with fact and dimension tables

Business-ready analytics tables optimized for querying

Athena + QuickSight

Key Features

Event-Driven Processing
Automated Quality Checks
Serverless Architecture

Technical Implementation

Modern Cloud & Data Engineering with AWS Serverless Services

Event-Driven Automation

S3 upload triggers EventBridge rule that launches Step Functions orchestration

EventBridge + Step Functions + Lambda

Data Quality Monitoring

Athena Saved Queries validate data completeness, null checks, and plausibility with SNS alerts

Athena + Lambda + SNS

Star Schema Modeling

Fact tables (orders, transactions) joined with dimension tables (customers, products, date)

Parquet + Partitioning + CTAS

Automated Processing Pipeline

Event-Driven Workflow on AWS

01

CSV file uploaded to S3 Bronze layer

S3 bucket with EventBridge notifications enabled

02

EventBridge triggers Step Functions state machine

Event pattern matches bucket and file extension

03

Glue ETL Job transforms CSV to Parquet

PySpark job applies schema and writes to Silver layer

04

Athena registers new partition

ALTER TABLE ADD PARTITION for Silver table

05

Athena inserts data into fact tables

INSERT INTO with type casting and transformations

06

QuickSight Refresh – optional

Datasets can be refreshed after pipeline completion to reflect the latest data

Fully automated — from file upload to visualization

Architecture Benefits

Key Advantages

Automation

  • Event-driven processing minimizes manual triggering
  • Step Functions orchestrates multi-step workflows
  • Automatic partition detection and registration

Cost Efficiency

  • Pay-per-query model with Athena
  • Reduced idle infrastructure costs
  • S3 storage with lifecycle policies

Quality Assurance

  • Automated data validation checks
  • SNS notifications for failed quality tests
  • Canary checks on existence, nulls, plausibility

Scalability

  • Serverless services scale on demand
  • Parquet format optimized for large datasets
  • Partitioning strategy for query performance

Data Quality Framework

Automated Canary Checks

Existence Check

Query Example

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM fact_orders

Validation

Ensures data exists in fact tables

Prevents reports from being built on missing data.

Trigger

Daily schedule via EventBridge

Null Check

Query Example

SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE order_id IS NULL

Validation

Validates primary key completeness

Avoids broken joins and incorrect KPIs.

Trigger

After data load completion

Plausibility Check

Query Example

SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE amount <= 0

Validation

Identifies unreasonable values

Catches data errors before dashboards.

Trigger

Scheduled and on-demand

Athena Saved Queries executed by Lambda, results evaluated, SNS alerts on failures

Technology Stack

AWS Cloud-Native, Managed Services

Data Storage & Catalog

  • Amazon S3 (Bronze/Silver/Gold layers)
  • AWS Glue Data Catalog
  • Parquet columnar format with partitioning

Processing & Orchestration

  • AWS Glue ETL Jobs (PySpark)
  • Amazon Athena (SQL queries)
  • Step Functions (workflow orchestration)
  • Amazon EventBridge (event routing)

Analytics & Monitoring

  • Amazon QuickSight (dashboards)
  • AWS Lambda (query execution)
  • Amazon SNS (alerting)
  • Athena Saved Queries (quality checks)

Serverless architecture built entirely on AWS managed services

Data Model

Star Schema Implementation

Fact Tables

fact_orders

Keys: order_id, customer_key, order_date_key

Metrics: total_amount, order_status

fact_order_items

Keys: order_item_id, order_id, product_key

Metrics: quantity, unit_price

fact_transactions

Keys: transaction_id, order_id

Metrics: amount, payment_method

Dimension Tables

dim_customers

Attributes: customer_id, name, email, address, registration_date

dim_products

Attributes: product_id, name, category, brand, price

dim_date

Attributes: date_key, date, day, month, year, week

Design Features

Normalized dimensions for data consistency
Denormalized facts for query performance
Surrogate keys for dimension tables

Core Competencies

Technical Skills Demonstrated in This Project

Cloud Architecture

  • Serverless design patterns
  • Event-driven systems
  • Multi-layer data architecture
  • Cost-aware use of managed services

Data Engineering

  • ETL pipeline design
  • Star schema modeling
  • Data partitioning strategies
  • Quality monitoring frameworks

Data Foundations

  • Synthetic data generation
  • Dataset design and normalization
  • Data profiling and sanity checks
  • Documentation and assumptions

DevOps & Automation

  • Step Functions workflows
  • EventBridge routing
  • Lambda functions
  • Workflow orchestration & automation

Analytics & BI

  • Athena query optimization
  • QuickSight dashboard design
  • KPI definition
  • Analytical data modeling

Let's Discuss Your Data Platform

Cloud & Data Engineering Expertise on AWS

Service Offerings

Designing scalable, automated data solutions using modern cloud architecture patterns.

Interested in exploring a similar solution for your organization?

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