Google’s cloud computing service App Engine will give developers the ability to set up a relational database. The database software is based on, and compatible with, the widely used MySQL database.
At the moment, a small number of developers can already get started with the MySQL database in App Engine. That is what Greg D’Alesandre, senior product manager for App Engine, told Tweakers.net at the Google I/O developers conference. The developers can set up a database and access it from their App Engine code.
The database software in use is based on MySQL, allowing developers to run standard MySQL queries, D’Alesandre says. The software has been adapted: MySQL does not itself handle the storage of content in databases, but leaves that to Google’s own storage software.
Developers can use MySQL queries directly or use Google’s APIs to access the database. There is currently no management console for the database; it can only be administered via the command line. A graphical interface ultimately seems likely: “I can imagine that,” D’Alesandre said.
It is still unclear when all developers will be able to use the database software. “We do not want to name a specific launch date yet,” according to D’Alesandre. At present, developers can set up only NoSQL databases, although accessing external MySQL databases is possible. Whether support for other database software, such as PostgreSQL, will be added is still unclear.
Future versions of App Engine should also add support for SSL on customers’ domains; for now, developers can use SSL only on their appspot.com domain. A monitoring function is also planned, which would allow customers to be alerted if processes fail or consume excessive system resources.
This week Google released a new version of App Engine, with support for Google’s own Go programming language, alongside the implementation of pull queues. D’Alesandre would not say whether other programming languages will be added in the future. “We have nothing to announce at this time,” he says.
App Engine was introduced in 2008 and lets developers run web applications on Google’s servers. They can call Google’s APIs, for example to process large volumes of data.