[runeks]

> As far as using GCP's BigTable (HBase compat), we made this decision before we moved to GCP, but we are also not fans of using platform lock-in.

Did you consider GCP Datastore as well?

It has strong consistency for a single "entity group", but eventual consistency for queries on multiple entity groups.

So by storing data only relevant to a single user in an entity group, you can have strongly consistent, atomic transactions on that group (albeit limited to 1 tx/s), and at the same time do global queries on all user data with eventual consistency.

[Vishnevskiy]

The pricing model does not fit our needs, and that is even more locked in than the BigTable variant.

[runeks]

I'm happy to hear you dropped it for non-technical reasons, since I'm asking because I've chosen Datastore for an app because I care less about vendor lock-in than ease of operation, and it fits my pricing model perfectly, due to the app in question receiving (Bitcoin) payments that are charged a fee on a per-request/payment basis.

Hint: if you have technical reasons for avoiding GCP Datastore I'd be very interested in hearing about them

[threeseed]

Google Cloud is the least geo-distributed provider around. Which is a major problem if your use case has requirements around (a) latency and (b) data locality due to legal requirements.

In 2017 they will finally have datacenters in Sydney, London, Singapore, Frankfurt etc.

[manigandham]

This is one area where Azure is leading with both Azure SQL and DocumentDB supporting geo-replication.

[merb]

nope since azure is extremly expensive and also you need several accounts for different regions. i.e. you can't create servers in germany with a whole new account / credits / support.

[manigandham]

This is about capabilities, not price. Azure Germany is the only one that requires a different account due to German legal issues. The rest of the datacenters are all connected from the same account.

[germanier]

That's because Azure in Germany is not offered by Microsoft but T-Systems. Microsoft just supplies the tech. For the other regions one account suffices (I'm not sure about China where they also use a partner).