From Click to Chart: Building a Real-Time Analytics Engine - Beam College 2026

This session, ""From Click to Chart,"" demystifies the engineering behind real-time analytics. We will trace the lifecycle of a data point as it travels through a modern Google Cloud Platform (GCP) architecture, moving from ingestion to visualization in seconds. Using Apache Beam, we will explore how to build a unified pipeline that handles massive streams of data without the need to manage servers. Key Points Addressed: -The ""Why"" of Streaming: Understanding the shift from traditional Batch processing to Real-Time Streaming. -The Architecture: A deep dive into the ""Golden Path"" stack: Cloud Pub/Sub (Ingest) $\rightarrow$ Dataflow (Process) $\rightarrow$ BigQuery (Store). -Apache Beam Fundamentals: Introduction to the unified programming model, including Windowing (how to group infinite data) and Watermarks (handling late data).