[arkem]

[Disclaimer: I work at Google in an unrelated area]

Google platforms like Cloud SQL generally have a deprecation policy that will give you an idea of the minimum length of time that they'll be maintained. For Cloud SQL it's 1 year (it's in the Terms of Service), which means that you'd get at least a year's notice before it could be turned off. It's on par or slightly better than what I know of Amazon's policy (they have 1 year deprecation on their APIs and an undefined deprecation policy on their service offerings).

In my opnion having this deprecation policy would make Google Cloud SQL a lower risk proposition than a 'no-name startup', at least until the startup is in a position to make similar guarantees (and the financial resources to stick to those guarantees).

Edit: I guess my point is that some Google products have service agreements as to how long they'll be maintained and so comparing consumer web services to Cloud SQL isn't really appropriate.

[mratzloff]

Tell that to users of App Engine who have experienced frequent, repeated downtime and utter apathy from Google. Google's customer support sucks.