Google BigQuery Is Now Even Bigger

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Google BigQuery Is Now Even Bigger

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 14, 2013 @10:21PM from the one-size-does-not-fit-all dept.

vu1986 writes "With the latest updates — announced in a blog post by BigQuery Product Manager Ku-kay Kwek on Thursday — users can now join large tables, import and query timestamped data, and aggregate large collections of distinct values. It's hardly the equivalent of Google launching Compute Engine last summer, but as (arguably) the inspiration for the SQL-on-Hadoop trend that's sweeping the big data world right now, every improvement to BigQuery is notable."

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Lost faith in Google by hmmm · 2013-03-14 22:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

You'd be some idiot to build a business on the back of a service that might disappear. At least with the IaaS providers you have some hope of being able to recover should the service provider decide they no longer want to support their service, because you can shift your application to new infrastructure. If you're tied into the Google world-view, you're only a short blogpost away from seeing your business threatened.
1. Re:Lost faith in Google by buchner.johannes · 2013-03-14 23:21 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Googles business is advertisement. All other products are just vehicles to get Google to place advertisement. All the development of cool products are because they have billions of dollars at hand, probably one of the largest budgets of any software company. Their strategy is to fund many small startup-like ideas generously, and later, equally generously, throw away the ones that don't work for them. Googles income, unlike Microsoft or Apples, does not depend on the software working for you, it only depends on placing advertisement for you to see.
  In the process of acquiring startups and developing, they accumulate patents, so even when Google drops an idea, you have to approach them for continuing that idea.
  Quite smart.
  Probably not the most efficient way for a company to producing software, but a way of not getting stuck with project management issues.
  
  --
  NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
2. Re:Lost faith in Google by Pastis · 2013-03-14 23:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Try coming home and finding your house empty (!) and wife and kids gone to another country. Now that's deception. I know a few people who enjoyed this experience.
  "If you're tied into the $Service world-view" any business that takes a conscious business decision like that needs to carefully look at the benefits vs the risk.
  What about Google ?
  Q: Have they ever closed a paying service ?
  Q: If so, have they done it in a way that would make you lose your data ? Or put you in a situation where you had no alternative in reasonable time ?
  I have used online paid services that have stopped working, without notification, even after the closure, kept billing me, without providing support.
  I have paid solutions sometimes several 1000 $ without getting a single support answer when encountering problems.
  I don't mind using a service if
  * it has alternatives
  * I can easily extract the data
  A service is like any job or relationship. It can end at any moment. The way it ends is as important as the way it operates. I trust Google on at least ending their services properly. From my knowledge they have a good track record. Google Reader is a good example. Free, 3.5 months notice, open data, several alternatives available. I really don't understand why people complain.
  
  --
  Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
3. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:06 · Score: 1
  
  A few people! I think your group of friends needs some relationship advice.
4. Re:Lost faith in Google by wbr1 · 2013-03-15 00:08 · Score: 1
  
  I have used online paid services that have stopped working, without notification, even after the closure, kept billing me, without providing support. I have paid solutions sometimes several 1000 $ without getting a single support answer when encountering problems.
  
  1. Hotwebsluts.com does not constitute a true web service.
  2. They do not provide support for ED. Call your doctor.
  
  Also don't be too mad it's just a joke!
  
  --
  Silence is a state of mime.
5. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yep. If Google Reader can go, anything can go.
6. Re:Lost faith in Google by Pastis · 2013-03-15 00:15 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry I understand a joke when I read it.
  Jerk.
  ;)
  PS: what is ED ?
  
  --
  Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
7. Re:Lost faith in Google by kenp2002 · 2013-03-15 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  Here let me hit my time machine button for a sec.... yep... just as I thought. Everyone said the same damn thing about Microsoft 15 years ago. The same thing about Oracle 10 years ago. The same thing was said for just about every proprietary system and vendor over the years.
  
  --
  -=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
8. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:45 · Score: 0
  
  That only applies to small business.
9. Re:Lost faith in Google by RevWaldo · 2013-03-15 01:35 · Score: 2
  
  PS: what is ED ?
  You really can't keep up, can you?
  
  .
  
