Talend Workflows to GCP: Migrating ETL for Performance, Scalability and Efficiency

By Mansoor Sherif
In Application Development and Delivery, Big Data and Analytics, Cloud Applications, Machine Learning
July 10, 2025
5 Min read

Introduction

As data landscapes evolve, organizations that once relied heavily on tools like Talend for their ETL workflows are facing a strategic inflection point. Many are now seeking scalable, cost-effective, and cloud-native alternatives that better align with modern data engineering practices. Google Cloud Platform (GCP), with BigQuery at its core, offers a powerful foundation for migrating and modernizing these legacy pipelines. Let’s explore why and how you can migrate all existing Talend workflows to GCP-native services, unlocking higher performance, lower costs, and a future-proof data platform.

Why Modernize Talend Workflows?

Lower Operational and Licensing Costs

Talend’s licensing model, particularly for the enterprise edition, can be cost-prohibitive, especially as data volumes and the number of ETL jobs grow. GCP-native services such as Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Composer and BigQuery eliminate licensing fees and use a pay-as-you-go model, making budgeting more predictable and scalable.

Improve Performance and Reliability

Talend’s GUI-based design introduces performance and maintenance overhead as pipelines become more complex. GCP services are built for scale, offering distributed computing, parallelism, and autoscaling that Talend lacks natively. Services like BigQuery process petabyte-scale queries in seconds, significantly improving your SLA adherence and responsiveness to business needs.

Enhance Developer Productivity

With flexible development environments like Cloud Composer (based on Apache Airflow), Dataflow (Apache Beam) and support for Python, Java and SQL, GCP allows teams to define ETL jobs as code. This code-first approach encourages CI/CD, automated testing and version control by enhancing maintainability and onboarding.

Seamless Data Ingestion into BigQuery

Whether batch-based, event-driven or streaming, you can preserve the existing ingestion strategies by leveraging Cloud Composer, Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage or Dataflow Transfer Service to feed data directly into BigQuery. This ensures business continuity while enhancing pipeline reliability.

Future-Proofing with Industry Best Practices

Migrating to GCP aligns your data architecture with leading-edge technologies. Whether you’re building a modern Data Lakehouse or implementing real-time analytics, GCP-native ETL services provide a strong foundation for AI/ML integration, advanced governance, and composable data architectures. 

Key Technical Differentiators and Strategic Advantages

To overcome the limitations of Talend, we must address its known bottlenecks
  • High Licensing and Operational Costs: Enterprise licenses and on-prem infrastructure upkeep inflate the total cost of ownership
  • Scalability Constraints: Talend’s engine struggles with large-scale distributed processing
  • Maintenance Complexity: GUI-based logic makes versioning, testing, and refactoring error-prone, especially when collaborating across teams
  • Limited GCP Integration: Native integrations with GCP services ( eg., Pub/Sub, BigQuery, Dataflow) is limited or requires complex adapters
By contrast, GCP-native services offer:
  • Serverless compute (Dataflow, Cloud Run)
  • Declarative orchestration (Cloud Composer)
  • Built-in monitoring (Cloud Logging & Monitoring)
  • Seamless IAM integration for secure access control

GCP-native services (Migrated and Modernized) Architecture

Key Reimagining/Migrating Strategies & Performance Insights

Migration Strategy and Modernization Approach Performance Metrics Insights
Cost Analysis – From Talend to GCP Assess Current Costs
  • Infrastructure Costs: Includes Data centers, on-prem servers, or hosted VMs
  • ETL Processing Costs: Resource-heavy Talend jobs consuming CPU/RAM
  • Licensing Costs: Talend enterprise licensing, plugins, and support contracts
Estimate Migration Costs
  • Compute & Storage: Migration to Compute Engine, BigQuery, or GCS
  • Pipeline Migration: Re-platforming logic from Talend to Dataflow or Composer
  • Data Transfer: Bulk data movement charges using Transfer Appliance or gsutil
Development Expenses
  • Engineering Hours: Refactoring, code conversion, and testing
  • Training & Enablement: Upskilling teams on Airflow, Beam, BigQuery
  • Data Validation: QA cycles and backfill processes
Operational Expenses
  • Cloud Billing: Ongoing usage-based charges
  • Scaling Strategy: Autoscaling options on Dataflow and BigQuery reservations
  • Support: Optional GCP support plans based on business needs
Compute Cost Estimation Key Cost Components
  • Compute: Pay-per-use models in Dataflow, Cloud Run, or GKE
  • Storage: Inexpensive object storage in Cloud Storage, flat-rate/reserved pricing in BigQuery
  • ETL Costs: Dataflow’s pricing is based on job duration and resource usage
Source System Considerations
  • On-Premise to GCP: WAN transfer costs, firewall rule setups
  • Cloud-to-Cloud: Inter-region charges, API compatibility assessments
  • Hybrid Environments: Dedicated interconnect or VPN costs
ETL Workload Breakdown
  • Batch ETL: Scheduled with Cloud Composer + BigQuery load jobs
  • Streaming ETL: Use Pub/Sub and Dataflow for sub-second latency
  • Serverless ETL: Leverage Cloud Functions for small, event-driven logic
Optimized Architecture: Future-State Blueprint

