Google today announced the general availability of Cloud SQL, which, as its name implies, is a MySQL database that lives in Google’s cloud. Among the new features is the encryption of customer data, a 99.95 percent uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA), and support for databases up to 500GB in size.

First and foremost, Cloud SQL data (database tables and temporary files) is now automatically encrypted. Google says encryption of backups is “coming soon.”

Other Google Cloud SQL security and reliability features include:

All Cloud SQL traffic on Google’s internal networks is encrypted.

External connections can be encrypted using SSL.

All hosts and Google App Engine applications connecting to your instance must be explicitly authorized.

MySQL user grants can be used to control access at the database, table, or even column level.

Data is replicated multiple times in multiple locations.

Scheduled backups are automatically taken by default.

Thanks to replicated storage, Google is now guaranteeing a 99.95 percent availability of the service. Furthermore, the company now considers a single minute of just 20 percent connection failure as a downtime. You can read the full Google Cloud SQL SLA for details.

Last but not least, all Cloud SQL instances can now store up to 500GB. The smallest D0 instance costs $0.025 per hour.

“Your data is replicated multiple times in multiple zones and automatically backed up, all included in the price of the service,” Google says. “And you only pay for the storage that you actually use, so you don’t need to reserve this storage in advance.”

The war in the cloud is only beginning to heat up. Not only are companies like Amazon and Microsoft fighting to increase features and decrease price, but they’re also trying to maintain a very high uptime percentage. Given Google’s regular Gmail woes, the 99.95 percent figure is a bold promise to make.

See also – Google introduces six-month trial for Cloud SQL, ups storage 10x to 100GB, adds EU datacenter and Google debuts four-tiered 24/7 support for its cloud platform services, prices start at $0 to $400 per month

Top Image Credit: Christa Richert

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