In an aggressive move against market leader AWS, Google has proclaimed that its Cloud Spanner service is not only more cost-efficient but also outperforms Amazon's DynamoDB in many workloads.
Google recently unveiled enhancements to Cloud Spanner, a decoupled relational database service hosted on Google Cloud, promising "significant" savings to its clientele. Key highlights include a 50% uptick in read throughput and expanded storage capacity from 4TB to 10TB per Spanner node.
As part of its promotional drive, Google has been quick to underline Cloud Spanner's edge over DynamoDB, citing its superior processing ability of 3 billion queries per second, dwarfing DynamoDB's reported 126 million.
However, this is where the waters muddy a bit. Google sourced the "126 million" from Amazon's own Prime Day statistics, which merely reflect real-time traffic rather than the potential max throughput of DynamoDB. Detailed specifics about DynamoDB's capabilities remain somewhat elusive, but AWS documentation from 2021 does suggest DynamoDB's peak is in the "millions" and not "billions."
Further, Google's claim of Cloud Spanner being "half the cost" of DynamoDB requires context. The true cost hinges heavily on the type of workload. While Cloud Spanner starts at $65 per month, DynamoDB's flexible pricing can sometimes run substantially cheaper.
Amid this escalating rivalry, Google is striving hard to narrow the gap with AWS in the public cloud arena. From 2017 to 2022, Google Cloud's market share has witnessed a jump from 6% to 11%. Meanwhile, AWS still dominates with a robust 34% share.
Nevertheless, Google Cloud's trajectory suggests a promising future. Reporting a 28% revenue boost in Q2, reaching over $8 billion, Google Cloud celebrates its second consecutive profitable quarter, intensifying the competition in the cloud space.
