Day 83 β BI Cloud and Modern Data Stack
This lesson is part of the Phase 5 Business Intelligence specialization. Use the Phase 5 overview to see how the developer-roadmap topics align across Days 68β84.
Why it matters
Modern BI teams assemble cloud-native tooling that balances time-to-value, governance, and spend. Understanding how the cloud ecosystem fits together ensures analysts can navigate trade-offs when choosing warehouses, integration layers, and visualization services.
Developer-roadmap alignment
- Cloud Computing Basics
- Cloud BI Ecosystem
- Cloud data warehouses
- Providers: AWS, GCP, Azure
- Cloud
Cloud architecture patterns
| Pattern | Components | Feature focus | Cost trade-off | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Centralized warehouse with semantic layer | Serverless warehouse, ELT pipelines, BI semantic model | Curated metrics exposed through governed BI layers | Reserved capacity discounts exchange flexibility for governance licensing costs | | Lakehouse with streaming ingestion | Object storage, streaming ingestion, open table formats, SQL endpoints | Unified analytics supporting dashboards and ML on the same platform | Streaming autoscale fees must be balanced against freshness SLAs | | Composable stack with reverse ETL | Cloud warehouse, transformation service, reverse ETL activations | Operationalizes analytics inside SaaS tools without duplicating logic | Connector-based pricing introduces variable spend per downstream system |
Provider evaluation checklist
- Confirm the managed warehouse option (Redshift, BigQuery, Synapse) and how it scales.
- Map analytics services (QuickSight, Looker, Power BI) to stakeholder use cases.
- Align orchestration choices (Step Functions, Cloud Composer, Data Factory) with existing engineering standards.
- Capture pricing guardrails, including autosuspend, flat-rate commitments, and hybrid benefits.
- Note governance integrations such as IAM, Dataplex, and Purview for security reviews.
Next steps
- Use the comparison matrix in
lesson.pyto facilitate vendor shortlists. - Draft cost scenarios that highlight egress, autoscaling, and reserved capacity for each provider.
Additional Topic: Career Assets & Credentials
This lesson is part of the Phase 5 Business Intelligence specialization. Use the Phase 5 overview to see how the developer-roadmap topics align across Days 68β84.
Why it matters
Design a career evidence plan that highlights BI outcomes.
Developer-roadmap alignment
- Building Your Portfolio
- Job Preparation
- Certifications
- Networking
Next steps
- Draft case studies and notebooks that exercise these roadmap nodes.
- Update the Phase 5 cheat sheet with the insights you capture here.
Previous: Day 82 β Day 82 β BI ETL and Pipeline Automation β’ Next: Day 84 β Day 84 β BI Career Development and Capstone
You are on lesson 83 of 108.
Additional Materials
lesson.py
# %%
"""Day 83 β BI Cloud and Modern Data Stack classroom script."""
# %%
from __future__ import annotations
from typing import Mapping
import pandas as pd
from Day_83_BI_Cloud_and_Modern_Data_Stack import (
build_cloud_topic_dataframe,
build_provider_comparison_frame,
group_cloud_topics,
)
# %%
CLOUD_GROUPS = group_cloud_topics()
CLOUD_TOPIC_FRAME = build_cloud_topic_dataframe()
PROVIDER_FRAME = build_provider_comparison_frame()
CLOUD_ARCHITECTURE_PATTERNS: Mapping[str, Mapping[str, str]] = {
"Centralized warehouse with semantic layer": {
"components": "Serverless warehouse, ELT pipelines, BI semantic model",
"strength": "Balances governed data with curated metrics exposed through BI tools.",
"cost_trade_off": (
"Reserved capacity lowers compute rates, but semantic modeling requires "
"licensing for governance layers."
),
},
"Lakehouse with streaming ingestion": {
"components": "Object storage, streaming ingestion, open table formats, SQL endpoints",
"strength": "Enables near real-time dashboards while supporting ML workloads on the same lake.",
"cost_trade_off": (
"Storage remains inexpensive, yet streaming autoscale costs must be tracked "
"against refresh SLAs."
),
},
"Composable stack with reverse ETL": {
"components": "Cloud warehouse, transformation service, reverse ETL activations",
"strength": "Delivers analytics in operational tools without duplicating governance logic.",
"cost_trade_off": (
"SaaS integration fees add up, so teams trade platform simplicity for per-connector charges."
