Part 5/10:
Metadata Files: Multiple levels of metadata maintain state, snapshots, and data versions, facilitating atomic updates and efficient querying.
Snapshots and Catalogs: These enable consistent views of data over time and seamless access across different query engines.
Visualizing this, the speaker compares the structure to a school, where the principal (the Iceberg catalog) oversees the entire operation, with teachers, students, and data files systematically organized under established policies and snapshots.