Google Cloud Storage (GCS) is a fully managed object storage service provided by Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It allows users to store and retrieve large amounts of unstructured data, such as images, videos, audio files, and backups, from anywhere on the web. GCS provides a simple web-based interface and API for uploading and managing data, and it automatically handles tasks such as data replication, load balancing, and security.
GCS also offers several features and capabilities to improve the performance and security of data stored in the service, such as:
Versioning
Allows retention, retrieval, and restore previous versions of an object.
Lifecycle management: automatically deletes or archives objects after a specified period of time.
Access control
Allows to set permissions on objects and buckets to control who can access them.
Data encryption
Encrypts data at rest and in transit.
GCS supports several types of storage classes, each optimized for different use cases and performance needs. Standard storage is suitable for frequently accessed data, while Coldline storage is for infrequently accessed data with a retrieval time of several hours, and Nearline storage is for data that is accessed once a month with a retrieval time of several seconds.
GCS can be integrated with other GCP services, such as Cloud Bigtable and Cloud SQL, as well as with other services and tools, such as Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark, to enable big data analytics and other use cases.