Data location and transfers

The BigQuery Data Transfer Service lets you transfer data from external sources into BigQuery regardless of where your source data is stored. Your transfer configuration automatically uses the location of your destination dataset to stage and process data, while certain data warehouse migrations require colocated staging resources. For more information about BigQuery locations, see Dataset locations.

Transfer location

Transfer configurations have locations. When you set up a transfer configuration, set the transfer configuration up in the same project as the destination dataset. The location of the transfer configuration is automatically set to the same location that you specified for the destination dataset. The BigQuery Data Transfer Service processes and stages data in the same location as the destination BigQuery dataset. If you don't have a destination dataset when you create the transfer, you must create one in BigQuery before configuring the transfer.

Source data location

The source data you want to transfer to BigQuery might have a location. However, the location where your source data is stored and the location of the destination dataset in BigQuery are irrelevant.

Location considerations for data warehouse migrations

Data warehouse migrations from Teradata require a Cloud Storage bucket as part of the transfer process. The Cloud Storage bucket must be colocated with the BigQuery destination dataset.

Redshift data warehouse migrations do not require a colocated Cloud Storage bucket.

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