Google Cloud Storage

2012

In March, 2012 it was announced that the flagship product of Amanda Enterprise (AE) of Zmanda company allows to perform backup of business critical data of servers, PC and applications in corporate networks not only on disks, a tape or optical drives now, but also directly in a cloud service of Google Cloud Storage. Read more here.

2013

Automatic enciphering by default

The data which are stored a cloud service of Cloud Storage of Google company in the automatic mode will be ciphered, the press service of the company reported on August 20, 2013.

According to the statement of Google, the entered innovation will not demand from clients of any independent activity and will not affect platform performance. Decoding of data will also happen in the automatic mode, when receiving access to them by authorized users. In addition, clients will have an opportunity of independent setup of data encryption.

It is announced that data and metadata will be ciphered using unique key 128-bits long - Advanced Encryption Standard, and the key of an object will be in addition protected by one more master code. Passwords and financial information usually can be protected using more difficult 256-bit algorithm, however and the protection provided by Google is rather reliable. So far only the new information coming to Google Cloud Storage is subject to automatic enciphering. The data which are stored in "cloud" of Google Cloud Storage will be ciphered within the coming months. Shortly probably the ordinary users using Google Drive will also get access to similar functionality.

The operating quotations on information storage: at placement less than 1 Tb of data the cost of storage of 1 GB of information is $0.085 a month. Further, on condition of increase in amounts of the data placed on service, the cost of services for clients falls.

2015

Google started Cloud Storage Nearline service

On March 11, 2015 it became known of start of a cloud service of Cloud Storage Nearline by Google company. It is intended for archived data storage and backup copies. The cost of its use is comparable to the cost of capacity of the hard drive and there are no restrictions on the capacity^[1].

The cost of storage of 1 GB of information in a Google service of Cloud Storage Nearline of $0.01 a month that is comparable to the cost of 1 GB of capacity of the hard drive available in retail. For comparison, the cost of the cloud storage of Google Cloud Storage of $0.026 a month for 1 GB of capacity.

In addition to payment for data storage, the user of Cloud Storage Nearline should pay for reading these data — also $0.01 for each gigabyte.

The minimum period of payment - one month: if the client, for example, writes one thousand gigabytes in the first day, and will delete all data on the second, after 30 days he will pay $10 as though these data were stored on servers of Google all this time. It belongs also to rewriting. If the client decides to rewrite information earlier than in 30 days, he should pay monthly storage of initial data proceeding from their volume and separately for record of new data.

According to representatives of provider, Cloud Storage Nearline represents something between the cloud and "cold" storage. In "cold" storage data can be placed, for example, on the magnetic tapes which are not connected to the Internet. After sending a request for extraction of data there can pass several minutes, hours or even days before these data are provided. In the cloud storage access is provided for milliseconds, and in Google Cloud Storage Nearline — in 3-5 seconds.

Comparison of time of data access in standard storage (Online), Nearline and "holodnom" storage storage (Offline), 2015

Cloud Storage Nearline can be used for storage of backup copies, event logs and other volume necessary information which address not often. One more scope of a product are mail and other services which need high access rate to information which is stored in archives. At last, innovation has close integration with other services Google Cloud Storage and will be supported by a number of producers of software in the field of data management.

So, the backup system of Symantec NetBackup will receive compatibility with Google Cloud Storage Nearline in version 7.7. Thanks to this integration of the company will be able easily to manage lifecycle a backup copies and to store recovery points for any protected information. Besides, Google agreed about cooperation with NetApp, Iron Mountain and Geminare whose products will get access to opportunities of Cloud Storage Nearline.

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