Zero-Copy Iceberg Migrations with Apache Beam - Beam Summit 2026

Presented by Ahmed Abualsaud at Beam Summit 2026. Traditionally, converting a Parquet-based data lake to Iceberg required a hidden tax of rewriting every single data file. For organizations managing petabyte-scale datasets, this compute overhead and the associated cloud bill are often dealbreakers. This talk introduces a more efficient path using Apache Beam’s new AddFiles feature to perform zero-copy migrations, registering existing Parquet files directly into an Iceberg table without moving a single byte. In this session, we’ll explore: - A practical framework for modernizing your lakehouse with minimal compute overhead. - Live demos showcasing (1) the Batch approach for migrating historical data and (2) the Streaming approach for registering incoming files in real-time - A decision matrix for choosing between tradition rewrites and zero-copy registration