apache/beam

[Feature Request]: Cache the BigQuery table definition instead of calling tables.get() from every worker

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#34,076 opened on Feb 26, 2025

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Description

What would you like to happen?

When calling BigQuery's tables.get method, today, we are calling it from every Dataflow worker. This is resulting in customers hitting Quota issues. Please can we cache the Table definition and re-use for all workers instead of calling the method from every worker.

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/reference/rest/v2/tables/get

https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/9a1e7bf4cd399177e5de7fe28bad741cade452a5/sdks/python/apache_beam/io/gcp/bigquery.py#L902-L903

https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/9a1e7bf4cd399177e5de7fe28bad741cade452a5/sdks/python/apache_beam/io/gcp/bigquery_tools.py#L565

Issue Priority

Priority: 2 (default / most feature requests should be filed as P2)

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Contributor guide

Research direction
Examine the current implementation of tables.get in BigQuery tools (bigquery tools.py line 565) and understand how the table definition is retrieved. Propose a caching mechanism, perhaps using functools.lru cache or a custom cache with TTL, to store the table schema and avoid repeated calls. Ensure thread safety if needed.
Tech stack
python
Domain
backendcloudapi
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
PythonApache BeamGoogle Cloud BigQuerycaching concepts
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70