What is cloud spanner and what are its features compared to cloud sql
Cloud Spanner is a database developed by Google and released in 2012. It was the first database engine to use columnar storage and SQL query processing on a wide scale, to handle much larger datasets than early alternatives like Hadoop or Cassandra. Google has used this technology to run its own services like Google search and many other Google services. Cloud Spanner can be considered as a hybrid between relational databases like MySQL and NoSQL databases, because it is based on SQL but does not need to lock, is scalable and uses horizontal scaling. This allows a much faster response time than relational databases (i.e. 15 minutes for a query instead of an hour). A major advantage of Cloud Spanner is that it supports standard SQL (hence it can handle almost any relational database) and does not require special knowledge in storage engines as Cassandra does. As such, Spanner is suitable for more complex transactional workloads which require the SQL interface but run into scalability problems with other storage engines that use NoSQL storage engines like Cassandra.
Which service is better for specific use cases
Cloud Spanner is better for other cases. Cloud SQL does not support some important features like partitioned tables and multiple data types. Many companies have used Cloud Spanner because of its better features and its low cost, especially for large databases. When considering which service is better for your specific use case, think of these criteria:
How easy is it to migrate data from cloud sql to cloud spanner or vice versa
It is not very easy to migrate data from Cloud SQL to Cloud Spanner or vice versa. Some migration tools from Google do exist and can be used, but they require a lot of effort and time. Due to the nature of Cloud Spanner, the data resides in different locations, so it requires a lot of work to transfer files from one server to another. The following is a simple tutorial for Microsoft’s System Center and the migration of your data from Cloud SQL to Cloud Spanner.
Components:
1. A Machine running one of the following operating systems:
Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, or Ubuntu 14.04 with GCP Tools installed and enabled (ie. Google Client Repository Setup).
2. A GCP Project with a billing account
3. A GCP Secret Key downloaded from your Google Cloud Dashboard (This key is used to login to the Google Container Registry and deploy your container image)
4. Compute Engine Instance(s) running at least 1 TB of HDD
5. Cloud SQL Instance(s) running at least 1 TB of HDD
