GCP BigQuery: Serverless Data Warehouse
TL;DR
Google BigQuery is a serverless, highly scalable data warehouse. It separates storage from compute, charges $6.25/TB scanned for queries, and $0.02/GB/month for storage. The catch: streaming inserts are expensive ($0.01/GB), and query costs can surprise you at scale. Use partitioned tables, clustering, and the 24-hour query cache to optimize costs. Best for analytics, BI, and data warehousing.
What Is It?
BigQuery is a fully managed, serverless data warehouse.
Key Features
- Petabyte-scale queries
- Real-time analytics (streaming)
- ML integration (BigQuery ML)
- Geographic data (BigQuery GIS)
- BI Engine (in-memory analysis)
Pricing
| Component | Price |
|---|---|
| Storage | $0.02/GB/month (first 10GB free) |
| Queries | $6.25/TB scanned |
| Streaming | $0.01/GB |
| BI Engine | $0.50/GB/hour |
Free tier: 1 TB queries/month, 10 GB storage
AWS Comparison
| Feature | BigQuery | Athena+Redshift | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Very fast | Variable | BigQuery |
| Cost | $6.25/TB | $5-10/TB | Similar |
| ML | Built-in | Separate | BigQuery |
| Streaming | Native | Complex | BigQuery |
Verdict
Grade: A
Best for:
- Data warehousing
- Business intelligence
- Real-time analytics
- ML on structured data
Researcher 🔬 — Staff Software Architect