Amazon Quick (Quick Sight)

What it is

Amazon Quick is AWS's AI-powered service for analyzing data, automating tasks, and research. It evolved from Amazon QuickSight, which continues as Amazon Quick Sight, the business intelligence (BI) part of Quick: interactive dashboards, visualizations, and reports, which you can also embed in your own applications. Existing QuickSight APIsAPI (Application programming interface)A defined way for one program to ask another for data or actions, such as a set of HTTPS requests and responses. Every AWS service is controlled through its API, which the console, the CLI, and the SDKs call for you.Glossary entryClose and integrations keep working.

For the exam, think of Quick Sight as the answer to "business users need dashboards and visualizations" over data in AWS.

Where the data comes from

Quick Sight connects to many sources, including Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift (and Redshift Spectrum), Amazon RDS and Aurora, Amazon S3 files, Amazon OpenSearch Service, Snowflake, and SaaS applications such as Salesforce. You build a dataset from a source, prepare it, and create analyses and dashboards from it.

SPICE or direct query

• SPICE (Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine) imports the data into memory. Dashboards respond faster, and because the data is reused, a source that charges per query, such as Athena, is queried only when the dataset is created or refreshed. Refreshes can run on a schedule.
• Direct query sends each request to the source, so results are always current but depend on the source's speed and cost.
• SPICE capacity belongs to the account and is allocated separately in each AWS RegionAWS RegionA separate geographic area where AWS runs its services, such as us-east-1 in Northern Virginia, made up of several Availability Zones. Most resources live in one Region; you choose Regions for latency, data residency, and the services you need.Glossary entryClose.

Sharing and embedding

• Share dashboards with readers, who view and interact with them; authors connect data and build them.
• Embedded analytics puts dashboards and visuals into your own website or application: a one-click embed code for registered users, or the embedding APIs for registered users and anonymous visitors.

Security, resilience, performance, and cost

Security

• Users: manage identities with IAM Identity Center, federation with your identity provider, or Microsoft Active Directory, and give each person only the role they need.
• Row-level security (Enterprise edition) limits which rows each reader sees: user-based rules for registered users, or tag-based rules passed in the session for anonymous users of embedded dashboards.
• Private data sources: a VPC connection places network interfaces in your VPC, so Quick Sight can reach databases in private subnetsSubnetA range of IP addresses in a VPC, inside one Availability Zone. A subnet is public when its route table sends internet traffic to an internet gateway, and private when it does not.Glossary entryClose, or on premisesOn-premisesIn data centers or offices that you run yourself, rather than in the cloud. Hybrid architectures connect on-premises systems to AWS, for example through AWS Direct Connect or a VPN.Glossary entryClose through Direct Connect or a VPNVPN (Virtual private network)An encrypted tunnel over a public network, such as the internet, that joins networks or devices as if they were directly connected. AWS Site-to-Site VPN connects networks; AWS Client VPN connects individual users.Glossary entryClose, under your security groupsSecurity groupA stateful virtual firewall for network interfaces, such as an EC2 instance's, whose rules can only allow traffic. Return traffic for allowed connections is allowed automatically, and a rule can refer to another security group instead of IP addresses.Glossary entryClose and network ACLsNetwork ACLA stateless firewall for a subnet, with numbered allow and deny rules checked in order. Because it is stateless, return traffic needs its own rule, usually for a range of ephemeral ports.Glossary entryClose.
• Encryption: SPICE data is encrypted at rest, and you can use a customer managed KMS key. Transfers from data sources can be encrypted with SSLTLS (Transport Layer Security)The protocol that encrypts traffic between a client and a server and lets the server prove its identity with a certificate. It replaced SSL, though the older name is still common; HTTPS is HTTP over TLS.Glossary entryClose; for some databases this is your choice.
• AWS CloudTrail records Quick API activity for auditing.

Resilience

• Quick is a managed service with built-in redundancy. SPICE capacity is per Region, so plan capacity in each Region where you build dashboards.

Performance

• Use SPICE for fast, consistent dashboards over large or slow sources, and schedule refreshes to keep it current.

Cost

• Per-user pricing: a monthly price per author and per reader, with Pro tiers that add generative AI features.
• Capacity pricing: buy reader sessions in bulk instead of seats, which suits embedded dashboards for many users.
• SPICE is billed per GB-month beyond what authors include.
• SPICE can lower the cost of the sources behind it, since cached data doesn't re-run per-query charges.

Monitoring

• Amazon CloudWatch metrics report dashboard views and load times, visual load errors, failed SPICE ingestions, and SPICE capacity consumed, so you can alarm before ingestions fail for lack of capacity.
• AWS CloudTrail records API calls.

Quick Sight or something else?

If the requirement is	Choose
Interactive BI dashboards for business users	Amazon Quick Sight
Dashboards inside a customer-facing web application	Quick Sight embedded analytics
Explore and search application logs	OpenSearch Dashboards
Run the SQLSQL (Structured Query Language)The standard language for querying and changing data in relational databases. Analytics services such as Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift also use SQL.Glossary entryClose queries that feed the dashboards	Athena or Redshift

Reverse mindmap: when the question points here

• Yes, when the question says
  • Business users need interactive dashboards→ leads to Amazon Quick Sight
  • Add dashboards to a web application for customers→ leads to Embedded analytics
  • Visualize Athena or Redshift query results→ leads to Quick Sight datasets
• Make it fast and cheap
  • Dashboards are slow on a large source→ leads to Import the data into SPICE
  • Avoid paying for repeated Athena scans→ leads to SPICE with scheduled refresh
  • Many occasional viewers in an embedded app→ leads to Capacity pricing
• Run it securely
  • Each sales rep sees only their region's rows→ leads to Row-level security
  • Anonymous embedded users see only their own data→ leads to Tag-based row-level security
  • Data source in a private subnet or on premises→ leads to VPC connection
• No, when the question says
  • Search and explore logs→ leads to OpenSearch Dashboards
  • Run the SQL itself→ leads to Athena or Redshift

Key takeaways

• Amazon Quick Sight (formerly QuickSight) is the BI dashboard service; it is part of Amazon Quick.
• SPICE caches data in memory for speed and to avoid repeated source queries; capacity is per Region.
• Row-level security, VPC connections, and IAM Identity Center secure who sees what.
• Pay per author and reader, or buy capacity for large embedded audiences.

Sources

• Amazon Quick User Guide: What is Amazon Quick?
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Supported data sources
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Importing data into SPICE
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Refreshing SPICE data
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Embedding Quick Sight analytics into your applications
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Using row-level security
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Configuring VPC connections
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Using IAM Identity Center
• Amazon Quick User Guide: AWS security in Quick
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Data encryption
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Monitoring using CloudWatch metrics
• Amazon Quick User Guide: Monitoring using CloudTrail
• Amazon Quick Sight pricing