Why it matters

BigQuery is GCP analytics flagship. Understanding shapes GCP data platform.

Advertisement

The architecture

Serverless: no infrastructure to manage.

Columnar storage: fast analytics.

Separated storage + compute: independent scaling + pricing.

BigQuery modelServerless SQLno infraColumnar storageCapacitor formatStorage + compute separateindependent pricingSlots (compute units): on-demand or reservation for predictable cost
BigQuery architecture.
Advertisement

How it works end to end

Pricing: per-query bytes-scanned or slot-based reservations.

Partitioning + clustering: reduce bytes scanned.

Materialized views: pre-computed.

BQ ML: SQL for ML.