Google Cloud database news roundup, August 2024 edition

August tends to be a quiet month in tech, but not for the Google Cloud database team. Cloud Next happened in Tokyo this month, bringing you groundbreaking announcements, product updates and inspiring customer stories. So grab a cup of coffee and let's dive into the latest from Google Cloud databases. 

Key announcements at Google Cloud Next in Tokyo

Spanner

• Spanner Graph: We announced Spanner Graph in preview, a groundbreaking offering that brings graph database capabilities to Spanner, our always-on, globally consistent, and virtually unlimited-scale database. Get started with Spanner Graph here.

• Spanner full-text search: lets you search a table to find words, phrases, or integers, instead of just searching for exact matches in structured fields. Spanner full-text search capabilities also include making spelling corrections, automating language detection of search input, and ranking search results. To learn more, read this whitepaper on this topic.

• Spanner Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) vector search: Available in preview, you can now index and search vector embeddings to power AI-driven semantic search.

• Spanner editions: With Spanner editions, you can choose the ideal blend of features, flexibility, and cost-savings for your applications, now in preview. Whether you need the essential capabilities of Standard edition, the powerful multi-model features of Enterprise edition, or the highest levels of availability and performance with Enterprise Plus edition, there's a Spanner edition to suit your unique requirements.

Bigtable

• We announced Bigtable support for GoogleSQL, an ANSI-compliant SQL dialect. Now you can use SQL with Bigtable to write applications for AI, fraud detection, data mesh, recommendations, or any other application that would benefit from real-time data. 

• The Bigtable Studio query editor is available in Preview. For more information, see Manage your data using Bigtable Studio.

• Bigtable aggregates let our customers build distributed counters and aggregate their Bigtable data at write time using min, max, sum, or HLL.

Cloud SQL 

• Cloud SQL for SQL Server Enterprise Plus edition is now GA. It comes with two new machine families for enhanced performance, higher memory/vCPU, data cache for improved read performance, advanced disaster recovery (DR) and 99.99% availability. 

How businesses are transforming with Google Cloud databases

Learn from our recent customer success stories

• Bayer's migration to AlloyDB for PostgreSQL for its Field Answers solution was prompted by the need for a new database solution to handle increased traffic, and has resulted in streamlined operations, centralized solutions, and improved collaboration.

• Lightricks utilized the pgvector extension in Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL to improve the search functionality of its Videoleap video editor, resulting in a 40% increase in retrieval rates.

• Endear, an omnichannel customer relationship management (CRM) platform, migrated to AlloyDB for PostgreSQL to address scalability concerns and meet the growing demands of its retail brand clients, ensuring continued delivery of high-performing solutions.

• Maxxton, a hospitality industry service provider, has improved app performance by up to 60% and paved the way for a smooth transition from legacy databases to cloud-based database services by migrating to Bare Metal Solution for Oracle on Google Cloud.

• Deckmatch leverages Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL to store comprehensive company data, enabling venture capitalists to access in-depth insights on startups and their competition, thereby streamlining decision-making and freeing them to focus on strategic initiatives.

Additional database product updates

Here are some the recent key product updates across our databases portfolio:

Gen AI with databases

• Support for LangChain on Vertex AI for AlloyDB and Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL: Support for LangChain on Vertex AI lets developers build, deploy, query, and manage AI agents and reasoning frameworks in a secure, scalable, and reliable way using their favorite database like AlloyDB and Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL. 

AlloyDB 

• Ready to unlock the future of PostgreSQL? Dive into our new AlloyDB e-book and discover the innovative database that's redefining performance, scalability, and simplicity.

• Take AlloyDB for a free, 30-day test drive with our new trial clusters and experience the power of 8 vCPUs, 64 GB RAM, and 1 TB of storage – no strings attached!

• Gemini in Databases assistance in AlloyDB for PostgreSQL is now available in preview for standard and enhanced query insights, system insights, index advisor, and active queries. You can use Gemini assistance to help you monitor and troubleshoot your AlloyDB resources. For more information, see Monitor and troubleshoot with Gemini assistance.

• Query federation between BigQuery and AlloyDB is now available in preview. This feature lets you use BigQuery to query data stored in AlloyDB databases.

Cloud SQL

• Cloud SQL Studio, now in GA, offers interactive database exploration, modification, and querying with object explorer and AI-powered collaboration.

• IAM Group authentication, now in GA for Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and Cloud SQL for MySQL. IAM-based database authentication enhances security and operational efficiency, enabling customers to manage database access at the IAM group level, simplifying access management.

Memorystore

• A single-zone cluster for Memorystore for Redis Cluster is now in GA. 

Oracle Database@Google Cloud

• Google Cloud and Oracle announced an exciting new strategic cloud partnership that enables customers to migrate and run mission-critical enterprise workloads seamlessly across Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Learn more here. 

Spanner

• Geo-partitioning is now available in public preview. Geo-partitioning allows Spanner customers to distribute their table data, at the row-level, into different data partitions that can be placed across the globe. This partitioned data still behaves as a single cohesive table for queries and mutations.

• Spanner now supports dual-region instance configurations in Australia, Germany, India, and Japan. Dual-region configurations let our customers replicate data in multiple zones across two regions in a single country. This helps them meet their data residency requirements, while taking advantage of 99.999% availability.

Database Migration Service (DMS)

• DMS now fully supports Percona Xtrabackups. This will allow customers with very large MySQL workloads to migrate much faster to Cloud SQL for MySQL. 

Datastream

• Datastream now supports SQL Server as a source in GA. Customers can replicate data from SQL Server databases to various Google Cloud destinations (BigQuery, Cloud Storage, etc.), enabling near-real-time analytics, decision-making, AI applications, and data lake creation.

Get started today

Stay tuned for more exciting developments in next month’s roundup! In the meantime, explore our Google Cloud databases homepage to discover how we can help you achieve your goals or contact us today!