Data Backup Digest

While Google Cloud Storage Nearline has been in its beta testing phase for quite some time now, the highly innovative data backup and recovery solution has only recently been unveiled to the public. Considering the service was originally announced in March 2015, consumers have been waiting quite a while to see it firsthand.

Per Google’s own website, their new Cloud Storage Nearline service provides: “A low-cost, highly-durable and highly available storage service for data archiving, online backup and disaster recovery. Data is available instantly, not within hours or days. With 3 second average response times and 1 cent per GB/month pricing, Cloud Storage Nearline gives you terrific performance at a low cost.”

Essentially, Google Cloud Storage Nearline eliminates the need for cold storage, which is an umbrella term that is applied to large amounts of data that are stored cheaply but efficiently. Given the current pricing model announced, as well as the data retrieval times of Cloud Storage Nearline, and the future of cold storage could very well be in question.

As a complementary service, as well as a means of attracting customers to the new Google Cloud Storage Nearline service, the company is also offering a Switch and Save Program, which gives 100 petabytes of free storage space for a period of six months. While this is an extraneous amount that likely won’t be required, especially from small to medium-sized businesses, this does give enterprises plenty of time and storage space to migrate their important files and records from their existing cloud infrastructure.

Furthermore, the team with Google has also made their Cloud Storage Transfer Service available to their customers, as well. This simplifies the entire process of data migration via HTTP and HTTPS networks. Google’s Cloud Storage Transfer Service also supports recurring data transfer scheduling, lifecycle management capabilities, automated data archival and periodic data erasure.

Given the versatility of the Google Cloud Storage Nearline solution, it’s safe to say that Google is ramping up their efforts in order to cater toward the future of cloud computing. Some top competitors of their Cloud Storage Nearline service include the Amazon Glacier service as well as Microsoft’s own Azure Site Recovery Service. While the latter is not considered to be a full-fledged cloud storage platform, it does provide a plethora of disaster recovery services.

Avtandil Garakanidze, product manager for the Google Cloud Platform, explained the primary purpose by Google’s Cloud Storage Nearline in a recent blog posted by saying: “The goal of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is to provide organizations with a simple, low-cost, fast-response storage service with quick data backup, retrieval and access.”

Finally, Google has also released the names of some of their top partners in the Cloud Storage Nearline service. This includes Veritas / Symantec, Iron Mountain, NetApp, Unitrends, Cloudberry Lab, Commvault, Egnyte and many more.

To find out further details about Google’s newly launched Cloud Storage Nearline solution, please visit their website at www.cloud.google.com/nearline. The website will give you all of the necessary information regarding exact services, pricing and even technical support.