How Apache Iceberg Resolves the Hybrid-Cloud Challenge in Heavily Regulated Markets

This article discusses how financial institutions in regulated markets like Japan and Germany face data residency challenges due to regulations such as APPI, GDPR, and BAFIN. Proprietary cloud warehouses bundle storage and compute, creating compliance issues. Apache Iceberg resolves this by decoupling storage from compute and catalog, allowing data to remain on-premises while enabling cloud-scale analytics. It covers Iceberg's architecture, the role of Apache Polaris as a cross-environment catalog, cross-catalog synchronization, practical implementation, audit trails for regulators, and engine upgrades without data migration. The article is a technical deep dive into hybrid-cloud data management for regulated industries.