# Provider A provider is an implementation of a feature store using specific feature store components (e.g. offline store, online store) targeting a specific environment (e.g. GCP stack). Providers orchestrate various components (offline store, online store, infrastructure, compute) inside an environment. For example, the `gcp` provider supports [BigQuery](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery) as an offline store and [Datastore](https://cloud.google.com/datastore) as an online store, ensuring that these components can work together seamlessly. Feast has three built-in providers (`local`, `gcp`, and `aws`) with default configurations that make it easy for users to start a feature store in a specific environment. These default configurations can be overridden easily. For instance, you can use the `gcp` provider but use Redis as the online store instead of Datastore. If the built-in providers are not sufficient, you can create your own custom provider. Please see [this guide](https://docs.feast.dev/v0.28-branch/how-to-guides/customizing-feast/creating-a-custom-provider) for more details. Please see [feature\_store.yaml](https://docs.feast.dev/v0.28-branch/reference/feature-repository/feature-store-yaml#overview) for configuring providers. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.feast.dev/v0.28-branch/getting-started/architecture-and-components/provider.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.