Iceberg Clustering

Unlocking Effortless Data Organization with Dremio’s Iceberg Clustering

Organizations today face significant challenges optimizing their data lakes for performance while minimizing engineering overhead. That's why Dremio is excited to introduce Iceberg Clustering, a powerful capability that intelligently optimizes the data layout in your Apache Iceberg lakehouse..

With Iceberg Clustering, Dremio automatically reorganizes data within partitions, sorts files for faster queries, compacts small files, and optimizes metadata—all to ensure optimal query performance while maintaining flexibility and fault tolerance. As part of Dremio's Intelligent Data Lakehouse Platform, Iceberg Clustering helps organizations dramatically reduce query times and compute costs without manual intervention..

What is Iceberg Clustering? Iceberg Clustering intelligently optimizes the data layout in an Apache Iceberg lakehouse by automatically reorganizing data within partitions, sorting files for faster queries, compacting small files, and optimizing metadata to enhance performance and storage efficiency.

Why It Matters: Iceberg Clustering eliminates the manual effort of data layout optimization, dramatically reducing query times and compute costs.

Why Iceberg Clustering?

Traditional partitioning techniques require careful planning and ongoing maintenance to avoid performance issues, data silos, and query slowdowns. Iceberg Clustering solves these challenges by offering:

Effortless Table Organization (No Manual Partitioning Required)

Instead of manually defining and managing partitions, Iceberg Clustering takes a list of columns and normal table maintenance ensures the optimal clustering. The data itself is stored in a single directory, thereby removing the impact of partition skew or over partitioning. This makes it far easier to implement than traditional partitioning, allowing teams to focus on insights rather than maintenance.

More Fault-Tolerant Than Partitioning

Partitioning is prone to human errors, such as accidentally creating too many small partitions or forgetting to update partition strategies as data grows. Iceberg Clustering eliminates these risks by dynamically adapting to data changes, ensuring efficient storage and query performance without requiring constant adjustments.

Seamless Integration with Iceberg Maintenance Commands

Because Iceberg Clustering works natively with Iceberg table maintenance commands in Dremio like VACUUM and OPTIMIZE, keeping tables well-organized and high-performing is as simple as running a command. There’s no need for complex workarounds or additional configurations—Dremio ensures your data is always in top shape.

Built on Open Standards

As part of Dremio's commitment to Apache open standards, Iceberg Clustering works natively with Apache Iceberg, ensuring compatibility, preventing vendor lock-in, and supporting community-driven innovation.

How Iceberg Clustering Transforms Your Data Management

With Dremio’s Iceberg Clustering, users can:

• Avoid manual partitioning complexity while maintaining high performance.
• Enhance query tolerance and minimize risks of inefficient storage structures.
• Leverage Iceberg-native syntax in Dremio for automated table optimization and maintenance.
• Reduce query latency by automatically optimizing data organization.
• Achieve up to 30% faster queries compared to traditional partitioning strategies. 
• Cut engineering maintenance time by eliminating manual partition management.

Get Started with Iceberg Clustering in Dremio

Dremio’s Iceberg Clustering is designed to make modern data management easier and more efficient. Whether you’re already using Apache Iceberg or just getting started, this new feature ensures that your data is always optimized, without the headaches of traditional partitioning.

Want to experience next-level table management? Try Iceberg Clustering in Dremio today and take your data performance to new heights! 

Register for our Spring 2025 Product Release Virtual event on April 29th with a deep dive into Iceberg Clustering in Getting Started with Dremio’s Enterprise Catalog Powered by Apache Polaris (incubating) on May 20th.
Ready to get started? Try Dremio for free today or contact our team to schedule a personalized demo.