),
},
}
COST_OPTIMIZATION_PROMPTS: Mapping[str, str] = {
"Elastic compute": "How can we use autosuspend and scale-to-zero policies to reduce idle spend?",
"Storage tiers": "When do we archive historical BI extracts into colder tiers without hurting SLAs?",
"Data movement": "Which provider-native services offset egress fees through in-platform processing?",
}
# %%
def display_topic_groups(groups: Mapping[str, list]) -> None:
"""Print the grouped roadmap topics for facilitation."""
print("\nCloud BI roadmap groupings:\n")
for section, topics in groups.items():
titles = ", ".join(topic.title for topic in topics)
print(f"- {section}: {titles}")
# %%
def show_cloud_topic_frame(frame: pd.DataFrame) -> None:
"""Display the topic dataframe with descriptions and trade-offs."""
print("\nLesson overview matrix:\n")
print(frame.to_markdown(index=False))
# %%
def explain_architecture_patterns(patterns: Mapping[str, Mapping[str, str]]) -> None:
"""Describe reference architectures and their cost/feature positioning."""
print("\nCloud architecture patterns and trade-offs:\n")
for name, metadata in patterns.items():
components = metadata.get("components", "")
strength = metadata.get("strength", "")
cost_trade_off = metadata.get("cost_trade_off", "")
print(f"* {name}")
print(f" - Components: {components}")
print(f" - Strength: {strength}")
print(f" - Cost trade-off: {cost_trade_off}\n")
# %%
def preview_provider_matrix(frame: pd.DataFrame) -> None:
"""Show the provider comparison matrix across AWS, GCP, and Azure."""
print("\nProvider capability comparison:\n")
print(frame.to_markdown(index=False))
# %%
def prompt_cost_reviews(prompts: Mapping[str, str]) -> None:
"""Offer facilitation questions that emphasize ongoing cost reviews."""
print("\nCost optimization prompts:\n")
for theme, question in prompts.items():
print(f"- {theme}: {question}")
# %%
def main() -> None:
"""Run the Day 83 classroom walkthrough."""
display_topic_groups(CLOUD_GROUPS)
show_cloud_topic_frame(CLOUD_TOPIC_FRAME)
explain_architecture_patterns(CLOUD_ARCHITECTURE_PATTERNS)
preview_provider_matrix(PROVIDER_FRAME)
prompt_cost_reviews(COST_OPTIMIZATION_PROMPTS)
# %%
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
solutions.py
"""Topic helpers for the Day 83 BI Cloud and Modern Data Stack lesson."""
from __future__ import annotations
from typing import Dict, List, Mapping, Sequence
import pandas as pd
from mypackage.bi_curriculum import BiTopic, group_topics_by_titles, topics_by_titles
CLOUD_TITLES: Sequence[str] = (
"Cloud BI Ecosystem",
"Cloud Computing Basics",
"Cloud data warehouses",
"Providers: AWS, GCP, Azure",
"Cloud",
)
CLOUD_TOPIC_GROUPS: Mapping[str, Sequence[str]] = {
"Cloud foundations": (
"Cloud Computing Basics",
"Cloud",
),
"Analytics ecosystem": (
"Cloud BI Ecosystem",
"Cloud data warehouses",
),
"Provider landscape": ("Providers: AWS, GCP, Azure",),
}
CLOUD_TOPIC_DESCRIPTIONS: Mapping[str, str] = {
"Cloud Computing Basics": (
"Baseline students on elasticity, shared responsibility, and on-demand "
"pricing so BI teams can evaluate managed services."
),
"Cloud": (
"Frame cloud operating models and the relationship between regions, "
"availability zones, and compliance domains."
),
"Cloud BI Ecosystem": (
"Connect ingestion, warehousing, transformation, and visualization "
"services into an integrated reference architecture."
),
"Cloud data warehouses": (
"Compare serverless warehouses and managed clusters for scale, query "
"performance, and workload isolation."
),
"Providers: AWS, GCP, Azure": (
"Guide students through evaluating vendor strengths, default tooling, and "
"partner ecosystems."
