MinIO plugs Apache Iceberg tables directly into AIStor

Object storage supplier MinIO has made its AIStor Tables feature generally available.

AIStor is MinIO’s object storage software and the Tables function refers to the open source Apache Iceberg software for large analytic tables accessible via SQL queries. Envisage these as a software layer above cloud object stores such as AWS S3, Azure Blob, GCP, plus formats like Parquet, ORC, and Avro, and now MinIO’s AIStor as well.

AB Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of MinIO, said: “Analytics and AI infrastructures are no longer defined by compute alone. The data layer now determines how much enterprise AI value can actually be realized.

When structured and unstructured data are unified, AI systems can learn more, reason better, and deliver greater impact. Only an object-native architecture like MinIO AIStor can make that data fast, fluid, and ready for AI at scale. With AIStor Tables, we bring enterprise data together in a high-performance data store that feeds analytics and AI systems directly.”

MinIO says the data-for-AI situation is simple but stark; AI systems have to work across fragmented and duplicated data pipelines because structured data lives in databases while unstructured data is held in object stores, to which we add files. But MinIO’s duplicated data pipelines point is still valid.

The AIStor Tables feature is a way to unify structured data and objects in a single data store using Apache Iceberg tables. That means there can be a single data pipeline hooking up analytic apps, AI agents, and models to an Iceberg-using AIStor. MinIO says these data-accessing functions can now “analyze structured and unstructured data together, operating on complete, up-to-date enterprise data at massive scale and performance.” It mentions exabyte-scale.

MinIO claims it’s the first in the industry to build the full Apache Iceberg V3 Catalog REST API directly into the data store, providing Iceberg REST catalog views. These views are virtual tables defined by SQL queries that store metadata about the query definition. It says Apache Iceberg tables become first-class citizens within AIStor, inclusive of views and multi-table transactions.

MinIO’s AIStor Tables can be deployed across on-premises, private, sovereign, and hybrid environments, reducing storage costs versus hyperscaler-controlled table services, it claims, by up to 40 percent. That’s because the Tables feature is included in AIStor with no extra cost, which differs, it says, from AWS S3 Tables. AWS says that, with S3 Tables, you pay for storage, requests, and an object monitoring fee per object stored in table buckets. S3 Tables pricing can be seen here.

MinIO AIStor Tables is available today as part of MinIO AIStor. Enterprises can download and deploy directly from min.io.

Read about Iceberg Views in AIStor Tables in a blog, more about native Iceberg V3 here, and Iceberg deletion vectors, row lineage, geometry and geography types and more here.

Bootnote

The AIStor Tables feature entered limited tech preview status in September last year.