Athena to Databricks

fa source inspect athena
fa source plan athena

Athena is a query-engine migration. Inventory Glue Catalog objects, S3 layouts and file formats, partitions, views, queries, workgroups, scheduled queries, federated connectors, custom SerDes, access rules, and consumers.

For each catalog, Airlift records an explicit route: govern an existing external location, copy data, convert it to Delta, federate temporarily, translate SQL, or assign a human-owned lane. It does not assume every table should be moved. The transfer or registration adapter returns manifests, partition state, incremental boundaries, restart, and reconciliation evidence.

Validation covers Presto SQL semantics, partition discovery, file-format behavior, functions, access rules, business queries, and accepted performance thresholds. A produced query or successfully registered table is not a certificate. Airlift mints from independent evidence, freezes the consumer wave, and records the verifiable switch or rollback.

Modernization targets include Unity Catalog external locations, Delta materialization, liquid clustering, Lakeflow, and Databricks SQL. The pack is cataloged.

Complete developer command sequence

Generate this exact recipe from the installed CLI so the guide and executable surface stay in sync:

fa source recipe athena
fa source recipe athena --variant athena --json > .airlift/athena-recipe.json

The App is engagement-aware. Amazon Athena appears under Active sources only after the source estate is added to an active engagement. The menu is derived from governed engagement scope; installing Airlift does not expose unrelated source pages.

Every remote mutation below requires --host, --org, authenticated workspace identity, and a stable --idempotency-key. JSON request files contain identifiers, artifact references, and opaque credential references—never passwords, tokens, or connection strings. Run fa <resource> <operation> --help for the current schema and exit semantics.

0. Inspect the source contract

fa source inspect athena --json > .airlift/athena-profile.json
fa source plan athena --variant athena --json > .airlift/athena-capability-plan.json

Expected artifacts:

• .airlift/athena-profile.json
• .airlift/athena-capability-plan.json

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

1. Create governed scope and connection references

fa engagement create --file engagement.json --idempotency-key migration-create-v1
fa estate register --file athena-estate.json --idempotency-key athena-estate-v1
fa connection register --file athena-connection.json --idempotency-key athena-connection-v1
fa engagement update --file athena-scope.json --idempotency-key athena-scope-v1
fa engagement preflight <engagement-id>

Expected artifacts:

• Governed engagement
• Source estate
• Opaque connection binding

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements/<engagement-id> after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

2. Assess and accept inventory

fa assessment start --file athena-assessment-start.json --idempotency-key athena-assessment-start-v1
fa assessment status <assessment-id> --json
fa assessment record --file athena-assessment-record.json --idempotency-key athena-assessment-record-v1
fa assessment accept --file athena-assessment-accept.json --idempotency-key athena-assessment-accept-v1
fa inventory list --estate-id <estate-id> --json

Expected artifacts:

• Assessment report reference
• Normalized inventory
• Dependency graph

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements/<engagement-id>/sources/athena after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

3. Implement the admitted source adapter

No source-specific executable compiler exists in this release. Continue with assessment, governed work, and an admitted adapter; Airlift does not invent executable output.

Expected artifacts:

• Capability plan and adapter requirements only

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements/<engagement-id>/artifacts after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

This source is cataloged or assessable but has no source-specific executable compiler in the installed Airlift generation.

4. Convert, move, and remediate

fa plan generate --file athena-migration-plan.json --idempotency-key athena-plan-v1
fa conversion batch create --file athena-batch.json --idempotency-key athena-batch-v1
fa conversion batch start --file conversion-batch-start.json --idempotency-key conversion-start-v1
fa residue list --engagement-id <engagement-id>
fa transfer plan --file athena-transfer.json --idempotency-key athena-transfer-v1
fa transfer run <transfer-id> --idempotency-key transfer-run-v1
fa transfer reconcile <transfer-id> --idempotency-key transfer-reconcile-v1

Expected artifacts:

• Target artifacts
• Residue cases
• Transfer checkpoints
• Reconciliation evidence

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements/<engagement-id>/runs after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

5. Validate independently and inspect discrepancies

fa validation run --file athena-validation.json --idempotency-key athena-validation-v1
fa validation status <validation-execution-id> --json
fa discrepancy list --engagement-id <engagement-id>
fa artifact list --engagement-id <engagement-id>

Expected artifacts:

• Provider run references
• Readiness evidence
• Discrepancies

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /engagements/<engagement-id>/runs after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

6. Certify, cut over, and export evidence

fa certificate list --object-id <object-id>
fa cutover status <wave-id> --json
fa evidence list --engagement-id <engagement-id>
fa evidence export --file athena-evidence-export.json --idempotency-key athena-evidence-export-v1

Expected artifacts:

• Migration certificates
• Cutover evidence
• Content-digested evidence export

Open Engagements → active engagement in the App. This stage is visible at /assurance after replacing the placeholder ID with the governed engagement ID.

Runway executes releases; Experiments owns validation verdicts; Airlift owns migration readiness and cutover policy.

What developers see in the App

The contextual source workspace shows the accepted estate and the factory stages for this engagement. Artifacts displays immutable references, content digests, media types, and provider lineage. Runs displays assessment, conversion, transfer, validation, and deployment executions without treating a provider's success as an Airlift verdict.

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These are automated captures from public synthetic engagements. The source workspace is specific to Amazon Athena; no unrelated source is presented as its migration journey. For sources without an evidence-backed journey, the image demonstrates setup, navigation, and developer entry points only—not a live connection, converted output, or certified migration. No client data, credentials, workspace hostnames, or internal deployment identifiers are embedded in the images.