Amazon Redshift uses columnar data storage, parallel processing, and data compression to store data and to achieve fast query execution. Amazon Redshift uses a cluster-based architecture that consists of a leader node and compute nodes. The leader node manages the compute nodes and communicates with the external client programs. The leader node interacts with the client applications and communicates with compute nodes. A compute node stores data and runs queries for the leader node. Any client that uses a PostgreSQL driver can communicate with Amazon Redshift.