Google has announced a number of changes for their Cloud SQL service that improve the service and bring more options for those considering the service.
Google Cloud SQL is part of Google’s App Engine platform that allows developers to use Google’s infrastructure for hosting applications. As part of App Engine, Google always offered their own own NoSQL database solution for applications hosted on their infrastructure. Additionally it was not feasible to connect to an external MySQL server from a Google App Engine application. About a year ago, however, Google announced that they would begin offering a more traditional MySQL-based database solution.
Now they have ramped up that option with support for faster, and larger instances. The maximum possible storage capacity for database instances has been increased from 10GB to 100GB. For those that need even faster read speeds, now Google offers instances supporting up to 16GB RAM for caching data. Google is also adding an option for asynchronous replication, which should boost the write speed of the database.
Along with all these changes, Google is also launching datacenters in the EU, for those who prefer that region for hosting their data.
Another area that has been improved is integration with Google App Script, which now allows communication with hosted databases from Google Sheets and forms directly.
Finally, for those who want to try Google’s Cloud SQL server before considering shifting to it, there is also a trial version available for the first time. The free trial includes a 0.5 GB database instance for 6 months, and is effective until June 1, 2013.
You can find out more about Google Cloud SQL and its pricing here.
