14 DAY TRIAL // Google is using the 2011 I/O developer conference to announce that its Storage for Developers cloud service, that it debuted at last year's conference, is now becoming available to everyone and is also getting a thorough revamp.
Google Storage for Developers no longer requires an invite to sign up. Google is also expanding support with a new Europe region enabling developers to specify where their data is going to be stored.
"For those of you who have been waiting to use Google Storage, we’re happy to announce that effective immediately, you can get a Google Storage for Developers account without needing to request an invitation," Navneet Joneja, Product Manager at Google, announced.
"We’ve also launched several significant enhancements to the service, including more flexible and powerful security features, simplified sharing, the ability to store data in Europe, support for larger objects (up to 5 TB), team-oriented accounts and a completely free promotional tier," he explained.
A big new feature is support for OAuth 2.0 logins. Google and other companies are supporting the protocol as the standard way of authorizing access to resources and data.
OAuth adds flexibility to users, they only need to authenticate once, and to developers as well since they don't have to implement complicated login schemes. What's more, the protocol provides significantly improved security.
The revamped Google Storage for Developers comes with simplified sharing since it no longer requires everyone accessing the data to have a Storage account. A regular Google account will do for those you want to share the data stored in the Google cloud with.
Another change that should make it significantly easier to manage Storage accounts is the emphasis on projects rather than users. This way, more users can be associated with a single project, but not all need to manage the project or provide information they shouldn't have to like billing info.
Google Storage for Developers also comes with a free tier now, providing 5 GB of storage, 25 GB of uploads and 25 GB for downloads each month, 2,500 free PUT, POST and LIST requests and 25,000 free GET, HEAD and other requests.