I got invited to Google Storage for Developers a couple of days ago. From what I can tell, it is basically the same as Amazon S3, just a few years later. However, it has a Google spin to it. It has fantastic documentation (even though it’s not publicly available), good libraries for Python, and right now, free storage/bandwidth. Knowing Google, it will also integrate very well with AppEngine, which is the big differentiator between Amazon’s offerings and Google’s. Google AppEngine as a provides a managed platform to run Python and Java apps on, while Amazon’s EC2 is a full virtual server, where you install your own stack of software and manage that stack on your own. It is also quite expensive for small projects (minimum of around $40 a month). AppEngine provides you some free resources (they say enough to run a small to medium site), and the option to pay for more when you need it. The choice is yours on which to use, and mostly hinges on whether you need to run services other just Python/Java apps. Though, if you need a cloud server, I’d recommend Rackspace, which is running this, and all my other sites.
Since I’m now having a love affair with AppEngine, I think Google Storage will be extremely useful. I was going to integrate S3 with Open ProofBook for picture storage, but I was considering migrating the project to AppEngine anyway. I want to make it a multi-tenant hosted application for photographers, much as I have MindTouch setup right now for my multiple sites. I think it will be interesting to get a working application using Google Storage up, so other people can benefit from my code when it goes public.
About Josh Gachnang
