Configure an external volume for S3-compatible storage¶

For externally managed Iceberg tables with data and metadata in S3-compatible storage, you can configure an external volume associated with an Amazon S3-compatible storage location.

Iceberg tables that use S3-compatible storage are cross-region tables and don’t support the following actions:

Using Snowflake as the Iceberg catalog or converting a table to use Snowflake as the Iceberg catalog.
Retrieving information about the latest refreshed snapshot with the SYSTEM$GET_ICEBERG_TABLE_INFORMATION function.

Prerequisites¶

To create an Iceberg table that uses S3-compatible storage, you must have an S3-compatible API endpoint for Snowflake. For more information, see Requirements for S3-compatible storage.

Create an external volume for S3-compatible storage¶

The following steps demonstrate how to configure an external volume for S3-compatible storage and how to use that volume to create an externally managed Iceberg table.

Create an external volume that specifies an S3-compatible storage location. For information about the S3-compatible parameters in the CREATE EXTERNAL VOLUME command, see the command syntax.

CREATE OR REPLACE EXTERNAL VOLUME ext_vol_s3_compat
  STORAGE_LOCATIONS = (
    (
      NAME = 'my_s3_compat_storage_location'
      STORAGE_PROVIDER = 'S3COMPAT'
      STORAGE_BASE_URL = 's3compat://mybucket/unload/mys3compatdata'
      CREDENTIALS = (
        AWS_KEY_ID = '1a2b3c...'
        AWS_SECRET_KEY = '4x5y6z...'
      )
      STORAGE_ENDPOINT = 'mystorage.com'
    )
  )
  ALLOW_WRITES = FALSE;

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If you don’t have a catalog integration, create one for your Iceberg table. Iceberg tables that use S3-compatible storage are only supported when you use a catalog integration. For more information, see Create a catalog integration.

The following example creates a catalog integration for Iceberg files in object storage.
```
CREATE OR REPLACE CATALOG INTEGRATION my_iceberg_catalog_int
  CATALOG_SOURCE = OBJECT_STORE
  TABLE_FORMAT = ICEBERG
  ENABLED = TRUE;
```
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Use the external volume and catalog integration to create an Iceberg table.

For example:

CREATE ICEBERG TABLE my_iceberg_table
  EXTERNAL_VOLUME = 'ext_vol_s3_compat'
  CATALOG = 'my_iceberg_catalog_int'
  METADATA_FILE_PATH = 'path/to/metadata/v1.metadata.json';

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Update your external volume credentials¶

To change or update the credentials for the external volume, you can use the ALTER EXTERNAL VOLUME … UPDATE command. Specify the name of the storage location that you want to change the credentials for.

ALTER EXTERNAL VOLUME ext_vol_s3_compat UPDATE
  STORAGE_LOCATION = 'my_s3_compat_storage_location'
  CREDENTIALS = (
    AWS_KEY_ID = '4d5e6f...'
    AWS_SECRET_KEY = '7g8h9i...'
  );

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