Google Professional Cloud Architect Study Guide

Chapter 11. Data Analytics and Big Data on GCP: Piles of Data to Gold

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I was sitting in a conference room in Denver a few years back, watching a VP of Operations literally turn red in the face. Not embarrassed red, or fighting mad red, but more the slow boil shade of frustrated red that only comes from dealing with data problems.

“We have all this data,” he said, waving his arms out towards the distance at some invisible pile of information floating somewhere outside the building, “Terabytes of it! Customer transactions, website clicks, inventory movements, and sensor readings from our manufacturing center, but asking a simple question like ‘What products are trending in the Southwest region this month?' takes our D.A. team three days and an Excel spreadsheet that crashes twice.”

It took me a minute to figure out that DA stood for data analyst and not district attorney, but that’s because I watch too many true crime documentaries. ...