Storage, like computing and network, is a critical resource in today’s technological systems and software development. Whether your systems are on-premises, in the cloud, or both, you must always rely on storage components to keep your data safe. However, if you are used to the world of data centers, such as Google Cloud Storage—with SAN, NAS, and local hard drives—and are just getting started with public cloud storage; the notion of cloud-based storage and the many options available for it may be confusing.
In this article, we will Understand Google Cloud Storage: Secure, Durable, and Scalable Object Storage. Let us start!
About Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage has you covered if you’re searching for a unified cloud storage solution that’s secure and intelligent, whether you’re wanting to cut expenses or guarantee your data pipeline stays safe and accessible. This GCP service saves your objects, often known as data files, on the architecture of Google Cloud. All of these files are saved in buckets, which function similarly to virtual filing folders; and may be assigned to a specific project within your business. Your data can be classified into the following storage classes: Standard (now in use), Nearline (accessed seldom), Coldline (accessed infrequently or archived), and Archive (accessed less than once a year).
Your Google Cloud Storage fees are decided by your capacity consumption and data outflow. Depending on your demands, you may scale up or down your storage service.
Google Cloud Storage Overview
Google Cloud, is an online file storage web service that uses the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure to store and retrieve your files. It provides globally uniform, scalable, and extremely long-lasting object storage. Google Cloud, which is aimed primarily at developers and companies; offers numerous storage classes, allowing you to choose the price plan that is most suited to your data. These tiers are Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive, and they differ based on the regularity with which you need to retrieve your data, as well as the speed and durability of the storage you require.
Other major characteristics include the ability to optimize pricing and performance across storage types through the use of built-in Object Lifecycle Management. If you match the criteria, you will transfer to lower-cost classes. There are also other automated redundancy options available with Google’s increasing number of global server locations; allowing organizations to optimize for fast response times or construct a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy.
Image source – Google
To determine if Google Cloud is right for you, consider how many activities or processes your company is likely to execute with its data. This is due to the fact that Google Workspace, Google’s business apps package, provides cloud storage for $6 per user per month for unlimited activities, which may be a more cost-effective cloud storage alternative.
Key Features
Here’s a look at some of the other main aspects of Google Cloud Storage, in addition to price, to help you get a better understanding of the service as a whole.
Lifecycle Management of Objects
This feature allows you to design and add conditions to a bucket that may result in data destruction or move you to a less expensive storage class. These terms apply to both present and future objects in the bucket. If an item fits the requirements of any or all of the conditions you provide, Cloud Storage will conduct the chosen action automatically.
Versioning of Objects
Do you want to maintain a record of the things you’ve saved; and have access to them even if they are destroyed or overwritten? This is possible because to object versioning. To secure your files, enable this Cloud Storage function in a bucket. It can raise storage expenses, however, you may eliminate outdated versions of your items using Object Lifecycle Management.
Object Holds Retention Policies and Bucket Lock
If you have things that you cannot remove for any reason, these three features will come in helpful. You may specify settings for how long existing and future items will remain in a bucket using Retention Policies. When an Object Hold option enables in your policy; the file cannot be overwritten or destroyed until it reaches the age indicated in the retention policy.
Bucket locks are a more powerful option. Once you’ve established a locked retention policy, you can’t change or shorten the term you select. It’s unstoppable. This implies you can’t remove a bucket until all of its objects have reached the end of its retention term. The duration of your retention period can increase but not decrease.
Permissions for Objects and Buckets
You can restrict who has access to your buckets and objects by using Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM), a future topic we’ll cover in GCP 101. Furthermore, You may provide users access to all items in a bucket by adding them at the bucket level. You can even be more granular by granting individual people object-level rights without granting them access to other data in a budget.
Access at Every Bucket Level
Do you want to restrict who has access to which buckets? You may control access to your storage resources by using Google Cloud Storage’s Uniform Bucket-Level Access. Access Control Lists are present in all accounts (ACLs).
Encryption Keys
encryption key offers standard, server-side encryption keys for your storage solution, but you can go a step further by providing your own for an extra degree of protection. These encryption keys are from the customer in use to encrypt data; the object’s CRC32C checksum, and the MD5 hash. Your encryption keys are not present on the Cloud Storage Server indefinitely. After the transaction is complete, they get remove from Google’s servers. The final alternative is to employ an external Key Management Service (KMS), which eliminates the requirement to keep keys on GCP even temporarily.
Pricing
By storing data across several storage types, you may save money without losing speed. You can begin with a class that corresponds to your present use and subsequently reconfigure it for cost savings.
Standard Storage is Ideal for “hot” material; that is often access, such as webpages, streaming movies, and mobile apps.
Nearline storage is inexpensive. Excellent for material that you can keep for at least 30 days, such as backups and long-tail multimedia content.
Coldline storage is quite inexpensive. Data that you can hold for at least 90 days, including catastrophe recovery, is suitable.
Archive storage is the cheapest option. Excellent for data that you can keep for at least 365 days, such as regulatory archives.
Google Cloud vs Google One: What is Google One?
Google One, not to be confused with Google Cloud; is a consumer cloud storage service that includes Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. These both have a free storage allowance of 15GB; which can extend to 100GB for $1.99 per month (with a discount for prepaying annually, totaling $19.99 per year).
This also provides you with 24-hour access to Google experts via chat, email, and phone, as well as the opportunity to add family members. Users with 2TB or higher subscriptions can earn 10% back on Google Store purchases. Plans with up to 30TB of storage cost $299.99 per month ($3,599.88 per year). However, it would be difficult to fill this space; Because many of the products that may upload take up no storage space at all; such as Google Docs, Forms, Sheets, Site, and Slides.
The high-quality movie and photo settings also don’t take up more space: Google One can keep images up to 16 megapixels and films up to full HD. Furthermore, Google Pixel phone owners get access to an infinite amount of photographs and movies that do not count towards the quota. Overall, Google One is a user-friendly storage solution that effortlessly syncs across devices and allows for easy organization of saved files. You may also learn more about Google Drive by reading our in-depth Google Drive review.
Conclusion
While designing and architecting your system, it is critical to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each storage type, as well as the expenses connected with them. Cloud Volumes ONTAP is now available for usage with Google Cloud, which will likely appeal to current NetApp users looking to learn how to use Google Cloud storage. NetApp’s pioneering cloud data management platform, which has been a major success for organizations in AWS and Azure, can now begin to make use of the benefits of Google Cloud.
