MaxCompute and Data Analytics

Alibaba Cloud offers a comprehensive suite of big data and analytics services. At the centre is MaxCompute (formerly ODPS), a fully managed data warehousing solution that can process massive datasets.

---

What is MaxCompute?

MaxCompute is a serverless, distributed data warehouse that handles petabyte-scale data processing. It is Alibaba Cloud's answer to AWS Redshift, Google BigQuery, or Azure Synapse.

Key Characteristics

• Serverless — no infrastructure to manage; pay for compute and storage
• Massive scale — processes petabytes of data with thousands of nodes
• SQL-based — uses a dialect of SQL for data processing
• Integrated — works seamlessly with other Alibaba Cloud data services

What MaxCompute Handles

Capability	Description
SQL queries	Ad-hoc and scheduled analytical queries
ETL processing	Transform and clean large datasets
Machine learning	Built-in ML algorithms via PAI integration
Data storage	Store structured and semi-structured data
Graph computation	Process graph-based data models

---

MaxCompute Architecture