Google ups cloud game with enterprise grade App Engine support

Google has stepped up its challenge to Amazon Web Services in the cloud space with the launch of enterprise level service and support options for its App Engine service and the official unveiling of a new cloud storage service.

Group product manager Jessie Jiang explained in a blog post that Google App Engine Premier Accounts would feature "uptime guarantees, easy management and support".

"For $500 per month, you'll receive premier support, a 99.95 per cent uptime service level agreement and the ability to create unlimited number of apps on your premier account domain," she added.

Google also announced it is taking its Google Storage for Developers cloud service out of Labs and renaming it Google Cloud Storage.

"You can now read and write files to Google Cloud Storage via the App Engine Files API," explained Jiang.

"We are also making detailed usage information, including access analytics and storage use data, available to all our customers."

Jiang claimed cloud customers could save over 40 per cent on their monthly bills thanks to Google's decision to lower prices for storage and bandwidth "across the board".

"We are not charging for ingress and introducing volume discounts for our larger users," she added.

Google also announced an update to its Prediction API, designed to give users access to "machine learning in the cloud" in order to build better and smarter applications.

The latest version, 1.4, features PMML v4.01 support and data anomaly detection, said Jiang.