  --
  Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
10. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 01:56 · Score: 0
  
  "Google BiQuery Is Now Even Gayer"
  
  ok, ftfy. Also, eff to Goog for shutting down Reader.
11. Re:Lost faith in Google by Necroman · 2013-03-15 02:10 · Score: 1
  
  Google Reader was free for 8 years. It has definitely by my favorite RSS software out there. We have 4 months to get our data out of reader (they give it to us in an easy to process JSON file).
  A lot of people saw the writing on the wall about Reader. No blog posts from them in 1.5 years. Removing functionality so it didn't compete with Google+. Increased aggressiveness in Google Spring Cleaning. This day was coming, it was just a matter of when.
  While it sucks that I now have to find a Google Reader replacement, giving me 4 months to find that alternative is nice. It's like iGoogle, but they gave people 16 months to find an alternative there.
  
  --
  Its not what it is, its something else.
12. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 02:25 · Score: 0
  
  encyclopedia dramatica :P
13. Re:Lost faith in Google by lxs · 2013-03-15 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, it's all good. He says that they enjoyed it.
14. Re:Lost faith in Google by roman_mir · 2013-03-15 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  Eternal Damnation (close enough).
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
15. Re:Lost faith in Google by ahabswhale · 2013-03-15 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  "Googles business is advertisement."
  Which is why I was shocked that they killed Google Reader. That thing can be a gold mine of information that can be used to create targeted advertising. They can monitor very easily what things I'm interested by my subscriptions and the things I tag and share. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Apparently, Google felt otherwise. I don't feel like I can trust Google to support something given their current record. Reader is just one example but a pretty glaring one in my mind. So, while I'm a big fan of NoSQL solutions, I won't be using any of theirs.
  
  --
  Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
16. Re:Lost faith in Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-17 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  Erectile-dysfunction... -_-
anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-14 22:57 · Score: 0, Interesting

anything that gets rid of Oracle and Larry is a good thing, that fucker has a special place in hell
1. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-14 23:24 · Score: 0
  
  I see a lot of Oracle hatred around here, you understand no one forces you to buy Oracle right?
  Of course a lot of people think it's worth the money, what is wrong with that?
2. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Muad'Dave · 2013-03-14 23:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  you understand no one forces you to buy Oracle right?
  No, but imagine the shock to Java developers when, after so many years of benevolent stewardship of Java by Sun, we were dragged kicking and screaming into Larry's world.
  
  --
  Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
3. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-14 23:50 · Score: 0
  
  All of those folks who "think it's worth the money" wouldn't spend THEIR OWN money on crap like Oracle.
  The only reason Oracle gets anywhere is due to corporate politics and great sales folks who approach non-technical managmenet, and the fact that the CIO who spends more money gets to feel more important than those who use alternatives.
4. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by mwvdlee · 2013-03-14 23:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Oh come on now, ever since Oracle took over MariaDB and LibreOffice have been flourishing.
  
  --
  Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
5. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:12 · Score: 0
  
  As someone who has seen first hand Oracle salesmen at work raping a business by selling them on a multi-million dollar "solution" then providing something that barely works and breaks frequently requiring even more expensive incompetent support personnel. No Larry doesn't deserve a special place in hell, hell is too good for the fucker.
6. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:34 · Score: 0
  
  LibreOffice, maybe. But MariaDB? What's so special about MariaDB compared to Oracle MySQL?
7. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Bacon+Bits · 2013-03-15 01:50 · Score: 2
  
  It's not Oracle MySQL, primarily. And it's operated by Monty Widenius, the founder and main author of the original MySQL. But mainly it's taking off because it's not Oracle.
  
  --
  The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
8. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 03:33 · Score: 0
  
  Oh come on now, ever since Oracle took over MariaDB and LibreOffice have been flourishing.
  Posting as anonymous as I don't want my opinion to be used against my employer.
  I work in the MySQL world, and while MariaDB has certainly seen its popularity rise, in the enterprise world (and here, I use 'enterprise' as 'paying customer', can be a two guy startup or a megacorp), the vast majority of deployments are still Oracle MySQL, Community Edition. Hell, you'd be surprised how many people run their production systems using the MySQL build that comes with their distro, even if that means using an old version (or one with braindead 'helper' scripts, like the debian MySQL packages have). I have not seen a *single* MySQL business user move away to MariaDB or Drizzle, or even Postgres, since the Oracle deal, and I've been making a living exclusively from MySQL work during the last 4 years. Whenever I am asked 'what do you think the future of MySQL will be now with Oracle blah blah', it's always a student or a Free Software advocate asking.
  Fact is, MySQL is not widely known. Even a lot of people working on IT don't know what it is, so forks? For most guys that's something they use during their lunch breaks.
  Remember, we geeks are an elite (I'm saying this in a good way, as in, doctors are an elite too, plumbers, etc.), so you should never make assumptions about the behavior of normal people (even people working in your industry but who are not geeks. Let's face it, the vast majority of programmers/sysadmins/dbas out there are just people doing a 9 to 5 job, not people that, as Knuth would say, 'resonate with the machine'). Your sample is always going to be skewed. So yeah, I'm sure most of your friends/acquaintances are flocking to MariaDB and LibreOffice. I bet a bunch of them build their own kernel too. But never fall for the trap that they represent the general population's views on IT.
9. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 03:57 · Score: 0
  
