GCP – BigQuery jobs explorer: Your central hub for monitoring and troubleshooting BigQuery jobs

Ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of SQL queries running in your organization? Identifying expensive queries, tracking who’s running them, and spotting spikes in errors are all part of the daily work. Efficient monitoring and management of query activity are essential to maintain a healthy and performant system.

We are excited to announce BigQuery jobs explorer, your command center for all things query-related. Now generally available, BigQuery jobs explorer helps you gain deep visibility into your organization’s query activity, streamline troubleshooting, and optimize resource utilization.

“BigQuery jobs explorer gives us a comprehensive single-pane view of SQL activity across our entire organization, which helps us pinpoint anomalies and address them proactively. Since its launch, jobs explorer has become an essential asset in boosting platform efficiency and maintaining optimal system performance at PayPal!” – Abhijit Vyas, Senior MTS Database Engineer, PayPal

Solve multiple challenges with a single tool

BigQuery jobs explorer is a versatile tool that empowers you to tackle a wide range of use cases, all from a single platform. 

Monitor: Get a bird’s-eye view of query activity

Jobs explorer provides a comprehensive, real-time view of all SQL activity across your organization. No more piecing together information from different sources — you get a single pane of glass to see what’s happening, when, and where.

Real-time monitoring: Track job status, progress, and resource usage as they happen.

Key metrics at a glance: Sort and analyze traffic based on metrics like TotalSlotMS, bytes processed, and more.

Visualize query execution: Intuitive graphs make it easy to understand query performance patterns.

With this level of visibility, you can proactively identify potential issues, spot trends, and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

Troubleshoot: Quickly identify and resolve problems

When something goes wrong, jobs explorer helps you get to the root of the problem fast.

No more complex queries: Access critical job information without writing any INFORMATION_SCHEMA queries.

Powerful filtering and sorting: Quickly narrow down jobs by status, priority, owner, project, and more.

Take action: Kill runaway queries directly from jobs explorer to save costs and reclaim resources

Deep dive into query details: Click on any job to see its execution graph and other key execution details.

Jobs explorer simplifies the process of troubleshooting, allowing you to focus on keeping your BigQuery environment running smoothly.

Optimize: Improve performance and control costs

Jobs explorer isn’t just about reacting to problems — it’s about proactively optimizing your BigQuery usage.

Identify performance bottlenecks: Pinpoint queries that are consuming excessive resources or taking too long to complete.

Query performance insights: Find and address queries that have been tagged by BigQuery with actionable performance insights.

Control costs: Avoid overspending by identifying and addressing inefficient queries. Often a small fraction of your queries account for the majority of your optimization gains!

By giving you a deeper understanding of your query activity, Jobs Explorer helps you make the most of your BigQuery spend.

What’s next?

BigQuery Jobs Explorer is just the beginning. We’re committed to continuously improving and expanding its capabilities to meet your evolving needs. Stay tuned for future updates, and feel free to share your feedback at bq-query-inspector-feedback@google.com. To learn about the feature in more detail, please see the public documentation.