The Amazon Redshift SUPER data type is specifically designed for ingesting, storing, and querying semi-structured data, including JSON, without requiring a predefined schema. Using the SUPER data type allows the data engineer to load the JSON data directly into a Redshift table using a simple COPY command. This approach avoids the overhead of setting up and managing an external ETL process (like AWS Glue) or writing custom transformation code (like an AWS Lambda function), thus representing the solution with the least effort. The data can then be queried natively within Redshift using the PartiQL query language.

1. Amazon Redshift Database Developer Guide. "Ingesting and querying semistructured data." This section introduces the SUPER data type as the native solution for storing schema-less data like JSON directly within Amazon Redshift. It states

"With the SUPER data type

you can ingest

store

and query semistructured data in Amazon Redshift."

2. Amazon Redshift Database Developer Guide. "Loading SUPER data." This page details the COPY command for loading JSON data. It shows that loading can be done with a simple command like COPY mytable FROM 's3://...' FORMAT AS JSON 'auto';

which exemplifies the minimal effort required.

3. Amazon Redshift Database Developer Guide. "Querying semistructured data." This section explains how to use PartiQL to query the data stored in SUPER columns

confirming its usability post-ingestion without complex transformations. This contrasts with the effort needed to set up external services.