Google Cloud Storage adds several highly requested features
By Navneet Joneja, Product Manager
Google Cloud Storage enables
you to use our storage and network infrastructure to store and access your data with high
reliability, scale
and performance. Today, we’re launching several frequently requested new features:
Signed URLs and updated browser uploads
Many of you have asked us for "virtual valet keys" that give limited access to specific data
to the bearer for a short time, enabling them to implement application-managed access control
for mobile applications, premium content distribution, and so on. You can now implement these
applications and more using
short-lived
signed URLs to address any object stored in Google Cloud Storage. This feature gives
your application another powerful tool to control access to any piece of data. You can also
use this feature to enable
browser-based
uploads from your end users to Google Cloud Storage without requiring them to have
Google accounts (browser-based uploads were previously limited to the interoperable API). URL
signing is implemented using PKCS-12 keys and the industry-standard RSA algorithm and is
currently experimental.
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
We now support
configuring storage
buckets to return appropriate
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) headers,
which streamlines the development of advanced JavaScript applications (such as browser-based
games) using Google Cloud Storage. Other uses include serving web fonts from Google Cloud
Storage and enabling trusted JavaScript access from your
App Engine applications.
gsutil 3.0
We've been hard at work making gsutil easier to use at all levels. This latest release
includes significant enhancements:
- A refactored, cleaner code-base
- Better in-tool documentation
- Easy in-place update to new releases
- Multithreaded operations
- A hierarchical file tree abstraction layer that maps more closely to the way
traditional file systems are organized.
To try all these features and more, download the latest version of gsutil (
zip,
tarball). Please
note that wildcard and list bucket semantics have changed in gsutil to make the tool easier to
use in a broad variety of use cases. You can read all about the latest update in the
release
notes.
We also recently reduced storage
prices across
all usage tiers by up to 15%.
As always, we welcome your feedback in our
discussion group. If you
haven’t tried Google Cloud Storage yet, you can sign up and get started
here.
Navneet Joneja loves being at the forefront of the next generation of simple and
reliable software infrastructure, the foundation on which next-generation technology is being
built. When not working, he can usually be found dreaming up new ways to entertain his
intensely curious almost-two-year-old.
Posted by Scott Knaster,
Editor
