This guide describes how to prepare a Google BigLake metastore for use with StreamNative Ursa as an Iceberg REST catalog. For background, see the Google Cloud documentation: Use the BigLake metastore Iceberg REST catalog.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.streamnative.io/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Prerequisites
- A GCP project with permissions to create BigLake catalogs and modify IAM roles
- A StreamNative Ursa cluster running on GCP
1. Create a BigLake Catalog
In the Google Cloud Console, search for BigLake.
Important:In the Authentication section, choose Credential vending mode.
- The bucket must be in the same region as your StreamNative Ursa cluster, otherwise cross-region traffic and latency are introduced.
- BigLake does not support sub-directories within a bucket. Each BigLake catalog maps to exactly one bucket (1:1 mapping).



2. Grant IAM Roles to the Ursa Broker Service Account
Locate the StreamNative Ursa broker service account (the format is typicallyiamaccount-<id>@<gcp-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com).

- BigLake Editor
- Storage Object User
- Service Usage Consumer


Catalog Information Summary
When the steps above are complete, collect the following values for the StreamNative Ursa compaction service. Several values are fixed for any BigLake catalog — copy them as-is.| Value | Description |
|---|---|
iceberg.catalog-backend | BIGLAKE |
iceberg.type | rest |
iceberg.uri | The REST Catalog URI from step 1 (typically https://biglake.googleapis.com/iceberg/v1/restcatalog) |
iceberg.warehouse | The GCS Warehouse from step 1 (e.g., gs://<bucket-name>) |
iceberg.header.x-goog-user-project | The Project from step 1 |
iceberg.rest.auth.type | org.apache.iceberg.gcp.auth.GoogleAuthManager (fixed) |
iceberg.io-impl | org.apache.iceberg.gcp.gcs.GCSFileIO (fixed) |
iceberg.rest-metrics-reporting-enabled | false (fixed — BigLake does not yet support REST metrics reporting) |
iceberg.header.X-Iceberg-Access-Delegation | vended-credentials (fixed) |