Cloud SQL and Cloud Spanner

GCP offers a comprehensive range of managed database services. This lesson covers the two most important relational options: Cloud SQL for traditional relational workloads and Cloud Spanner for globally distributed relational databases that need unlimited scale.

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Cloud SQL

Cloud SQL is a fully managed relational database service. It handles provisioning, replication, backups, patching, and failover so you can focus on your application.

Supported Engines

Engine	Versions
MySQL	5.7, 8.0
PostgreSQL	12, 13, 14, 15, 16
SQL Server	2017, 2019, 2022

Key Features

Automatic Backups

• Automated daily backups with configurable retention (1–365 days)
• On-demand backups that persist until you delete them
• Point-in-time recovery — restore to any second within the retention window

High Availability

Cloud SQL HA uses a regional configuration with a primary instance and a standby replica in a different zone:

Primary Instance (Zone A) ←— synchronous replication —→ Standby (Zone B)