  ok, wake me up when Monty has proven he can make MariaDB better than Oracle MySQL
10. Re:anything that gets rid of Oracle by Dan667 · 2013-03-15 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  people are not jumping ship on oracle MySQL as oracle has not upset the boat to much yet. There are starting to be cracks in that though so when they get around to "monetizing" MySQL people will leave in droves. Some early adopters of MariaDB or other databases seem to be anticipating this and to be honest based on oracle's track record it does not seem like a bad assumption. oracle would rather have complete and dominant control instead of making money.
BigQuery by rvds86 · 2013-03-14 23:49 · Score: 2

I totally agree with hmmm, building a business on a service that might (and in time deffinitly) disappear is crazy. This is for every remote service. I have the same problem for a business of mine (CloudFormz). I would like to add the DropBox API for example so all file uploads are uploaded to DropBox. But what if the api stops working or even worse, DropBox stops it service? Then you get a lot of angry customers and you have no way to retrieve your data. (sorry for my English grammar). Do you have any failsafe ideas?
1. Re:BigQuery by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 06:40 · Score: 0
  
  but you assume your business will out live Google or its product.
2. Re:BigQuery by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-17 04:42 · Score: 0
  
  I totally agree with hmmm, building a business on a service that might (and in time deffinitly) disappear is crazy.
  This is for every remote service. I have the same problem for a business of mine (CloudFormz).
  I would like to add the DropBox API for example so all file uploads are uploaded to DropBox. But what if the api stops working or even worse, DropBox stops it service?
  Then you get a lot of angry customers and you have no way to retrieve your data. (sorry for my English grammar).
  Do you have any failsafe ideas?
  Are you serious or just wanted to advertise your service? Implement other storage services' APIs (Google Drive before Dropbox, logically). You could even go all out and try getting a web server to host and serve the files as an emergency backup!
  I have a question for you: I'm planning on starting a business that relies on CloudFormz. Can you guarantee that your service will be available forever? I just want to make sure it'll be eternal before I commit.
Let Me Get This Straight by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 00:28 · Score: 0, Funny

A cloudy database, "the be all and end all of IT services and methodologies", is finally getting the rudimentary features of the SQL databases of the 1990s that cloud proponents have been deriding for the past few years? So Google's cloudy database is almost useable?
Good news everyone! It's a suppository.
1. Re:Let Me Get This Straight by DragonWriter · 2013-03-15 02:59 · Score: 2
  
  No,you don't have it straight.
  BigQuery isn't sold as a replacement for traditional SQL databases, or as "the be all and end all of IT services and methodologies" (or even "...all database-like services and methodologies", as Google also has several other cloud database services for different uses, most notably the MySQL-based CloudSQL), its a data analysis platform for large data sets that uses an SQL-like query syntax.
  As a large data set analysis platform, its optimized for that use case, including the focus on large primary tables possibly joined with small auxiliary tables,
Wow. Just, wow... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 01:46 · Score: 1

"users can now join large tables, import and query timestamped data, and aggregate large collections of distinct values."
Wow. It's like 1986 all over again. Gonna turf my enterprise SQL back-end and get me some o' that!
Re:Wow. Just, wow... by Tablizer · 2013-03-15 07:09 · Score: 1

"NoSQL" grew up into "SQL".

--
Table-ized A.I.
Oooh. Ahhh. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-15 09:32 · Score: 0

Ooh. "its a data analysis platform for large data sets that uses an SQL-like query syntax."
And now it's even better than anyone could ever have imagined because now it has joins! Ahhh!