Google Cloud has announced that it is launching its Database Migration Service (DMS), a serverless tool set to help enterprise customers move production databases to the cloud.
The new service is the tech giant's response to the quick acceleration of companies’ move to the cloud to deploy and run database workloads. Cloud database migration is serious business for cloud providers such as Google, which operates a growing portfolio of cloud database services.
"There are typically three steps: Migration lift and shift, modernization and databases for new experiences," said Andi Gutmans, Vice President of Databases at Google Cloud. He also noted that Gartner projects that 75% of all databases will run in the cloud by 2022. "We want to make it as easy as possible and effortless to meet those migrations."
Google has been quick to point out that its new DMS offering does have an edge over other commonly used solutions. According to Gutmans, other offerings are more costly and prone to error. And not only do these other solutions force customers to read through a lot of documentation, they’re also complex to set up from a networking standpoint. He added that other solutions can’t guarantee data fidelity and don’t take advantage of native database replication capabilities.
The DMS aims to automate documentation and nuances that can break data replication. "We provide a wizard experience to step through it and get from the source to the target database without any special setup," said Gutmans.
Cloud SQL is one of the fastest-growing services at Google Cloud, powering mission-critical workloads at some of the largest enterprises across the globe. The DMS accelerates migrations from legacy on-premises and other database cloud services to Cloud SQL, where enterprises can take advantage of integrations with the Google Kubernetes Engine for development and BigQuery for analytics, the company states. For native like-to-like migrations to Cloud SQL, DMS is available at no additional charge, according to Google Cloud.
Currently available in preview, customers can migrate MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server databases to Cloud SQL from on-premises environments or other clouds. Support for PostgreSQL is available for limited customers in preview with SQL Server coming soon. Some of the pilot customers for the DMS included Samsung Electronics, Adwerx, and Accenture-owned Cirruseo.
