Google Cloud Platform launches BigQuery Reservations, courts enterprises

Top Cloud Providers

Top cloud providers: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, hybrid, SaaS players

Here's a look at how the cloud leaders stack up, the hybrid market, and the SaaS players that run your company as well as their latest strategic moves.

Read now

Google Cloud Platform's BigQuery analytics platform has become the tip of the spear for the company as it aims to grow enterprise wallet share amid stiff competition from the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Now Google Cloud Platform is launching a reservation system that's designed to be coupled with BigQuery flat-rate pricing for more budget predictability.

BigQuery Reservations is a pricing model so enterprises can gain predictable analytics spending, purchasing via the web and sharing of idle capacity.

In the big picture, BigQuery Reservations is another sign that Google Cloud Platform is becoming more enterprise-friendly. Under CEO Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud Platform has targeted hybrid deployments via Anthos, gained traction in industries such as retail and financial services and leveraged its artificial intelligence and machine learning know-how in big accounts. 

To wit:

• Google Cloud sees BigQuery, analytics boost, aims to add sales scale
• AWS vs. Microsoft Azure will be about sales scale, AI, multi-cloud realities 
• Google Cloud Next: Everything you need to know about the new strategy 
• Google Cloud integrates Kaggle with BigQuery
• Google buys Looker for $2.6 billion, aims to extend its analytics reach, support multiple clouds

Jordan Tigani, director of engineering at Google and one of the founding engineers on BigQuery, said enterprises and CFOs wanted the budget predictability. "Enterprise CFOs say 'here's what we're going to spend on analytics with predictability of budget and performance," said Tigani.

Special Feature

Special Report: Managing the Multicloud (free PDF)

This ebook, based on the latest ZDNet / TechRepublic special feature, examines how to play multiple cloud providers off each other and what vendors and tools can help you manage multiple clouds.

Read now

He noted that BigQuery Reservations customers can run as much as they want. On Friday, Mulesoft added connectors to BigQuery and those APIs will make it easier for enterprises to combine data sets. 

In other words, Google Cloud Platform is structuring its go-to-market strategy in a way that aligns with how enterprises work. Large companies want predictable budgets where more cloud-native firms are more in line with pay-as-you-go pricing models.

Sudhir Hasbe, director of product management at Google Cloud, said enterprises typically have a little bit of everything in their analytics stack. "There are a few patterns for workload distribution," said Hasbe. "Some companies are department-based where there's an amount of capacity and budget. Others have more of a hybrid pattern between budgets and departments and workloads."

Here's how BigQuery Reservations work:

• Customers can buy serverless BigQuery slots, a measurement of capacity for workloads.
• Slots can be acquired in 500 slot chunks and then allocated.
• Enterprises can then assign BigQuery slots and capacity to units, workloads or functions within the company via the BigQuery user interface or via command line. For instance, the data science team may need isolated instances where marketing and finance may share.
• Unused capacity by one unit can be used for another function without silos. 
• The enterprise pays $10,000 a month for 500 BigQuery slots without an annual commitment and $8,500 with one.

Add it up and BigQuery Reservations may ultimately make Google Cloud Platform's lead analytics platform the path to more compute and storage sales. And partnerships with companies like Informatica are likely to bring more workloads.

Must read:

• What makes Google Cloud Platform unique compared to Azure and Amazon
• What Google Cloud Platform is and why you'd use it

BigQuery has helped Google Cloud Platform land big retail customers such as Macy's and Home Depot as well as financial services companies such as HSBC. "We're finding that customers are starting with BigQuery and analytics and pull over other stuff," said Tigani.

Related stories:

• Executive's guide to prescriptive analytics
• Research: Tech leaders are eager to implement prescriptive analytics
• Free PDF download: How to win with prescriptive analytics
• Descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics: How are they different?
• Your guide to prescriptive analytics
• A guide for prescriptive analytics: The art and science of choosing and applying the right techniques
• 5 myths about prescriptive analytics