Data storage and retrieval can be tricky business for large companies, especially when said data is hidden away deep within archives or stored in offline repositories. Google (GOOG) is looking to help organizations gain faster and easier access to their information with the general availability of Google Cloud Storage Nearline, a service designed to provide users with a fast and low-cost alternative to data storage.

Michael Cusanelli, Associate Editor

July 23, 2015

2 Min Read
Google Announces General Availability of Cloud Storage Nearline

Data storage and retrieval can be tricky business for large companies, especially when said data is hidden away deep within archives or stored in offline repositories. Google (GOOG) is looking to help organizations gain faster and easier access to their information with the general availability of Google Cloud Storage Nearline, a service designed to provide users with a fast and low-cost alternative to data storage.

Google Cloud Storage Nearline was introduced in March via a beta program, and offered customers the ability to store data for one cent per gigabyte for data at rest. The service boasts data retrieval times of about three seconds and is fully integrated with the rest of Google’s Cloud Storage services, according to the announcement. As of today, Cloud Storage Nearline is available to all customers with an expected 99 percent uptime SLA as well as on-demand I/O, lifecycle management and an increased partner ecosystem.

Straight from the press release, here is a breakdown of some of the new features available in Nearline:

  • On-Demand I/O allows users to increase I/O when data needs to be retrieved faster than the standard 4 MB/s read throughput per TB of data stored, meaning customers only pay for increased throughput when it is needed. Google is offering offer on-demand I/O for free for the first three months after the service launches.

  • Google made its Cloud Storage Transfer Service (previously known as Online Cloud Import) generally available, so that organizations can import online data from HTTP/HTTPS locations into Google Cloud Storage. Both one-time data migrations and recurring data transfers are available via configuration, and lifecycle management options are also available.

  • A Switch and Save program will provide new users with 100PB of free storage in Cloud Storage Nearline for up to six months as a way to entice users to switch to Google’s service. However, customers are required to commit to migrate at least one petabyte of data into Google Cloud Storage within the first three months of signup.

Nearline users will have access to an increased partner ecosystem as well, with Google announcing five new partners including Actifio, Pixitmedia, and Unitrends, among others. Several new global storage vendors have also been added to the program, including Commvault, EMC and Egnyte.

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About the Author(s)

Michael  Cusanelli

Associate Editor, Penton Technology Group, Channel

Michael Cusanelli is the associate editor for Penton Technology’s channel properties, including The VAR Guy, MSPmentor and Talkin' Cloud. He has written articles and produced video for Newsday.com and is a graduate of Stony Brook University's School of Journalism in New York. In his spare time Michael likes to play video games, watch sci-fi movies and participate in all things nerdy. He can be reached at [email protected]

 

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