Managed data services.
WHAT CLOUD SQL PROVIDES
Managed relational databases, with backups, replication and patching handled.
What it suits: most applications, and anything moving from an existing relational database.
WHAT FIRESTORE PROVIDES
A document database with real-time updates and offline support in client applications.
What it suits: application data accessed directly by clients.
WHAT BIGQUERY PROVIDES
Analytical querying over very large datasets.
What it suits: analysis and reporting, not transactional workloads.
Why it is different: it is billed by data processed, not by capacity provisioned.
WHAT SPANNER PROVIDES
A relational database scaling horizontally with strong consistency.
What it suits: very large transactional systems.
What it costs: substantially more than the alternatives.
WHAT MEMORYSTORE PROVIDES
Managed caching.
WHAT TO CHOOSE BY DEFAULT
A managed relational database, unless there is a specific reason otherwise.
WHAT TO CONFIGURE REGARDLESS
Backups and retention Private connectivity rather than public addresses Authentication through platform identity rather than stored passwords
WHAT TO TEST
Restoring from backup.
