Google's Pricing Changes & Unlimited Storage for EDU
In an effort to one up it’s Infrastructure as a Service competition, Google announced on Wednesday that they would be reducing their prices for the popular Google Compute Engine due to shrinking hardware costs. The average discount on services is 10% when you factor in all of the different regions that Google Compute Engine covers. This price decrease comes in the wake of Microsoft mentioning price decreases for those who buy Azure services directly from within the Azure portal.
A post on the Google blog mentions, “And, as predicted by Moore’s Law, we can now lower prices again. Effective immediately, we are cutting prices of Google Compute Engine by approximately 10% for all instance types in every region. These cuts are a result of increased efficiency in our data centers as well as falling hardware costs, allowing us to pass on lower prices to our customers.”
In other Google cloud news, Google Drive for Education is now offering teachers and students unlimited cloud file storage. A couple months ago, Google introduced Google Drive for Work. Google Drive for Education will follow much of the same guidelines and work in the same fashion as Google Drive for Work. The service will work as a way for educators and students to work seamlessly together. Educators biggest question is if Google Drive for Education will provide mischievous students an unlimited cloud storage site to store files not related to education.
Google has already done its homework on these types of situations. If a student were to put a pirated movie into the cloud, Google’s algorithm would detect the movie and remove it from the cloud. Google Drive for Education also bundles Google Apps for Education inside of the popular Google Classroom suite for free. Google mentions that they will not disclose the contents of an educational drive without a court order and they will ensure that educational data is encrypted both in motion and at rest.
