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Google adds SQL Server to its cloudy database collection

Nearline storage mystery deepens as Cloud SQL, Datastore and Bigtable go live

Google's cloud has grown more database options.

The big move for those in the former camp is the addition of Microsoft's SQL Server to Google Compute Engine, a decision the company says was made because “Our top enterprise customers emphasize the importance of continuity for their mission-critical applications.”

It's not hard to unpack that sentence as Google having been told it has a fine cloud, but not so fine that users would re-tool applications to get into it. Adding SQL Server brings Google to parity with its main rivals, not a bad thing.

The company is also trying to leapfrog those rivals with its own databases. It's now got three and they're all generally available.

Cloud SQL is a cloudified cut of MySQL 5.7. Google reckons it's seriously fast and has slim latency. But then they would say that, wouldn't they?

Cloud Datastore is a NoSQL document database and Cloud Bigtable is an Apache HBase client-compatible NoSQL wide-column database service.

To give DBAs and developers more confidence, Google has also boosted maximum read/write IOPS from 15,000 to 25,000 in persistent solid state disk volumes and added the option to bring your own encryption keys to your cloud database.

Another change to Google's cloud means the guessing game about just what kind of hardware lurks behind Google's Nearline service needs revisiting. The service used to offer between three and five seconds' latency when asked to retrieve an object. Google says it's reduced that to “times and throughput similar to Standard class objects.”

That's handy for those wielding the databases mentioned above, and Google's BigQuery service because it means faster access to data deemed worthy of cheaper storage. ®

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