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Google Storage Is Now Available To All Developers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the you-put-yer-bits-in-there dept.

aabelro writes "Google has announced at I/O 2011 the availability of their Storage service to all developers without the need for an invitation. The service has been enhanced with OAuth 2.0 support, simplified account management through the API Console, a new EU storage region, and a new API version."

62 comments

  1. Hmmm by killmenow · · Score: 2

    Now if I could just use it to store the honeycomb source.

    1. Re:Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just be happy that everything of value will be in Ice cream sandwich.

      Life is too short to focus on non-issues like this.

    2. Re:Hmmm by Desler · · Score: 1

      Yes, keep the spin going! We must defend Google at all costs despite the fact that they are locking down Android!

    3. Re:Hmmm by SilentStaid · · Score: 1
      I must be such an easy mark for trolls, but I'll bite:

      The way they use Open Source only when it is most convenient for them tells me that every time they talk about the virtues of Open Source, they are actually full of shit. If you really think something is a virtue and if you are really committed to an ideal, you act on it whether or not it's the most convenient option.

      Or it tells you that they're realistic. FOSS is awesome - and Google's numerous contributions should be applauded (even if they're a bit self serving). But according to you - we should act on something, even if we know that it's harmful to ourselves because we believe in a rigid immutable set of ideals... what are you, Catholic?

    4. Re:Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Cyanogen isn't complaining, why should I listen to the whining of a Slashdot commenter? Have you, personally, even looked at any of the previous Android source code drops, or is this just theoretical whining on your part?

    5. Re:Hmmm by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Someone is running around, killing off Anonymous Cowards. I don't much care, though; haven't been targeted. That'd only be theoretical whining on my part.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    6. Re:Hmmm by rhook · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't use it to store any source, you know Google looks at everything you upload. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the TOS says that they can do whatever they want with the code you upload.

    7. Re:Hmmm by rhook · · Score: 1

      Locking down Android, really? The only thing that I saw was that they are not releasing the Honeycomb source because they do not want it on phones. They are, however, putting many of the features of Honeycomb into the next version of Android, with phone support, and that version will be open source.

    8. Re:Hmmm by chrish · · Score: 1

      PROTIP: Encrypt anything "interesting" before storing it in the Cloud, regardless of whose Cloud you're working with.

      --
      - chrish
    9. Re:Hmmm by jgagnon · · Score: 1

      Why is it that some people insist that there is only one definition of "open source" when there are literally hundreds of open source licences in use? Claiming someone uses the wrong definition and capitalizing your idealogical version does not make you in the right.

      --
      Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
  2. rsync by Skapare · · Score: 1

    Why not allow rsync to work (via ssh for security)?

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:rsync by vlm · · Score: 1

      Why not allow rsync to work (via ssh for security)?

      Don't know The Answer, but rsync is legendary for using lots of memory during the sync process (and CPU)

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:rsync by pjl5602 · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you're assuming that it's a cluster of Linux servers (that they're going to give you access to) and it's a traditional file system interface underneath. I can almost certainly guarantee you that it's not. The interface you have is an HTTP looking endpoint. If what you want to do is backup data, you might want to take a look at duplicity. You should be able to drop in your Google Storage supported version of Boto and it should work. If you want to upload diff of content, I'm guessing you're going to be out of luck for that use case.

    3. Re:rsync by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not allow rsync to work (via ssh for security)?

      Don't know The Answer, but rsync is legendary for using lots of memory during the sync process (and CPU)

      Man you're not kidding. My poor 386 could barely keep up!

    4. Re:rsync by hobo+sapiens · · Score: 1

      Google offers a ton of APIs that all use OAuth for authentication. Sounds good on the surface until you actually try to use it.

      Have you ever tried to implement one of their APIs based on their documentation? Good luck with that. All of the google API documentation I have had to use is always lacking those little details that make the difference between having things work and being very frustrated. The docs get you 95% of the way there, and then you just have to hack at it, which sucks because there are more interesting things to hack.

