Google Cloud Platform: new features, lower prices, extending European
datacenters
By Jessie Jiang, Product Management Director
(Cross-posted on the Official
Google Enterprise Blog.)
We're constantly making updates to our Google Cloud Platform products—Google App Engine, Cloud
Storage, Big Query, Compute Engine and others—based on user feedback and to improve the
overall experience. For example, two weeks ago we
introduced
a major update to Google Cloud SQL providing faster performance, larger databases (100GB), an
EU zone, and a
no-cost trial. But, we
know there is more to do. Today, we’re continuing to improve the platform with new storage and
compute capabilities, significantly lower prices, and more European Datacenter support.
Lower storage prices and new Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) Storage
Updated 3:23 PM to provide more details about DRA. To
give you more flexibility in your storage options and prices, we’re
reducing the price of standard Google
Cloud Storage by over 20% and introducing a limited preview of
Durable
Reduced Availability (DRA) storage. DRA storage lowers prices by reducing some data
availability, while maintaining the same latency performance and durability as standard Google
Cloud Storage. This makes it a great option for batch compute jobs that can easily be
rescheduled or for data backup where quick access to your data is important. DRA achieves cost
savings by keeping fewer redundant replicas of data. Unlike other reduced redundancy cloud
storage offerings, DRA is implemented in a manner that maintains data durability so you don't
have to worry about losing your data in the cloud.
And, to automatically keep a history of old versions of your data, we’re introducing
Object
Versioning. You can also use it to help protect against deleting or overwriting your
data by mistake or due to an application error.
More European Datacenter support
We are continuing to roll out our
European
Datacenter support. Now, customers using Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage,
Google Cloud SQL and (soon) Google Compute Engine can deploy their applications, data and
virtual machines to European Datacenters. This helps bring your solutions even closer to your
customers for faster performance and enables international redundancy.
36 New Compute Engine instance types and overall reduced prices
Earlier this year we
introduced
a Limited Preview of Google Compute Engine with four standard instance types. Today, we are
announcing
36 additional
instance types and are
reducing the price of our original 4
standard instances by about 5% for those currently in our preview. In the coming
weeks, the following will be available:
- High Memory Instance - High performance instances tailored for
applications that demand large amounts of memory.
- High CPU Instance - Reduced cost option when applications don’t
require as much memory.
- Diskless Configurations - Lower cost options for applications
that do not require ephemeral disk and can exclusively utilize persistent disk.
We are also introducing
Persistent
Disk Snapshotting which makes it simple to instantly create a backup of your disk,
move it around Google datacenters, and use the snapshot to start up a new VM.
We want to thank you, the community of developers and businesses who are pushing the platform
into new areas and building innovative applications. We look forward to seeing where you take
it next. Find out more about the new
Cloud Storage pricing and
Compute Engine
instances.
Sign up now and get
started today.
Jessie Jiang is the Product Management Director, Google Cloud Platform. She is
passionate about building the best platform for developers and businesses in the
cloud.
Posted by Scott Knaster,
Editor
