Google's local SSD is now generally available on its cloud platform, offering a competitive price point and quality to potentially match Amazon's SSD alternative.
The feature went into beta in October and is now generally available to Google Compute Engine customers in all regions, though not currently in every zone within those regions. Customers can attach between one and four SSD partitions of 375 GB to a virtual machine (VM) for dedicated use of the partitions.
SSD is almost a required feature, and Google cloud customer Workiva, a financial reporting software developer, plans to look at local SSD as it does more caching, said Dave Tucker, senior director of platform development for the Ames, Iowa-based company.
Workiva began as a Google App Engine customer but is relying more on Google Compute Engine as it expands its set of features, Tucker said.
"I'm encouraged by progress in these services," Tucker said. "I'm sure it's going to be a valuable piece in the puzzle."
Google's local SSD provides 680k random 4K read IOPS, but, unlike persistent disks, it doesn't provide redundancy. The feature is good for high-demanding applications that provide their own replication and as a supplement for memory due to its high IOPS and low price per GB, according to Google, which already offered persistent disk SSD.