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Google BigLake metastore

Google BigLake metastore is Google Cloud's managed lakehouse metastore — the Iceberg/lakehouse catalog service inside GCP that lets BigQuery, Apache Spark, and other analytics engines share the same table definitions and ACLs over GCS-resident data. Dataplex provides the surrounding governance / discovery layer.

Stub page — expand on future BigLake-internals sources.

Product docs: cloud.google.com/biglake.

Architectural role on this wiki

BigLake metastore is the fourth managed Iceberg REST catalog Redpanda's Iceberg Topics integrates with — joining Databricks Unity Catalog, Snowflake Open Catalog (based on Apache Polaris), and AWS Glue. Added in Redpanda 25.3 (2025-11-06).

From the launch post:

"If you're on GCP, your lakehouse life runs through BigLake/Dataplex and BigQuery. With 25.3, Redpanda's native Iceberg integration can automatically register streaming tables to the Google BigLake metastore, so those tables are discoverable, secure, and governed alongside the rest of your GCP analytics estate."

This is the REST-catalog shape of GCP Iceberg integration (contrast with the file-based metadata-pointer shape canonicalised in the sources/2025-05-13-redpanda-getting-started-with-iceberg-topics-on-redpanda-byoc|2025-05-13 BYOC-beta post where BigQuery read Iceberg tables via CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE … format = 'ICEBERG' against a specific vN.metadata.json). Post-25.3 both shapes work on GCP; the trade-off between them (operational overhead vs governance reach) isn't walked in the launch post.

Value proposition (verbatim from launch post)

"This means fewer governance exceptions, faster analytics onboarding, and a broader view of data assets, leading to better insights. Your data science team using Apache Spark, your BI analysts in BigQuery, and your ML platform can all query the exact same, single copy of the data the second it arrives."

Seen in

• sources/2025-11-06-redpanda-253-delivers-near-instant-disaster-recovery-and-more — canonical wiki source introducing BigLake metastore as the GCP REST-catalog integration target for Redpanda Iceberg Topics as of 25.3.

Related

• systems/google-bigquery — the primary GCP query engine that consumes BigLake-registered tables.
• systems/google-cloud-storage — the object store BigLake tables live on.
• systems/apache-iceberg — the table format BigLake manages.
• systems/redpanda-iceberg-topics — the streaming producer that registers into BigLake.
• systems/unity-catalog, systems/snowflake, systems/aws-glue — peer managed Iceberg REST catalogs.
• concepts/iceberg-catalog-rest-sync — the sync mechanism.
• concepts/open-table-format — the broader format family.
• concepts/data-lakehouse — the architecture BigLake participates in.
• patterns/broker-native-iceberg-catalog-registration — the registration pattern Redpanda instantiates against BigLake.
• patterns/streaming-broker-as-lakehouse-bronze-sink — the broader pattern family.