      --
      blah blah blah
    5. Re:rsync by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Well you have to consider that for Google that would mean supporting millions of simultaneous rsyncs at the same time. That's a quite different load than running a single instance as you did on your i386

    6. Re:rsync by batkiwi · · Score: 1

      I agree the documentation is 95%, and this isn't a complete excuse, but every API also has fully working code samples in at least 1 language to get you that final 5%.

      Whether or not you'd count code samples as a part of "documentation" is debatable. It's nice that they're there, and they always save my bacon, but IMO if you can't read the spec and then write your own code then the docs aren't quite ready.

  3. I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    I don't get the logic behind this 'invitation' nonsense that companies especially Google employ. I do not get it. They did it with Gmail, Grand Central and Wave. With the latter, it just did not work out. Google lost more than gained. Why do they do it?

    1. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by Skapare · · Score: 1

      Maybe because during the invitation phase they don't have all the servers installed, yet. In the case of just about anything Google does, they need a million servers. They tried to hire me three times to do this sysadmin stuff. Apparently the free roller blades isn't enough.

      --
      now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    2. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by cyrus0101 · · Score: 2
      Two reasons come to mind immediately:
      • limited access means a smaller group to monitor for problems. Buzz, for example, went live across the board and had serious privacy issues. If they'd done it on a smaller scale, maybe they could have nipped it in the bud.
      • illusion of exclusivity makes the product seem cooler. You want what you can't have.
    3. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by cultiv8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do they do it?

      Economist: To limit supply and create more demand for the product
      Programmer: To allow time for beta testing
      Business Manager: So the company is not responsible if something breaks
      Sociologist: Ingroup members will be positively biased towards the product, outgroup members will want in
      System admin: this job sucks, anyone got some weed?

      --
      sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
    4. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by aprentic · · Score: 1

      "Economist: To limit supply and create more demand for the product"
      The might be why a marketing guy would do it but an economist would probably disagree.
      A firm should not be able to affect demand by limiting supply. At best they can affect the price and quantity demanded, and that's only if it's a monopoly good.
      Demand is a function of consumer choice. If you imagine the econ 101 supply-demand picture it's the convex, downward sloping curve.
      If a single manufacturer of a commodity good reduces supply the marginal increase in price should incentivize other manufacturers to supply more. Now a monopoly supplier can reduce supply to maximize their profits but that's only because they move the price-supply point farther to the left (up) of the demand curve.
      Caveat: This is the basic supply-demand model. It does not take into account things like luxury goods (which have demand curves with upward sloping portions) or more advanced models that start throwing in all kinds of other factors and interactions.

    5. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by aprentic · · Score: 1

      "Economist: To limit supply and create more demand for the product"
      This might be why a marketing guy would do it but an economist would probably disagree.
      A firm should not be able to affect demand by limiting supply. At best they can affect the price and quantity demanded, and that's only if it's a monopoly good.
      Demand is a function of consumer choice. If you imagine the econ 101 supply-demand picture it's the convex, downward sloping curve.
      If a single manufacturer of a commodity good reduces supply the marginal increase in price should incentivize other manufacturers to supply more. Now a monopoly supplier can reduce supply to maximize their profits but that's only because they move the price-supply point farther to the left (up) of the demand curve.
      Caveat: This is the basic supply-demand model. It does not take into account things like luxury goods (which have demand curves with upward sloping portions) or more advanced models that start throwing in all kinds of other factors and interactions.

    6. Re:I loathe this invitation 'nonsense' by atisss · · Score: 1

      Dude, it's just about feeling elite.
      Now, Does anybody have any invites to Google Invite? http://www.bbspot.com/News/2009/11/google-invite.html?from=rss

  4. I beg to differ by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Grand Central were doing fine. The moment they were bought, new registrations were stopped by Google. Shortly after that, registrations were 'by invitation only'.

    Question is: What really happened after purchase that necessitated this type of action?

    1. Re:I beg to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Isn't it kinda obvious? You get to learn the network between developers. You can track how information distributes, which conferences are influetntial, check if it's worth to sponsor hackatrones, which blog provide with information etc.

