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Supported File Formats

When writes data to Google Cloud Storage, you can choose the file format for the exported data. The following file formats are supported for the Google Cloud Storage destination:
  • (Default) Delta Parquet—A format that uses a Delta Lake storage layer on top of the Parquet file format that is used by to support delta processing. Delta processing is a method where, after your initial job run, only new or modified files are written or read in subsequent runs, which can reduce job times and resource use. Limitations:
    • Naming restrictions: Table and column names cannot include special characters or reserved SQL and Delta Lake keywords. Examples of special characters include spaces, commas, semicolons, braces, parentheses, equal signs, and the newline (\n) and tab (\t) characters.
    • Primary keys: Primary key constraints are not supported. uses the source primary keys for incremental replication.
    • Data types: Unlike traditional databases, Delta Lake does not support column-size definitions (for example, VARCHAR(100)). It supports only a fixed set of data types and allows type widening when necessary.
    • Schema changes: The ALTER TABLE command supports only adding new columns. Changing the data type of an existing column (for example, from INT to VARCHAR) is not supported.
    • Delete operations: In standard jobs, both hard and soft deletions are supported. In CDC and enhanced CDC jobs, only soft deletions are supported.
  • Apache Iceberg—A high-performance table format that supports atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) transactions and schema evolution.
  • CSV—Plain text comma-separated values.
  • Avro—A row-based binary format that supports schema evolution.
  • Parquet—A columnar storage format that is optimized for analytics.

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Prerequisites

If you want to authenticate with a Google Cloud service account (for silent authentication or delegated organization-wide access), do the following before configuring your connection in :
  • Create a service account in Google Cloud and grant it the required permissions on your bucket or project.
  • For OAuth JWT authentication, register a custom OAuth application and download the certificate file (.p12 or .pfx).
  • For Service Account Key File authentication (Delta Parquet only), download the JSON key file for the service account.
Then proceed to the relevant authentication method below.

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Authenticate to Google Cloud Storage

After you add the connector, you need to set the required properties.
  • File Format: Select the file format that you want to use: Delta Parquet (default), Apache Iceberg, CSV , Avro, or Parquet.
  • URI: Enter the path to the name of the bucket and folder that contain your files (for example, gs://_BucketName/RemotePath).
  • Project Id: Enter the identifier (Id) of the project where your Google Cloud Storage instance resides. Note: This property is required only with the Avro file format. For other file formats, the property is optional and it is set in Complete Your Connection.
supports authenticating to Google Cloud Storage in several ways. Select your authentication method below to proceed to the relevant section that contains the authentication details. Note: The full list of authentication methods above are for all file formats except Delta Parquet. That format uses only the Service Account Key File method.

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Service Account Key File

To connect with a service account key file, specify the following properties:
  • Auth Scheme: Select ServiceAccountKeyFile.
  • Key file path: Enter the path where the JSON key file for the service account is located.

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OAuth

To connect with OAuth custom credentials, specify the following properties:
  • Auth Scheme: Select OAuth.
  • OAuth Version: Select the version of OAuth that you want to use. The default version is 2.0.
  • (Optional) Scope: Specify the scope of your access to the application.
  • (Optional) OAuth Authorization URL: Enter the OAuth authorization URL for the OAuth service.
  • (Optional) OAuth Access Token URL: Enter the URL from which to retrieve the access token.
  • (Optional) OAuth Refresh Token URL: Enter the URL from which to refresh the OAuth token.

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OAuth PKCE

provides an embedded OAuth application with which to connect. To connect with the OAuth PKCE extension, specify the following properties:
  • Auth Scheme: select OAuthPKCE.
  • OAuth Client Id: Enter the client Id that you were assigned when you registered your application with an OAuth authorization server.

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OAuth JWT

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GCP Instance Account

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Complete Your Connection

To complete your connection:
  1. Specify the following properties: For all file formats:
    • (Optional) Project Id: Enter the identifier (Id) of the project where your Google Cloud Storage instance resides. Note: This property is required for the Avro file format, and it is set in Authenticate to Google Cloud Storage
    For the Delta Parquet and CSV file formats:
    • FMT: Enter the format that you want to use to parse all text files. The default format is CsvDelimited.
    • Aggregate Files: Select whether you want to aggregate all the files that are located in the URI directory and that have the same schema into a single table named AggregatedFiles. By default, the Enable checkbox is not selected.
    • Include Column Headers: Select whether you want to obtain column headers from the first lines of the specified files. By default, the Enable checkbox is already selected.
    For the Avro and Parquet file formats:
    • Data Model: Select the data model that you want to use to parse documents for your format and to generate the database metadata. The default data model is Document.
    • Aggregate Files: Select whether you want to aggregate all the files that are located in the URI directory and that have the same schema into a single table named AggregatedFiles. By default, the Enable checkbox is not selected.
  2. Define advanced connection settings on the Advanced tab. (In most cases, though, you should not need these settings.)
  3. If you authenticate with OAuth or OAuthPKCE, click Connect to Google Cloud Storage to connect to your Google Cloud Storage account.
  4. Click Create & Test to create your connection.