Overview

At a high level sharing data with consumer organizations is done via the following steps:

1. Connect Sources: Providers give Bobsled read-only access to the data they wish to transfer to their consumer organizations and set up a data source in Bobsled to specify the location of the data.

2. Create Share: Providers create a data share in Bobsled, selecting a destination, authorizing access, and defining the following configurations:

   • Data loading patterns (e.g. append or overwrite)

   • Query optimization settings (e.g. clustering)

3. Transfer Data: Bobsled transfers the data to the target platform and region specified in the share configuration. Consumers can securely access the shared data from the designated destination.

Bobsled core concepts

Share

A share comprises configuration settings for a source dataset, destination platform and region, data access permissions, loading semantics, and data transfer frequency, along with an event log for activity tracking. It serves as a centralized management hub where users can perform actions such as pausing transfers, revoking access, and deleting shared data. Learn how to Create and manage a share.

Provider

Your organization, that is using Bobsled to transfer data to a consumer organization.

Consumer organizations

The organization that a Provider is transferring data to. Learn how to Create and Manage Consumers and how consumer organizations affect billing.

Data source

In Bobsled, a Data source is a connection to the data provider's data location, a bucket containing files, or a data warehouse with tables. You can set up sources in Bobsled to access the data you want to send to a consumer via a Share. Once you have a source set up, you can easily configure a share to use it so a single source can be used across multiple shares and consumers. See currently supported sources.

Destination

In Bobsled, a destination is a fully managed instance of the chosen platform that provides a secure and isolated environment for your data. Bobsled supports some externally managed destinations too. When you create a destination, Bobsled automatically sets up a dedicated account and the required infrastructure for the chosen platform, which is only used by your organization. This means that you don't need any pre-existing knowledge, accounts, or relationships with the target platform to share data in your consumer's chosen platform. Bobsled also supports writing directly to select externally managed destinations. See currently supported Destinations.

NOTE:
If you are a consumer who has been granted access to shared data via Bobsled, and you want to learn how to access that data, see the ‘Consuming a transfer’ guide for the relevant Destination.

Transfers

A transfer is the process of moving data from the provider's source data to any given destination. Learn more about transferring data.