Insights Into Google Compute Engine

snydeq writes "The Compute Engine announcement at Google I/O made it clear that Google intends to take Amazon EC2 head on. Michael Crandell, who has been testing out Compute Engine for some time now, divulges deeper insights into the nascent IaaS, which, although enticing, will have a long road ahead of it in eclipsing Amazon EC2. 'Even in this early stage, three major factors about Google Cloud stood out for Crandell. First was the way Google leveraged the use of its own private network to make its cloud resources uniformly accessible across the globe. ... Another key difference was boot times, which are both fast and consistent in Google's cloud. ... Third is encryption. Google offers at-rest encryption for all storage, whether it's local or attached over a network. 'Everything's automatically encrypted,' says Crandell, 'and it's encrypted outside the processing of the VM so there's no degradation of performance to get that feature.'"

The real question

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until Google cancels it?

Encryption detail?

[prestwich]

It's interesting them doing at-rest-encryption - now I wonder where the keys are stored and who has access to them?

Google LAN

[roman_mir]

I found this to be an interesting piece of info

Even in this early stage, three major factors about Google Cloud stood out for Crandell. First was the way Google leveraged the use of its own private network to make its cloud resources uniformly accessible across the globe.

"When you create a Google Compute Engine account and use their resources," he said, "they provide a private network, a LAN of sorts that spans different regions. For example, if you set up an architecture to replicate a database from region A to region B, in the Google cloud, you don't need to traverse the public Internet to do it. You're using their private network."

How precisely that network is implemented (as its own private fiber or simply a very efficiently-routed VPN) is not disclosed by Google. But the key thing is that the whole structure is seen as a single network from a programming point of view. "This makes it easier if you're building cross-regional architectures," Crandall says. It's expected that Google will eventually expand Compute Engine to territories outside the United States.

- I really wonder if Google built (or bought) larges swaths of private infrastructure that is otherwise outside of the Internet, does anybody know?

Here is why I am wondering about it - Google as an ISP would then avoid outside costs to move its data, it's all internal costs, this turns Google into its own 'Internet' of sorts, Google only Internet.

That's why web neutrality is a nonsense concept from my perspective - if companies can build their own infrastructure, they can compete with each other and offer their own content at better speeds, but then Google could be an ISP that uses both, Google 'Internet' and external backend, but then on its own 'Internet', the content available from Google could be delivered at a higher priority and faster (and cheaper, because its internal costs, that can be managed easier).

By the way, there was a question in the story, asking why didn't Google provide this earlier. Well, maybe it tech wasn't ready or the business model wasn't there or maybe it's something to do with the government that wants to listen in on everything.

BTW., this is why such information should be made available, the speculation about the reasons for things like that could be worse than whatever the truth is.

Uh

[drinkypoo]

Doesn't Amazon run on its own cloud services? Wouldn't that make the first point (FTFS) irrelevant by way of comparison?

how about I/O performance

[Trepidity]

Speaking of "Google I/O", how is the I/O performance on Google's offering? Is it any better than the, err, "not great" performance of Amazon's EBS?

Re:The real question

[EdIII]

How long until Google cancels it?

Not exactly trolling. Google has never done very well in the support and consistency department. Having to deal with the YouTube API has given me some insights into just what a PITA it is to deal with Google on an ongoing basis.

Google has never really been shy about pulling the plug on a project either. Which is what almost everything seems to be to them. At some point you have to let a project die, so I can't really blame them for being conservative with resources, but it does not help the people that started to rely on it.

All that being said though, I think it is a pretty good assumption this will be a paid offering, and as such will not have the plug pulled. Certainly, not before migration plans could be made.

Re:Encryption detail?

[gl4ss]

well.. so? they're on the server the data resides on all the same. wouldn't it be nicer if they weren't on that server, since if they're on the same server what's the fucking point??

I sure hope businesses and people are smarter/

[santax]

When you use an US-based company to trust your data too, you are a fool. That data will become property of the US and they don't even have to tell you they copied it for reasons of terrorism-fighting (or on a much larger scale, economic espionage!). No one in their right might should ever use any system in the USA or belonging to USA companies to put sensitive or mission critical data on. It's the equivalent of riding the damn trojan horse into your own city and thanking them for the great gift.