Data Backup Digest

New data is being created every second. As the data we create continues to grow, we need to find somewhere suitable to store it. This means knowing the difference between data you access often and data you rarely (if ever) access, then storing accordingly. Businesses need to hold on to all their data because it can all come in useful for market analysis, but at the same time this needs to be done cost effectively. Data may be expanding, but that doesn’t mean costs have to inflate too.

Google have recently introduced a new service, Google Cloud Storage Nearline. It is, according to them, a “simple, low-cost, fast-response storage service with quick data backup, retrieval and access”. Created to rival Amazon Glacier, Google are hoping to draw consumers to their service through attractive pricing and speedy retrieval.

This service targets a different audience than those using something like Google Drive. Nearline won’t serve data as quickly as that, but is instead a cloud alternative to backup services that store data offline. For example, it saves businesses having to run their own storage systems.

Nearline costs $0.01 per GB per month, making it an attractive alternative to competitors in the market. Google claim that the data can be retrieved in around three seconds, which makes it great for enterprise backups or even live services that don’t need low latency.

The data will be stored in a variety of locations to make sure that the reliability of the service is upheld and ensuring files are accessible even if one point goes down.

As this is intended primarily as a backup and archiving tool, rather than data that requires constant access, there is an additional $0.01 per GB cost every time you access a file. There’s also a fee that is charged if you delete data stored for less than 30 days.

While some may find themselves better suited to backup services like Backblaze or CrashPlan, offering a simply monthly cost to store any amounts of data, Nearline may work out cheaper depending on how much data you want to store and how often it’ll be accessed.

However, redundancy is the main word when it comes to backup. It may be that these services can all complement one another, with unlimited backup services providing day-to-day data and Nearline serving the archive need.

Of course, Nearline is fully integrated with other Google Cloud Storage services, ensuring that customers are fully invested into the Google ecosystem.

Google has also worked with a number of their partners to serve up Nearline to their customers, including Symantec, NetApp, Iron Mountain and Geminare.

“Google has a lot of cold storage and have mastered efficiencies of it,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. “They are taking what they used in-house and packaged it up with third parties for others to leverage.”

For more information on Google Cloud Storage Nearline, be sure to read Google’s {{https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/nearline-storage|official documentation}} on their new offering, with instructions on how to create and verify a new Nearline bucket.