Materialized views are a functionality designed to simplify working with complex data by storing the results of queries. The primary purpose of materialized views is the efficient storage of complex aggregations or queries without significantly impacting the database.
With materialized views, there's no need to create new queries every time you want to access previously obtained information. They physically store information at a specific point in time and allow combining data from different tables.
The use of materialized views in data processing offers several crucial advantages:
1. Performance Improvement: Achieved by preprocessing complex queries and subsequently storing their results on disk.
2. Time Savings: Materialized views allow much faster retrieval of needed data from a new perspective rather than recalculating it.
3. Consistent Actions: Under specific configurations, materialized views ensure the availability of information in multi-user environments.
4. Simplified Data Storage: Enables combining complex query logic in a table.
5. Increased Query Flexibility: Materialized views participate in forming complex analytical queries as intermediate sources of information.
However, they also have some drawbacks:
1. Data Quickly Becomes Outdated: Periodic data staleness leads to inconsistencies between the results of previous queries and the latest information obtained from recent updates.
2. Usage Limitations: Materialized views are designed for specific operations and do not work well with overly complex queries.
3. Limitations on Updates: Automatic data update increases the load on the server.
Despite these drawbacks, materialized views contribute to speeding up information retrieval and data processing. They simplify and optimize data access, enhancing query performance, especially when information processing consumes significant time and resources.
If you work with GA4 to BigQuery exports, be sure to check out my SQL cheat sheet.
