Even in the cloud age, database operation is one of the classic IT tasks. In addition to relational databases based on SQL, non-relational databases are increasingly finding their way into companies, which now use more than just one database. The Google Cloud Platform offers a wide range of different databases for various purposes.
In principle, cloud databases can be operated in the same way as in your own data center. To do this, the IT manager simply installs the relevant database as a virtual machine. In this case, administration is equivalent to local administration. Aspects such as high availability, patching, backup and restore, disaster recovery and scaling remain the responsibility of the administrator.
In order to simplify the operation of databases for companies as much as possible, cloud providers also make databases available as a managed service. In this case, the customer is generally only responsible for the application and the database logic, but does not need to worry about operational issues.
Selecting a database
Google is one of the pioneers of the cloud with its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and is one of the three largest cloud providers alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. As such, it offers an extensive portfolio of database technologies. However, choosing the right database is not always easy and should be carefully considered. A catalog of criteria can help with this…
