Step 1: Create a sample Amazon Redshift cluster - Amazon Redshift

Step 1: Create a sample Amazon Redshift cluster

For any operation that accesses data from another AWS resource, your cluster needs permission to access the resource and the data on the resource on your behalf. An example is using a COPY command to load data from Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). You provide those permissions by using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). You can do this through an IAM role that is attached to your cluster. Or you can provide the AWS access key for an IAM user that has the necessary permissions. For more information about credentials and access permissions, see Credentials and access permissions.

To best protect your sensitive data and safeguard your AWS access credentials, we recommend creating an IAM role and attaching it to your cluster. For more information about providing access permissions, see Permissions to access other AWS resources.

The cluster that you are about to create is live, not running in a sandbox. You incur the standard Amazon Redshift usage fees for the cluster until you delete it. If you complete the tutorial described here in one sitting and delete the cluster when you are finished, the total charges are minimal.

To create an Amazon Redshift cluster
  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/redshiftv2/.

    Important

    If you use IAM user credentials, ensure that you have the necessary permissions to perform the cluster operations. For more information, see Controlling access to IAM users in the Amazon Redshift Management Guide.

  2. At upper right, choose the AWS Region where you want to create the cluster.

  3. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters, then choose Create cluster. The Create cluster page appears.

  4. In the Cluster configuration section, specify values for Cluster identifier, Node type, and Nodes:

    • Cluster identifier: Enter examplecluster for this tutorial. This identifier must be unique. The identifier must be from 1–63 characters using as valid characters a–z (lowercase only) and - (hyphen).

    • Choose one of the following methods to size your cluster:

      Note

      The following step assumes an AWS Region that supports RA3 node types. For a list of AWS Regions that support RA3 node types, see Overview of RA3 node types in the Amazon Redshift Management Guide. To learn more about the node specifications for each node type and size, see Node type details.

      • If your AWS Region supports RA3 node types, choose either Production or Free trial to answer the question What are you planning to use this cluster for?

      • If you don't know how large to size your cluster, choose Help me choose. Doing so starts a sizing calculator that asks you questions about the size and query characteristics of the data that you plan to store in your data warehouse.

        If you know the required size of your cluster (that is, the node type and number of nodes), choose I'll choose. Then choose the Node type and number of Nodes to size your cluster for the proof of concept.

    • Choose dc2.large for Node type and 2 for Nodes for this tutorial.

    • If you have chosen Production for your cluster, then do one of the following:

      • To use the sample dataset Amazon Redshift provides, in Sample data, choose Load sample data. Amazon Redshift loads the sample dataset Tickit to the default dev database and public schema.

      • To bring your own data to Amazon Redshift, continue with the rest of the tutorial.

  5. In the Database configuration section, specify a value for Admin user name. For Admin password, choose from the following options:

    • Generate a password – Use a password generated by Amazon Redshift.

    • Manually add an admin password – Use your own password.

    • Manage admin credentials in AWS Secrets Manager – Amazon Redshift uses AWS Secrets Manager to generate and manage your admin password. Using AWS Secrets Manager to generate and manage your password's secret incurs a fee. For information on AWS Secrets Manager pricing, see AWS Secrets Manager Pricing.

    For this tutorial, use these values:

    • Admin user name: Enter awsuser.

    • Admin user password: Enter a value for the password.

  6. For this tutorial, create an IAM role and set it as the default for your cluster, as described following. There can only be one default IAM role set for a cluster.

    1. Under Cluster permissions, for Manage IAM roles, choose Create IAM role.

    2. Specify an Amazon S3 bucket for the IAM role to access by one of the following methods:

      • Choose No additional Amazon S3 bucket to allow the created IAM role to access only the Amazon S3 buckets that are named as redshift.

      • Choose Any Amazon S3 bucket to allow the created IAM role to access all Amazon S3 buckets.

      • Choose Specific Amazon S3 buckets to specify one or more Amazon S3 buckets for the created IAM role to access. Then choose one or more Amazon S3 buckets from the table.

    3. Choose Create IAM role as default. Amazon Redshift automatically creates and sets the IAM role as the default for your cluster.

      Because you created your IAM role from the console, it has the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess policy attached. This allows Amazon Redshift to copy, load, query, and analyze data from Amazon resources in your IAM account.

    For information on how to manage the default IAM role for a cluster, see Creating an IAM role as default for Amazon Redshift.

  7. (Optional) In the Additional configurations section, turn off Use defaults to modify Network and security, Database configuration, Maintenance, Monitoring, and Backup settings.

    In some cases, you might create your cluster with the Load sample data option and want to turn on enhanced Amazon VPC routing. If so, the cluster in your virtual private cloud (VPC) requires access to the Amazon S3 endpoint for data to be loaded.

    To make the cluster publicly accessible, you can do one of two things. You can configure a network address translation (NAT) address in your VPC for the cluster to access the internet. Or you can configure an Amazon S3 VPC endpoint in your VPC. For more information about enhanced Amazon VPC routing, see Enabling enhanced Amazon VPC routing in the Amazon Redshift Management Guide.

  8. Choose Create cluster.