Google announced the launching of its low-cost cloud storage product called Nearline, which will rival Glacier from Amazon.
The search engine giant decided to offer Nearline given the staggering amount of data produced by users worldwide. Nearline allows users to store cold data and access it faster than the traditional storage data services available in the market.
“Many of you operate a tiered data storage and archival process, in which data moves from expensive online storage to offline cold storage. We know the value of having access to all of your data on demand, so Nearline enables you to easily backup and store limitless amounts of data at a very low cost and access it at any time in a matter of seconds,” according to Google in a blog post.
Google’s Nearline allows users to retrieve data in 3 seconds
According to Google, Nearline allows users to retrieve their stored data in just three seconds. The search engine giant said its pricing is extremely low at one cent per gigabyte of data at rest.
In terms of security, the search engine giant said Nearline provides redundant storage at multiple physical locations to protect users’ data. The company said “OAuth and granular access controls form strong, configurable security.”
In addition, the product is fully integrated with other Google Cloud Storage services, and provides a consistent method of access across its entire service line.
Furthermore, Google said users do not need to adopt new programming models because the service is simple. The data manipulation behavior remains across Google Cloud Storage services.
Google’s Nearline directly competes with Amazon’s Glacier
Amazon.com’s Glacier offers a similar pricing, but it takes 3 to 5 hours before users can access their stored data.
Henry Baltazar, an analyst at Forrester Research told Bloomberg that Nearline is a direct competitor against Amazon.com’s Glacier. He noted that the e-commerce giant hasn’t experience a direct competition in terms of pricing since it started offering the product last year.
Currently, Amazon.com is the leader in cloud services market. The e-commerce giant account for 30% market share compared with 5% market share of Google during the fourth quarter, according to data from Synergy Research Group.
Baltazar said Google is “trying to catch up with the other players. They want to sell more.”
Google’s partnered with leading backup and storage providers including Veritas/Symantec, NetApp , Iron Mountain and Geminare to provide a seamless experience in adopting Nearline.