    2. Re:I beg to differ by Aladrin · · Score: 1

      Any time Google buys something, it's instantly famous. I hadn't heard of Grand Central before Google bought them, but I was one of those who immediately signed up. I'm sure I wasn't alone, and the servers probably couldn't handle all of it right away.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    3. Re:I beg to differ by aarongadberry · · Score: 1

      Grand Central did invitations before Google acquired them. I was waiting for one.

    4. Re:I beg to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. I wish google would buy butt sex so my girlfriend would stop being a prude and let me ride her poop-chute.

    5. Re:I beg to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Won't happen. She'll still be too sore after I'm done with her, same as now.

    6. Re:I beg to differ by rhook · · Score: 1

      Grand Central were doing fine. The moment they were bought, new registrations were stopped by Google. Shortly after that, registrations were 'by invitation only'.

      Question is: What really happened after purchase that necessitated this type of action?

      My guess would be that because Grand Central was not well known and everyone always jumps on new Google products, that Google decided to stop new registrations until they migrated the service to one of their data centers, and made it invite only after that so that their servers wouldn't get hammered. It is probably also a strategy intended to build public interest, people always want what they cannot have.

    7. Re:I beg to differ by pr0t0 · · Score: 1

      GC was awesome! You could record conversations without the knowledge of the other party. The great thing about dealing with larger organizations is they already had a "call may be monitored" disclaimer so I didn't have to. It really did save my bacon once during a dispute with my mortgage broker...I got the rate we agreed on and victory was mine!

      --
      I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
  5. Tree of invitation links by tepples · · Score: 1

    Skapare is probably right. Just as a resistor limits inrush current into a reservoir cap or decoupling cap when an electrical device is powered on, an invitation system limits the inrush of new users to a system whose scalability hasn't yet been proven. But at first, when Orkut and Gmail were invite-only, I thought Google wanted to collect a map of who invited whom as a measure of determining which users knew other users personally and which users were likely to start inviting new users solely for the purpose of sending spam.

    See also my previous thoughts on the subject.

    1. Re:Tree of invitation links by N0Man74 · · Score: 1

      ... and which users were likely to start inviting new users solely for the purpose of sending spam.

      I don't know if there is anything to that, but that's what I wondered as well. If done by invitation only, then it can create a chain that could allow you to break the links where referrals began to go to spammers.

      However... collecting data to show who knows who is certainly a valid guess as well.

    2. Re:Tree of invitation links by wgibson · · Score: 1

      But at first, when Orkut and Gmail were invite-only[...]

      Orkut was invite only? That must have happened after Google took over. When I signed up with the service the sign-up was absolutely open.

  6. so they started a fresh round of advertising by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    because that's how they run their projects.

    anyhow, it would be extremely nice if slashvertisements would include the PRICING of the SERVICE. you know, like, normal advertising rules apply..(the free portion is a joke).

    anyhow, from the article,
    "GSD is currently not integrated with Google Docs and Google Apps accounts do not work, only regular Google accounts, but that is going to change in the future.

    Pricing is set at $0.17/GB/month, higher than that of the similar Amazon S3 pricing which is set at $0.15/GB/month for 11 nines durability and $0.1/GB/month with 99.99 durability. Uploading and accessing are the same at $0.1/GB and $0.01/1000 HTTP requests. Amazon has progressive discounts for storage in excess of 50 TB, 400TB, 500TB and so on. There is no SLA for GDS yet, but Google promises to provide one when the service will be open to all those interested."

    sounds like beta to me still. and how they promise to provide one when the service is open to all those interested if it's open for all interested now? uh? wtha? brainmelt.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Currently it's free. You get the SLA you would expect for free.

    2. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by ginbot462 · · Score: 1

      And I just asked for a invite too!

      --
      Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story :: Battlefield Earth : Organized Religion
    3. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by Bengie · · Score: 1

      But with Amazon's recent downtime, they won't be able to lay claim to 99.99% up-time for at least 5 years, assuming they have no more down time. But yes, theeir data is still there.

    4. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by Chrisq · · Score: 1

      Currently it's free. You get the SLA you would expect for free.

