Google Cloud Storage

In this chapter, we will explore two data storage services from the Google Cloud platform, Google Storage, for files, and Google SQL, for structured data. Google Storage is a file-hosting service that allows you to store files in the cloud. Quite simple and straightforward, it is very similar to the Amazon S3 service. To go beyond basic usage, we will look into some advanced subjects, such as signed-URLs, collaboration bucket settings, optimizing upload speeds, and transferring big datasets

Google SQL is Google's simple SQL database service. Less developed at the moment than Amazon SQL services in terms of types of SQLs, it comes with MySQL as the main database. A beta version of Postgre is also available. We will look at the differences between the two in terms of respective functionalities.

Making services talk to one another, or more precisely, allowing data transfers between different data stores and data consumers, is usually where the difficulty lies when using cloud-based solutions for data science projects.

Issues such as volume, latency, and throughput can affect the speed of your scripts and the efficiency of your work. Setting the right level of permissions so that your data can be accessed within your project environment while still being protected from outside access is also key.

In this chapter, you will learn:

• How to store files on Google Storage with gsutil
• How to create databases and seed them with data on Google SQL
• How to access your Google Storage files and your Google SQL database 

At the end of the chapter, you will be able to upload data and manage it using the services provided by the Google Cloud platform and understand the potential of Google Cloud SQL for the creation of relational database management systems.