Introduction to notebooks

This document provides an introduction to Colab Enterprise notebooks in BigQuery. You can use notebooks to complete analysis and machine learning (ML) workflows by using SQL, Python, and other common packages and APIs. Notebooks offer improved collaboration and management with the following options:

  • Share notebooks with specific users and groups by using Identity and Access Management (IAM).
  • Review the notebook version history.
  • Revert to or branch from previous versions of the notebook.

Notebooks are BigQuery Studio code assets powered by Dataform. Saved queries are also code assets. All code assets are stored in a default region. Updating the default region changes the region for all code assets created after that point.

Notebook capabilities are available only in the Google Cloud console.

Benefits

Notebooks in BigQuery offer the following benefits:

  • BigQuery DataFrames is integrated into notebooks, no setup required. BigQuery DataFrames is a Python API that you can use to analyze BigQuery data at scale by using the pandas DataFrame and scikit-learn APIs.
  • Assistive code development powered by Gemini generative AI.
  • Auto-completion of SQL statements, the same as in the BigQuery editor.
  • The ability to save, share, and manage versions of notebooks.
  • The ability to use matplotlib, seaborn, and other popular libraries to visualize data at any point in your workflow.

Runtime management

BigQuery uses Colab Enterprise runtimes to run notebooks.

A notebook runtime is a Compute Engine virtual machine allocated to a particular user to enable code execution in a notebook. Multiple notebooks can share the same runtime. However, each runtime belongs to only one user and can't be used by others. Notebook runtimes are created based on template, which are typically defined by users with administrative privileges. You can change to a runtime that uses a different template type at any time.

Notebook security

You control access to notebooks by using Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles. For more information, see Grant access to notebooks.

Supported regions

BigQuery Studio lets you save, share, and manage versions of notebooks. The following table lists the regions where BigQuery Studio is available:

Region description Region name Details
Africa
Johannesburg africa-south1
Americas
Columbus us-east5
Dallas us-south1 leaf icon Low CO2
Iowa us-central1 leaf icon Low CO2
Los Angeles us-west2
Las Vegas us-west4
Montréal northamerica-northeast1 leaf icon Low CO2
N. Virginia us-east4
Oregon us-west1 leaf icon Low CO2
São Paulo southamerica-east1 leaf icon Low CO2
South Carolina us-east1
Asia Pacific
Hong Kong asia-east2
Jakarta asia-southeast2
Mumbai asia-south1
Seoul asia-northeast3
Singapore asia-southeast1
Sydney australia-southeast1
Taiwan asia-east1
Tokyo asia-northeast1
Europe
Belgium europe-west1 leaf icon Low CO2
Frankfurt europe-west3 leaf icon Low CO2
London europe-west2 leaf icon Low CO2
Madrid europe-southwest1 leaf icon Low CO2
Netherlands europe-west4 leaf icon Low CO2
Turin europe-west12
Zürich europe-west6 leaf icon Low CO2
Middle East
Doha me-central1
Dammam me-central2

Quotas and limits

For more information, see Notebook quotas and limits.

Troubleshooting

For more information, see Troubleshoot Colab Enterprise.

What's next