What feature does Amazon Athena provide?

Amazon Athena is specifically designed to provide an interactive query service that allows users to analyze data stored in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. This service enables users to run queries directly on data without needing to load it into a traditional database. Athena is serverless, meaning there are no infrastructure management concerns, and users can simply pay for the queries they run. This makes it an efficient choice for ad-hoc querying and data exploration in S3.

By leveraging Athena, users can access a wide range of file formats, including CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet, thereby making it versatile for different analytical needs. The ability to quickly analyze vast amounts of data stored in S3 with minimal configuration is a key feature of Amazon Athena, differentiating it from services that focus on real-time streaming, data warehousing, or database management.