 

 Architecture Assessment and Design
  • Gap Analysis: Review existing Talend workflows to identify inefficiencies and risks
  • Modernized Architecture: Reimagine pipelines using GCP-native services that reduce complexity
  • Compatibility Mapping: Evaluate reusable logic vs. components needing complete reengineering
  • Deliverable: High-level architecture diagram with service interactions, data lineage, and access policies
Phased Migration Plan Adopting a phased approach minimizes risk and accelerates time-to-value Discovery & Planning

  • Inventory Talend jobs by complexity, frequency, and criticality
  • Classify into high-priority candidates for POC or early migration
  • Establish baselines for performance and costs

Foundation Setup

  • Provision GCP environments
  • Establish IAM, VPC, service accounts, and quotas
  • Validate networking, security, and access for dev/test environments

Pilot Migration

  • Select representative batch and streaming jobs
  • Rebuild in Dataflow or Composer with equivalent logic
  • Validate with stakeholder sign-off and performance benchmarks

Full Migration

  • Migrate in sprints, grouped by data domain or source system, with automated testing at each phase
  • Automate testing and data validation at each checkpoint
  • Decommission Talend gradually as dependencies are retired

Optimization and Scaling

  • Monitor performance and usage patterns
  • Introduce BigQuery optimizations (e.g., materialized views, partitioning)
  • Fine-tune job scheduling and resource allocation

Conclusion

Whether you’re just starting your cloud journey or deepening your investment in GCP, Migrating Talend ETL pipelines to GCP-native services is more than a cost-cutting exercise. It’s a strategic modernization initiative that lays the groundwork for a data-driven enterprise. With tools like BigQuery, Dataflow and Composer, your organization can transform legacy workflows into efficient, scalable and intelligent data pipelines. We have successfully assisted numerous clients across various industries by implementing our well-defined and proven approach. Our expertise enables organizations to leverage our services effectively, driving measurable results and sustainable success.

FacebookXLinkedIn

About the author

Mansoor Sherif

Mansoor is a Sr. Practice Manager and an Enterprise Architect with over 19 years of experience in the IT industry, who specializes in helping organizations overcome complex challenges through innovative Big Data, Cloud technologies, Advanced Analytics, and AI solutions. As a thought leader and blogger, Mansoor shares valuable insights on emerging trends and best practices, empowering businesses to leverage cutting-edge technologies for digital transformation and long-term success. Passionate about driving impactful change, Mansoor combines deep technical expertise with strategic vision to deliver transformative solutions that meet the evolving needs of clients.

View all posts

Add comment

Read more

July 31, 2025

A Deep Dive into SAST and DAST: Key Techniques for Securing Software Applications

By Veerababu Pilli
In Application Development and Delivery, Application Security, DevSecOps
July 31, 2025
5 Min read
31July

Introduction As software becomes more complex and exposed to threats, ensuring its protection is more critical than ever. Two essential methods that help address this challenge are Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST). SAST analyzes source code..

July 24, 2025

Unlocking Enterprise Data Potential with SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC)

By Rakesh Gundala
In Big Data and Analytics, Cloud Applications, Digital Transformation & Innovation, Enterprise Technology Strategy
July 24, 2025
4 Min read
24July

Introduction With enterprise data spread across a growing mix of cloud, on-premise, SAP, and non-SAP systems, organizations are increasingly overwhelmed by dispersed data ecosystems. Many organizations struggle to extract trusted insights because their data remains siloed. Enter SAP Business Data..

By Mansoor Sherif July 10, 2025
Add comment
Welcome to Miracle's Blog

Our blog is a great stop for people who are looking for enterprise solutions with technologies and services that we provide. Over the years Miracle has prided itself for our continuous efforts to help our customers adopt the latest technology. This blog is a diary of our stories, knowledge and thoughts on the future of digital organizations.


For contacting Miracle’s Blog Team for becoming an author, requesting content (or) anything else please feel free to reach out to us at blog@miraclesoft.com.

Who we are?

Miracle Software Systems, a Global Systems Integrator and Minority Owned Business, has been at the cutting edge of technology for over 24 years. Our teams have helped organizations use technology to improve business efficiency, drive new business models and optimize overall IT.