Google Cloud announced BigQuery tables for Apache Iceberg, a fully managed, Apache Iceberg-compatible storage engine from BigQuery. This solution offers features such as autonomous storage optimizations, clustering, and high-throughput streaming ingestion. BigQuery tables for Apache Iceberg use the Apache Iceberg format to store data in customer-owned cloud storage buckets while providing a similar customer experience and feature set as BigQuery native tables.
One interesting aspect of this announcement is the ability of BigQuery tables for Apache Iceberg to address the limitations of open-source table formats. With BigQuery tables for Apache Iceberg, BigQuery takes care of table-maintenance tasks autonomously without customer toil.
For instance, optimal file sizes are adaptively determined based on the size of the table. BigQuery tables for Apache Iceberg benefit from over a decade of expertise running automated storage optimization for BigQuery native tables efficiently and cost-effectively.
In a nutshell, this new solution represents a promising solution for data management in a lakehouse environment, providing customers with a more efficient and cost-effective way to store and process their data.