),
}
CLOUD_COST_CONSIDERATIONS: Mapping[str, str] = {
"Cloud Computing Basics": "Variable compute and storage pricing favors bursty BI workloads.",
"Cloud": "Networking egress and compliance guardrails become the dominant cost drivers.",
"Cloud BI Ecosystem": "Managed services reduce admin labor but require budgeting for integration tiers.",
"Cloud data warehouses": "Scale-to-zero options curb idle spend while reserved capacity lowers steady-state cost.",
"Providers: AWS, GCP, Azure": "Marketplace commitments can trade flexibility for discounts across the stack.",
}
PROVIDER_COMPARISON: Mapping[str, Mapping[str, str]] = {
"AWS": {
"managed_warehouse": "Amazon Redshift Serverless with RA3 scaling tiers",
"analytics_services": "QuickSight, Athena, Glue, Lake Formation",
"orchestration": "Managed Airflow, Step Functions, and event-driven Lambda",
"pricing_highlight": "Granular per-second billing with savings plans for reserved throughput",
"notable_integration": "Tight coupling with S3 data lake and security via IAM",
},
"GCP": {
"managed_warehouse": "BigQuery with autoscaling slots and data lake federation",
"analytics_services": "Looker, Data Studio, Dataflow, Dataproc",
"orchestration": "Cloud Composer, Workflows, and Cloud Functions",
"pricing_highlight": "Serverless query pricing plus flat-rate commitments for enterprise teams",
"notable_integration": "Unified governance through Dataplex and Vertex AI integrations",
},
"Azure": {
"managed_warehouse": "Azure Synapse with serverless SQL pools and dedicated nodes",
"analytics_services": "Power BI, Azure Data Factory, Databricks",
"orchestration": "Data Factory pipelines, Logic Apps, and Functions",
"pricing_highlight": "Hybrid benefits with reserved capacity discounts and spot compute tiers",
"notable_integration": "Deep integration with Microsoft 365 security and Purview governance",
},
}
def load_cloud_topics(titles: Sequence[str] = CLOUD_TITLES) -> List[BiTopic]:
"""Return the BI roadmap topics for the cloud and modern data stack lesson."""
return list(topics_by_titles(titles))
def group_cloud_topics(
groups: Mapping[str, Sequence[str]] = CLOUD_TOPIC_GROUPS,
) -> Dict[str, List[BiTopic]]:
"""Return grouped cloud topics covering foundations, ecosystem, and providers."""
return {
section: topics for section, topics in group_topics_by_titles(groups).items()
}
def build_cloud_topic_dataframe(
*,
groups: Mapping[str, Sequence[str]] = CLOUD_TOPIC_GROUPS,
descriptions: Mapping[str, str] = CLOUD_TOPIC_DESCRIPTIONS,
cost_notes: Mapping[str, str] = CLOUD_COST_CONSIDERATIONS,
) -> pd.DataFrame:
"""Create a dataframe summarizing lesson sections, descriptions, and trade-offs."""
grouped = group_cloud_topics(groups=groups)
records: list[dict[str, str]] = []
for section, topics in grouped.items():
for topic in topics:
records.append(
{
"section": section,
"title": topic.title,
"description": descriptions.get(topic.title, ""),
"cost_trade_off": cost_notes.get(topic.title, ""),
}
)
return pd.DataFrame(
records,
columns=["section", "title", "description", "cost_trade_off"],
)
def build_provider_comparison_frame(
comparisons: Mapping[str, Mapping[str, str]] = PROVIDER_COMPARISON,
) -> pd.DataFrame:
"""Return a provider feature matrix for AWS, GCP, and Azure offerings."""
rows: list[dict[str, str]] = []
columns = [
"provider",
"managed_warehouse",
"analytics_services",
"orchestration",
"pricing_highlight",
"notable_integration",
]
for provider, features in comparisons.items():
row = {"provider": provider}
row.update(features)
rows.append(row)
frame = pd.DataFrame(rows, columns=columns)
return frame.sort_values("provider").reset_index(drop=True)
__all__ = [
"CLOUD_TITLES",
"build_cloud_topic_dataframe",
"build_provider_comparison_frame",
"group_cloud_topics",
"load_cloud_topics",
]