Google Compute Engine Now Generally Available

Google Compute Engine with expanded OS support, transparent maintenance, and Lower Prices for Standard Instances is now generally available.

A year and a half after its launch in Google's June 2012 I/O developer conference, Google Compute Engine, which offers scalable, secured and trustworthy virtual machines, is now Generally Available.

The Compute Engine is equipped with round-the-clock support and a 99.95 percent monthly Service Level Agreement. If Google fails to keep up with the percentage, the customer will be entitled to receive financial credits.

Google Compute Engine has an extended operating system support and it works well with Debian and Centos, two of Linux's distributions customized with a Google-built kernel.

Since regular maintenance of hardware and software infrastructure is very vital to run a high level of performance, reliability, and security, Google decided to introduce a transparent maintenance along with live migration technology so that it can carry out proactive maintenance as your virtual machines operates. Additionally, in case of system failures, your virtual machines will be automatically restarted and get them online in just a few seconds.

Ari Balogh, VP of Storage Infrastructure Products, wrote in a blog post: "in able to keep up with the developers requests for instances with better computational power and memory applications that goes from silicon simulation to high-scale NoSQL database, Google is "launching three new instance types in Limited Preview with up to 16 cores and 104 gigabytes of RAM. They are available in the familiar standard, high-memory and high-CPU shapes."

Google is also offering a 10 percent discount on all regions.

Google Compute Engine is used by customers, including Snap Chat, Mendelics and Cooladata, to create complex systems. It also includes integration with partners including SaltStack, Red Hat, Wowza, Rightscale, SUSE, Mendelics, and Scalr.

"Google Cloud Platform provides the most consistent performance we've ever seen. Every VM, every disk, performs exactly as we expect it to and gave us the ability to build fast, low-latency applications, said Sebastian Stadil, CEO of Scalr.