Interact with Apache Iceberg

Learn how to interact with Apache Iceberg using RisingWave to unify real-time data processing and data lake storage. Explore how to create and manage Iceberg tables in RisingWave, and how to connect RisingWave to Iceberg tables managed by external systems.

RisingWave supports two interaction modes with Apache Iceberg: internally managed Iceberg tables (often called RisingWave-managed Iceberg tables) and externally managed Iceberg tables.

In internally managed Iceberg tables, RisingWave manages the entire lifecycle of the Iceberg tables, including the catalog, compaction, and ingestion processes. RisingWave provides a PostgreSQL-compatible interface for accessing Iceberg data and ensures interoperability with all major query engines. This mode offers the simplest way to build a Medallion architecture.

In externally managed Iceberg tables, RisingWave connects to Iceberg tables managed by external systems. RisingWave can both read from and write to these tables, enabling seamless data exchange across different environments.

RisingWave in a medallion architecture

RisingWave bridges real-time streaming systems with Iceberg-based data lakes.

It functions as the continuous ingestion, transformation, and maintenance service within a Medallion architecture, ensuring that data seamlessly transitions from raw sources to optimized, query-ready Iceberg tables through incremental computation and cascading materialized views.

Next steps

• Learn more about the internal Iceberg tables and external Iceberg tables.
• Create and manage internal Iceberg tables
• Ingest data from external Iceberg tables
• Deliver to external Iceberg tables