Nearline Storage by Google Cheaply Stores Infrequently Used Data
There’s several cases in which an organization would need to store data long term but not access it frequently. Google’s cloud platform now contains a feature called Nearline Storage, which is design to facilitate such a task at a cost similar to offline options.
Corporate organizations may be required to keep compliance documents, information pertaining to audits and other types of records that may not need to be accessed frequently, or at all, but still need to be stored. Google’s Nearline Storage is a solution that allows you to setup this type of long term storage with just a few clicks of your mouse. Best of all, Nearline Storage costs less than regular storage and it can be accessed rapidly when needed.
Google product manager Avtandil Garakanidze writes, “The amount of data being produced around the world is staggering and continues to grow at an exponential rate; Given this growing volume of data, it’s critical that you store it in the right way — keeping frequently accessed data easily accessible, keeping cold data available when needed, and being able to move easily between the two.”
Google’s Nearline Storage gets its name from the fact that it is a hybrid between offline storage and online storage. In a graph illustrating the costs of Nearline, Google shows that the cost of Nearline is nearly the same as traditional offline storage methods. The difference between Nearline and offline storage is that the time to first byte with Nearline is seconds. With traditional offline storage options, the time to first byte could take as long as 3 hours. With other vendors and systems, an organization could wait even longer.
The docs page on the Google Cloud Platform website go into great detail about the new Nearline Storage product. It is important to note that Nearline Storage is still in beta testing, so use with caution. The docs page also shows you how to quickly setup Nearline Storage within your Google cloud account.
