INTRODUCTION TO BIGQUERY

BigQuery is a cloud-based data warehousing and analytics service provided by Google. It allows you to store, query, and analyze large datasets using a SQL-like language. It is a serverless and cost-effective enterprise data warehouse that works across clouds and scales with your data. Bigquery is a cloud-based big data problem-solving web service for processing massive read-only data sets.

In BigQuery, you can upload your data to Google Cloud Storage. We can use BigQuery to analyze the data without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. BigQuery can handle petabyte-scale datasets. It can perform queries on them in seconds, that makes it a powerful tool for big data analysis.

BigQuery also provides a range of features, including data visualization, machine learning, integration with other services like Data Studio, Cloud Functions, Cloud Composer. These features make it easier for data analysts and data scientists to work with large datasets and derive insights from them.

Features of BigQuery​

• SQL-like language: BigQuery uses a SQL-like language to query data, making it easy for data analysts and data scientists to work with data without requiring specialized programming skills. ​
• Scalability: BigQuery is designed to handle massive datasets, from gigabytes to petabytes of data, and can process queries quickly and efficiently. ​
• Cost-effective: BigQuery offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model. You only pay for the amount of data you store and the queries you run. ​
• Integrations: BigQuery integrates with other Google Cloud services like Cloud Storage, Dataflow, and Data Studio, making it easy to ingest and analyze data from a variety of sources. 
• Machine learning: BigQuery integrates with Google Cloud’s machine learning tools, making it possible to train and deploy machine learning models directly from within BigQuery. ​
• Real-time data streaming: BigQuery can ingest data in real-time from sources like Google Cloud Pub/Sub, making it easy to analyze streaming data.​
• Security: BigQuery offers several security features, such as data encryption at rest and in transit, Identity and Access Management (IAM) integration, and compliance with various data protection regulations. ​
• Data visualization: BigQuery integrates with tools like Data Studio, making it easy to create compelling visualizations and dashboards.

Architecture of BigQuery

The architecture of BigQuery involves several components working together to provide a scalable, and fully-managed data warehousing and analytics solution. Here is an overview of the key components in BigQuery’s architecture:

Client Applications

Client applications interact with BigQuery through various means, including the BigQuery web UI, command-line tools, client libraries, or REST APIs. These applications send queries, manage datasets, and perform administrative tasks.

BigQuery Service

The BigQuery service is responsible for coordinating and managing the entire infrastructure. It handles user requests, manages query execution, and ensures data integrity and security.

Dremel Execution Engine

Dremel is the underlying execution engine used by BigQuery. It is designed to efficiently process and analyze large datasets in a distributed manner. Dremel uses a columnar storage format and parallel query execution across multiple nodes to deliver high-performance query processing.

Colossus Distributed File System

Colossus is Google’s distributed file system, used by BigQuery for storing and managing data. It provides scalability, fault-tolerance, and high throughput for storing and retrieving large amounts of structured and semi-structured data.

Borg Cluster Management System

Borg is Google’s internal cluster management system, which is responsible for resource allocation, scheduling, and monitoring of tasks across a large number of machines. BigQuery utilizes Borg to dynamically allocate computing resources based on workload demands.

Jupiter Query Planner and Optimizer

Jupiter is the cost-based query planner and optimizer used by BigQuery. It analyzes SQL queries, generates query plans, and optimizes them for efficient execution.

Data Storage

BigQuery supports both native storage and external storage options. Native storage refers to the proprietary columnar storage format used by BigQuery, which offers high-performance data storage and retrieval. External storage allows users to query data stored in external systems. For example as Google Cloud Storage or federated data sources, without loading it into BigQuery’s native storage.

Access Control and Security

BigQuery provides robust access control mechanisms to secure data and resources. It integrates with Google Cloud IAM (Identity and Access Management) for managing user permissions, roles, and policies. It also supports encryption at rest and transit to ensure data security.

Why should we use BigQuery

1. Scalability: BigQuery is built to handle massive amounts of data. It can effortlessly scale to petabyte-scale datasets, allowing you to store, query, and analyze vast amounts of information without worrying about infrastructure limitations.
2. Fully Managed Service: BigQuery is a fully managed service. Google handles all aspects of infrastructure management, including hardware provisioning, software updates, and maintenance tasks. You can focus on analyzing your data without the burden of managing servers or infrastructure.
3. Speed and Performance: BigQuery’s distributed architecture and columnar storage format enable fast query execution. It can execute complex queries over large datasets with remarkable speed.
4. Serverless Model: With BigQuery’s serverless model, you only pay for the compute and storage resources you use during query execution. There is no need to provision or manage resources in advance, and you can easily scale up or down based on your requirements.
5. SQL and Standard Interfaces: BigQuery supports standard SQL, making it easy to leverage existing SQL skills and tools. You can use familiar SQL syntax to query and analyze data without the need for complex transformations or specialized languages.
6. Data Integration and Ecosystem: BigQuery integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services and has extensive connectors to various data sources, including Google Cloud Storage, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Spanner, and more.
7. Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning: BigQuery provides built-in support for advanced analytics and machine learning through integrations with Google Cloud’s AI and ML services. You can perform advanced analytics, build ML models, and run predictions directly on your BigQuery data using tools like BigQuery ML, AI Platform, or TensorFlow.
8. Data Security and Compliance: BigQuery offers robust data security features, including encryption at rest and in transit. It also integrates with Google Cloud IAM for fine-grained access control and supports auditing and monitoring capabilities.

Bring any data into BigQuery​

BigQuery provides various mechanisms to load large volumes of data in batch. You can use the following methods:

Batch Data Loading

• Google Cloud Storage:
  You can import data from files stored in Google Cloud Storage (GCS) directly into BigQuery. Simply upload your data files to GCS, and then use BigQuery’s bq command-line tool, web UI, or API to create a load job that references the files in GCS.
• Cloud Storage Transfer Service:
  Google Cloud also offers the Cloud Storage Transfer Service, which provides a convenient way to schedule recurring data transfers from other cloud storage providers or on-premises systems into Google Cloud Storage. Once the data is in GCS, you can load it into BigQuery.
• Streaming Data:
  If you have real-time data streams, you can use BigQuery’s streaming API to ingest data directly into BigQuery tables. Streaming data is useful for scenarios where data needs to be immediately available for analysis or near real-time processing.
  

Data Transfer Service

BigQuery Data Transfer Service simplifies the process of importing data from various sources into BigQuery. It offers automated, scheduled transfers from popular applications and services for example Google Analytics, Google Ads, YouTube, and more. You can configure the transfer settings through the BigQuery web UI or API.

Federated Data Sources

BigQuery allows you to create external tables that reference data stored in external systems such as Google Cloud Storage, Google Sheets, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Spanner, or even on-premises databases. This eliminates the need to load the data into BigQuery’s native storage and allows you to analyze data in-place.

Third-Party Integration

BigQuery integrates with various data integration and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools such as Apache Beam, Talend, Informatica, and others. These tools provide connectors and pipelines to facilitate data extraction, transformation, and loading into BigQuery.

Conclusion

BigQuery is a fully-managed, serverless  data warehouse service that comes with a built-in query engine provided by GCP. BigQuery works across clouds and scales with your data, with BI, machine learning and AI built in. BigQuery’s serverless architecture lets you use SQL queries to answer your organization’s biggest questions with zero infrastructure management.