Skip to main content
Version: 0.14.13

How to configure a Validation Result Store in Amazon S3

By default, Validation ResultsGenerated when data is Validated against an Expectation or Expectation Suite. are stored in JSON format in the uncommitted/validations/ subdirectory of your great_expectations/ folder. Since Validation Results may include examples of data (which could be sensitive or regulated) they should not be committed to a source control system. This guide will help you configure a new storage location for Validation Results in Amazon S3.

Prerequisites: This how-to guide assumes you have:

Steps​

1. Configure boto3 to connect to the Amazon S3 bucket where Validation results will be stored​

Instructions on how to set up boto3 with AWS can be found at boto3's documentation site.

2. Identify your Data Context Validation Results Store​

As with other StoresA connector to store and retrieve information about metadata in Great Expectations., you can find your Validation Results StoreA connector to store and retrieve information about objects generated when data is Validated against an Expectation Suite. with your Data ContextThe primary entry point for a Great Expectations deployment, with configurations and methods for all supporting components.. Look for the following section in your Data Context'sThe primary entry point for a Great Expectations deployment, with configurations and methods for all supporting components. great_expectations.yml file:

validations_store_name: validations_store

stores:
  validations_store:
      class_name: ValidationsStore
      store_backend:
          class_name: TupleFilesystemStoreBackend
          base_directory: uncommitted/validations/

The configuration file tells Great Expectations to look for Validation Results in a Store called validations_store. It also creates a ValidationsStore called validations_store that is backed by a Filesystem and will store Validation Results under the base_directory uncommitted/validations (the default).

3. Update your configuration file to include a new Store for Validation Results on S3​

In the example below, the new Store's name is set to validations_S3_store, but it can be any name you like. We also need to make some changes to the store_backend settings. The class_name will be set to TupleS3StoreBackend, bucket will be set to the address of your S3 bucket, and prefix will be set to the folder in your S3 bucket where Validation results will be located.

caution

If you are also storing ExpectationsA verifiable assertion about data. in S3 (How to configure an Expectation store to use Amazon S3), or DataDocs in S3 (How to host and share Data Docs on Amazon S3), then please ensure that the prefix values are disjoint and one is not a substring of the other.

validations_store_name: validations_S3_store

stores:
  validations_S3_store:
      class_name: ValidationsStore
      store_backend:
          class_name: TupleS3StoreBackend
          bucket: '<your_s3_bucket_name>'
          prefix: '<your_s3_bucket_folder_name>'

4. Copy existing Validation results to the S3 bucket (This step is optional)​

One way to copy Validation Results into Amazon S3 is by using the aws s3 sync command. As mentioned earlier, the base_directory is set to uncommitted/validations/ by default. In the example below, two Validation results, Validation1 and Validation2 are copied to Amazon S3. Your output should looks something like this:

aws s3 sync '<base_directory>' s3://'<your_s3_bucket_name>'/'<your_s3_bucket_folder_name>'
upload: uncommitted/validations/val1/val1.json to s3://'<your_s3_bucket_name>'/'<your_s3_bucket_folder_name>'/val1.json
upload: uncommitted/validations/val2/val2.json to s3://'<your_s3_bucket_name>'/'<your_s3_bucket_folder_name>'/val2.json

5. Confirm that the new Validation Results Store has been added by running great_expectations store list​

Notice the output contains two Validation Results Stores: the original validations_store on the local filesystem and the validations_S3_store we just configured. This is ok, since Great Expectations will look for Validation Results on the S3 bucket as long as we set the validations_store_name variable to validations_S3_store.

great_expectations store list

- name: validations_store
 class_name: ValidationsStore
 store_backend:
   class_name: TupleFilesystemStoreBackend
   base_directory: uncommitted/validations/

- name: validations_S3_store
 class_name: ValidationsStore
 store_backend:
   class_name: TupleS3StoreBackend
   bucket: '<your_s3_bucket_name>'
   prefix: '<your_s3_bucket_folder_name>'

6. Confirm that the Validations Results Store has been correctly configured​

Run a Checkpoint to store results in the new Validation Results Store on S3 then visualize the results by re-building Data Docs.