Google today announced it would be opening up its beta of BigQuery Service to help more companies get to grips with their data by utilising cloud storage.
The service was unveiled at the Google I/O conference in 2010 and initially tested by enterprises and developers who wanted to better manage their internal data and discover ways it could help them progress their businesses.
However, Google wants to offer BigQuery to smaller companies as well, so has opened up applications to any firm who wants to be involved in the testing stage, allowing them to store the results in the cloud.
“Rapidly crunching terabytes of big data can lead to better business decisions, but this has traditionally required tremendous IT investments,” wrote Ju-kay Kwek, product manager for BigQuery, on the Google Enterprise Blog.
“Today we're releasing some big improvements, and putting one of Google's most powerful data analysis systems into the hands of more companies of all sizes.”
The improvements Kwek mentions include a new graphical user interface for users to access the analytics through a web application and a new REST API to allow multiple jobs to run at the same time.
The service is free at the moment but it will be charged for in the long run. Google has promised to give any customers 30 days’ warning before cost kicks in though.
