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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Relational Databases
  4. SQL Database As A Service
  5. Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft SQL Server

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft SQL Server

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL
Stacks555
Followers580
Votes46
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Stacks21.3K
Followers15.5K
Votes540

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft SQL Server: What are the differences?

Google Cloud SQL and Microsoft SQL Server are two popular relational database management systems (RDBMS) widely used by enterprises for data management. Let's explore the key differences between them.

  1. Hosting and Infrastructure: Google Cloud SQL is a fully managed service that allows users to easily deploy, maintain, and scale MySQL or PostgreSQL databases in the Google Cloud Platform. It handles tasks such as hardware provisioning, backups, and software maintenance, allowing users to focus on their applications. Microsoft SQL Server, on the other hand, can be hosted on both on-premises infrastructure and in the cloud. It provides greater flexibility in terms of deployment options but requires users to manage the infrastructure themselves.

  2. Platform Compatibility: Google Cloud SQL is natively integrated with the Google Cloud Platform, offering seamless integration and compatibility with other Google services such as Google App Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine. This enables developers to build and deploy applications that can leverage various Google Cloud services efficiently. Microsoft SQL Server is designed to work well with Microsoft's ecosystem, including Azure cloud services. It offers tight integration with tools like Visual Studio and Microsoft Azure Active Directory, making it a preferred choice for organizations heavily invested in Microsoft technologies.

  3. Scalability: Google Cloud SQL provides automatic scaling capabilities, allowing the database to handle growing workloads. It can instantly allocate more resources, such as CPU and memory, based on demand, ensuring optimal performance. Microsoft SQL Server also offers scalability options but requires manual configuration and management of resources. Scaling can be more complex and time-consuming compared to Google Cloud SQL's automated approach.

  4. Pricing Model: Google Cloud SQL follows a pay-as-you-go model, where users pay based on their actual usage of resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. This flexibility allows users to optimize costs by adjusting resources as needed. Microsoft SQL Server typically requires users to purchase licenses or subscriptions upfront. This model may involve additional costs for software licenses, support, and maintenance.

  5. Replication and High Availability: Google Cloud SQL provides automated backups and replication, ensuring data durability and high availability. It automatically replicates data across multiple zones within a region, reducing the risk of data loss and providing failover capabilities. Microsoft SQL Server offers various options for replication and high availability, such as SQL Server Always On Availability Groups. However, setting up and managing replication and high availability configurations can be more complex and require additional resources.

  6. Ecosystem and Community: Google Cloud SQL has a growing ecosystem, with support from various third-party tools and libraries. However, it may have a smaller community compared to Microsoft SQL Server, which has a large user base, extensive documentation, and a vast community of developers and resources available.

In summary, Google Cloud SQL is a fully managed service specifically designed for the Google Cloud Platform, offering automated scaling, seamless integration, and pay-as-you-go pricing. On the other hand, Microsoft SQL Server provides greater deployment flexibility, deeper integration with Microsoft's ecosystem, and a larger community.

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Advice on Google Cloud SQL, Microsoft SQL Server

Erin
Erin

IT Specialist

Mar 10, 2020

Needs adviceonMicrosoft SQL ServerMicrosoft SQL ServerMySQLMySQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I am a Microsoft SQL Server programmer who is a bit out of practice. I have been asked to assist on a new project. The overall purpose is to organize a large number of recordings so that they can be searched. I have an enormous music library but my songs are several hours long. I need to include things like time, date and location of the recording. I don't have a problem with the general database design. I have two primary questions:

  1. I need to use either @{MySQL}|tool:1025| or @{PostgreSQL}|tool:1028| on a @{Linux}|tool:10483| based OS. Which would be better for this application?
  2. I have not dealt with a sound based data type before. How do I store that and put it in a table? Thank you.
668k views668k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server

Run the same relational databases you know with their rich extension collections, configuration flags and developer ecosystem, but without the hassle of self management.

Microsoft® SQL Server is a database management and analysis system for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.

Familiar Infrastructure;Flexible Charging;Security, Availability, Durability;Easier Migration; No Lock-in;Fully managed
-
Statistics
Stacks
555
Stacks
21.3K
Followers
580
Followers
15.5K
Votes
46
Votes
540
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 13
    Fully managed
  • 10
    SQL
  • 10
    Backed by Google
  • 4
    Flexible
  • 3
    Automatic Software Patching
Pros
  • 139
    Reliable and easy to use
  • 101
    High performance
  • 95
    Great with .net
  • 65
    Works well with .net
  • 56
    Easy to maintain
Cons
  • 4
    Expensive Licensing
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 1
    Replication can loose the data
  • 1
    Allwayon can loose data in asycronious mode
  • 1
    Data pages is only 8k

What are some alternatives to Google Cloud SQL, Microsoft SQL Server?

MongoDB

MongoDB

MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.

MySQL

MySQL

The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions.

Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS gives you access to the capabilities of a familiar MySQL, Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server database engine. This means that the code, applications, and tools you already use today with your existing databases can be used with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS automatically patches the database software and backs up your database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period and enabling point-in-time recovery. You benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with your Database Instance (DB Instance) via a single API call.

SQLite

SQLite

SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.

Cassandra

Cassandra

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster. Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

Memcached

Memcached

Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.

MariaDB

MariaDB

Started by core members of the original MySQL team, MariaDB actively works with outside developers to deliver the most featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server in the industry. MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement of MySQL(R) with more features, new storage engines, fewer bugs, and better performance.

RethinkDB

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is built to store JSON documents, and scale to multiple machines with very little effort. It has a pleasant query language that supports really useful queries like table joins and group by, and is easy to setup and learn.

ArangoDB

ArangoDB

A distributed free and open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values. Build high performance applications using a convenient SQL-like query language or JavaScript extensions.

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