Glossary
Definition
Apache Iceberg is an open table format for large analytic datasets that gives data lake files schema evolution, time travel, and ACID transactions.
Apache Iceberg defines how tables are laid out in object storage so that multiple engines can read and write them safely. It tracks table metadata, snapshots, and partitions independently of any single query engine, which is what allows Spark, Trino, DuckDB, and cloud warehouses to share one copy of the data.
The practical result is a lakehouse the organization owns: data in open files, in the customer's storage account, queryable by whatever tool the customer prefers, with schema changes and point-in-time reads handled by the format rather than by convention.
Meridian's Data Fabric loads connector-fed sources into Iceberg tables in the customer's region. Agents read them through governed SQL, and the customer's own analysts can read the same tables.
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