Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery

Google Cloud via Coursera

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/gcp-advanced-insights-bigquery

Introduction

**Course Review: Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery on Coursera** **Overview:** "Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery" is the third course in a remarkable series that aims to elevate your SQL skills to advanced levels through the use of Google Cloud's powerful BigQuery data warehouse. This course is particularly valuable for those eager to delve deeper into SQL capabilities, understand the intricate architecture of BigQuery, and apply best practices for data analysis and optimization. **Course Syllabus:** 1. **Introduction:** The course kicks off with an overview of what students can expect to learn. It sets the stage for an exciting journey into the depths of SQL and data analysis, drawing on real-world applications and case studies. 2. **Advanced Functions and Clauses:** By exploring advanced SQL functionalities, this section helps you master statistical approximations, analytical window queries, user-defined functions, and WITH clauses. Each concept is presented in a way that enriches your existing knowledge, enabling you to tackle more complex data scenarios confidently. 3. **Schema Design and Nested Data Structures:** The course takes a deep dive into the evolution of traditional databases and the architecture of BigQuery. You'll learn about the importance of schema design, especially when dealing with nested and repeated fields—essential skills for managing denormalized data structures effectively. 4. **Optimizing for Performance:** Here, you’ll uncover the fundamental factors affecting BigQuery performance. The course provides insights into query optimization techniques, ensuring that your data processing tasks run efficiently, saving you both time and costs. 5. **Advanced Insights with Vertex AI Workbench:** Learn to leverage Vertex AI Workbench, a vital tool for data scientists, which enhances collaboration through scalable cloud notebooks. This module enriches your ability to turn insights into actionable results, bridging the gap between data analysis and practical application. 6. **Data Access:** Security and sharing are paramount in data management. This section educates you on how to effectively secure and share BigQuery datasets using Google Cloud tools, ensuring that your organization’s valuable data remains safe yet accessible to those who need it. 7. **Summary:** The course concludes with a recap of key learning points, reinforcing your understanding of the advanced concepts explored throughout the course. **Review and Recommendation:** "Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery" serves as an excellent resource for data analysts, scientists, and anyone interested in enhancing their SQL skills within the context of BigQuery. The teaching methodology is practical and engaging, with hands-on exercises that allow learners to apply their skills in real-world scenarios. One of the standout features is the focus on advanced SQL functions, schema design, and performance optimization, which are crucial skills in today’s data-driven environment. Additionally, the introduction to Vertex AI Workbench adds a modern touch to the course, offering a unique opportunity to understand collaborative analytics within the cloud. **Final Thoughts:** If you're looking to elevate your SQL abilities and gain a comprehensive understanding of BigQuery, I highly recommend enrolling in "Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery." Its structured approach not only teaches the theoretical underpinnings of advanced SQL but also equips you with the practical skills needed to excel in the world of data analysis. Whether you're working in a professional capacity or seeking to enhance your personal knowledge, this course will undoubtedly add significant value to your skill set.

Syllabus

Introduction

Overview of what you will learn in this course

Advanced Functions and Clauses

Deepen your knowledge of SQL on BigQuery by learning about more advanced functions like statistical approximations, analytical window queries, user-defined functions, and WITH clauses.

Schema Design and Nested Data Structures

Walkthrough the evolution of how traditional databases handle dataset scale and compare how BigQuery was developed to address scaling limitations. Deep dive into nested and repeated fields which are a key part of denormalized BigQuery data structures.

Optimizing for Performance

Learn the fundamental pieces of work that impact BigQuery performance and how to optimize your queries for speed.

Advanced Insights with Vertex AI Workbench

Introducing Vertex AI Workbench -- a key tool in the Data Scientist toolkit -- which enables analysts to collaborate through the use of scalable cloud notebooks.

Data Access

Securing and sharing your BigQuery datasets is critical for any organization. Learn what Google Cloud and BigQuery tools are available to you to permission control and share your data.

Summary

Summary of the course ley learning points

Overview

The third course in this course series is Achieving Advanced Insights with BigQuery. Here we will build on your growing knowledge of SQL as we dive into advanced functions and how to break apart a complex query into manageable steps. We will cover the internal architecture of BigQuery (column-based sharded storage) and advanced SQL topics like nested and repeated fields through the use of Arrays and Structs. Lastly we will dive into optimizing your queries for performance and how you can secur

Skills

Bigquery Google Cloud Platform Cloud Computing SQL

Reviews

Lots of in-depth material covered in this course, including nesting of data structures. Also provides high-level introductions to Google Data Studio and Cloud DataLab.

I really appreciated all of the labs that went along with this course. They were detailed and thorough and led us through some advanced concepts in a digestible, understandable fashion.

Very interesting topics, engaging instructor, I would need some hands-on exercises to better understand the material. Maybe a capstone project at the end of the specialization would be ideal.

This course summed up everything that I learned from the previous two courses. It was very helpful to understand the architecture behind BigQuery.

for me was not easy to digest but it was so interesting but the voice of the host makes me sleep cause is so monotone