      You mean " You get the SLA you should expect for free". From a lot of the comments I see in open source software forums people expect a lot.and complain whan they don

    5. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      But with Amazon's recent downtime, they won't be able to lay claim to 99.99% up-time for at least 5 years, assuming they have no more down time. But yes, theeir data is still there.

      Actually, the 4 9's and 11 9's refer to Amazon S3 service, which is basically cloud storage. The sites that went down were using Amazon EC2 cloud server. The former is pure disk storage, the latter provides computation. You can link S3 to EC2 for permanent storage (ECB?), as otherwise it's upload your files, do your processing, get your results, and shut down, losing everything.

      S3 didn't go down, and I don't think EC2 did either, but the ECB service for the two did so websites hosted purely on Amazon died, while services using one or the other didn't (e.g., Dropbox uses S3 only).

    6. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it does have an SLA: http://code.google.com/apis/storage/docs/sla.html

      Google Apps accounts also work, AFAIK. You're quoting from the initial announcement a year ago, not the announcement that was made yesterday. Yesterday's announcment (from the horse's mouth) is here http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/google-storage-for-developers-open-to.html

    7. Re:so they started a fresh round of advertising by JimFive · · Score: 1

      11 9's would mean about .0003 seconds of downtime per year. That's something like 1 dropped packet. I don't believe that to be possible. On the other hand, it's also probably not detectable.
      --
      JimFive

      --
      Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
  7. Two reasons by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 2
    1. It provides a slower ramp-up, so they have more time to react to demand.
    2. It lets them map a network of you and all your friends, if they don't know it already.
  8. Like Azure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It sounds like this is similar to the Azure storage that Microsoft gives all MSDN subscribers. Granted, MSDN is not free, but if you or your company has already purchased a subscription, you can get quite a bit of storage, compute and and SQL Azure resources for free.

    1. Re:Like Azure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ... you can get quite a bit of storage, compute and ...

      I do wish we could quash this use of "compute" as a noun. We don't say "quite a bit of store" yet say "lots of compute ".

      What's wrong with the old trusty noun "computation"? It has been around for 150 years after all.

    2. Re:Like Azure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Compute" has been a noun since the 16th century. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/compute

  9. Like Amazon. Three years later. And costs more? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    Like Amazon. Three years later. And costs more?

    Yawn. Wake me up when the world realizes these are ultracommodities and the real price wars begin.

  10. Dropbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a long time user of dropbox.com this google offering seems silly to me.

    1. Re:Dropbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google knows security.

    2. Re:Dropbox by icebraining · · Score: 1

      So does Truecrypt.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
  11. FREE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A year later, at I/O 2011, Google announced the availability of the service to any developer with a Google account, offering a free subscription including up to 5GB of storage until the end of this year. ...

    is that -- offering free -- forever -- if you sign up before the end of this year -- or, free for this year... until the end of this year -- and then they will charge starting next year -- for the account that you got for free this year?

  12. Just what I always wanted! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Ooooh, goody! Now I can store all my important source code on hard drives owned by another software company!

    I have waited years for this.

    1. Re:Just what I always wanted! by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;). Torvalds, Linus

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    2. Re:Just what I always wanted! by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

      SO how does this work with their EULA, where by they claim that anything you store on their servers is technically theirs....???

  13. "Free" is too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Free" as in we'll keep your data for you.
    From the people that brought you the hidden gps location now "free" storage?
    I've got a solution for the cloud, it goes something like this:
    cat /dev/rand > cloud

  14. Like Amazon. 5GB. Free. by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    So what their prices are slightly higher? 5GB of free hosting is welcome.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  15. Like Amazon. Three years later. And costs more? by omigamegan · · Score: 1

    Like Amazon. Three years later. And costs more? herve leger

    --
    i like herve leger
  16. Re:Just what I always wanted! (Facebook shill aler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no EULA, there is a service agreement. Which states in section 6 that your content is yours and Google claims no ownership. And in section 7 they reserve the right to store and serve your content for the sole purpose of serving it *to you*.

    At least read the stupid thing next time you Facebook shill. :)