Technological evolution has, over the last few years, led to a considerable increase in electronic devices able to automate numerous operations, both in the business world and in families. These devices generate a huge amount of data every day, the volume of which has seen an exponential growth in recent years.

This data represents a great resource that, in the past, has not been expressed for too long. Today, large companies are aware that the success of their activities depends at least, if not largely, on the information derived from the processing of such data. But dealing with a large amount of data requires a great deal of effort on the part of companies—both technological and human effort. Google was one of the first companies that understood the importance of data management, and over time it created a technological background that is available to companies and individuals today.

In this chapter, we will get an introduction to the BigQuery and Data Studio platform to manage and view data. To start, we will take a look at big data and the problems associated with managing large amounts of data. We will then analyze how to organize data and the tools used to correctly query databases. With this in mind, an introduction to the SQL language will be proposed. We will then analyze Google BigQuery, a web service that enables interactive analysis of massively large datasets. Finally, we will analyze how to create reports from our data using Google Data Studio.

The topics covered are:

• Big data
• Querying databases
• SQL language
• Google BigQuery
• Google Data Studio

At the end of the chapter, the reader will be able to apply these tools to analyze their data without the need for technological support. Several examples will be dealt with to make the use of such tools as realistic as possible in real cases.