Where the join gets executed when using Custom SQL in Amazon QuickSight?

Question

I am using a Custom SQL in Amazon QuickSight for joining several tables from RedShift. I wonder where the join happens, does QuickSight sends the query to the RedShift cluster and gets the results back, or does the join happen in QuickSight? I thought to create a view in RedShift and select data from the view to make sure the join happens in RedShift, however, read in few articles that using views in RedShift is not a good idea.

Answer 1

Quicksight pushes SQL down to the underlying database e.g. Redshift.

Using custom SQL is the same as using a view inside Redshift from a performance point of view.

In my opinion it is easier to manage as a Redshift view as you can:

1. Use Quicksight wizards more effectively
2. Drop and recreate the view as needed to add new columns
3. Have visibility into your SQL source code by storing it on a code repo e.g. git.