General FAQ for Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB 3

Common questions about Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB 3, its architecture, editions, and regional availability. For a full overview, see What is Timestream for InfluxDB 3?.

What is Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB 3?

Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB 3 is a managed time-series database service that runs InfluxDB 3 on AWS. It is designed for large-scale time-series analytics using open-source APIs. The service handles provisioning, patching, backups, and software updates so you can focus on your applications.

How is InfluxDB 3 different from InfluxDB v2?

InfluxDB 3 is a complete architectural redesign. It replaces the TSM (Time-Structured Merge tree) storage engine with Apache Arrow for in-memory processing, Apache DataFusion for query execution, and Apache Parquet for columnar storage on Amazon S3. This enables better performance for high-cardinality data and more efficient scaling for analytical workloads.

What is the difference between Core and Enterprise editions?

Core is a cost-effective, single-node edition optimized for real-time monitoring of recent data, typically around 3 days. It does not include compaction or multi-node deployments, which means query performance degrades as data ages. Core is best suited for dashboards, real-time alerting, and development or proof-of-concept workloads.

Enterprise is designed for production workloads that require high availability and long-term data retention. Key differences include:

• Compaction – Enterprise includes compaction capabilities that maintain query performance over time by optimizing Parquet file organization. Without compaction, Core accumulates small files that slow down queries on older data.

• Multi-node clusters – Enterprise supports multi-node deployments across multiple Availability Zones with dedicated ingest, query, and compactor nodes. Core is limited to a single node.

• Read replicas – Enterprise supports query-only nodes to scale read-heavy workloads independently from ingest.

• Historical queries – Enterprise includes single series indexing for optimized long-term data analysis, making it suitable for months or years of data retention.

Choose Core for near real-time monitoring where cost is a priority. Choose Enterprise when you need high availability, compaction, or long-term data analysis.

Core vs Enterprise Feature Comparison

Feature	Core	Enterprise
Deployment	Single-node	Multi-node across AZs
Compaction	Not included	Included
Read replicas	Not available	Query-only node scaling
Historical queries	Limited (~3 days)	Months/years with indexing
High availability	Single node	Multi-AZ
Best for	Dev/test, real-time dashboards	Production, long-term analytics

Which AWS Regions support Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB 3?

For the current list of supported AWS Regions and endpoints, see Amazon Timestream endpoints and quotas in the AWS General Reference.