Google makes Compute Engine official

Google has cut the ribbon on its Compute Engine, bringing it into the world of virtual machines by the hour and into combat with the likes of Amazon Web Services, Rackspace and VMware. Google's been talking up the Compute Engine for a while now, recently teasing on the topic of automatic failover for virtual machines. But …

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so...

On the surface of it, this looks pretty good BUT

what is the Chocolate Factory going to do about data privacy? Are they going to (in the background) scan all the data you put into the VM's (sorry instances)

Are they going to let the NSA have access to your data? There could well be a literal goldmine of data in these systems that the Advertising part of Google would love to get their hands on.

Perhaps information on these points should be clearly identified on their web site.

[bigtimehustler]

Re: Ok so...

Well, if your in the global cloud market, this isnt really a consideration as all the major players are head officed in the US, so this issue applies to them all, and you know the answer, its yes they will give to the NSA because they can not say no.

[LeeH]

Re: Ok so...

Now I wonder who could have voted you down.....

I think you raise valid points AC. Upvote from me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ok so...

A literal goldmine?

[Daggerchild]

Re: Ok so...

Dagnabbit AC !!

I was going to make a ridiculously cynical post about Google only doing it to slurp all your data, and you go and make a SERIOUS post saying exactly that!!

How am I meant to highlight the inherant absurdity of cloud computing data privacy now?

[Mike Wilson]

Pricing

"The Reg's Kid Cloud Jack Clark is working on a pricing comparison of the major after...".

This would be very welcome. I never found my way through Amazon's absurdly complicated pricing stuff to work out whether to go with AWS or stay with old-fashioned hosting. I'm still using hosting. It works fine

I wonder if I am paying too much but can only bear so much baffling pricing stuff before giving up and signing up for another year with A Small Orange.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Pricing

AWS do a free trial for a year, with enough free hours to keep a low-spec instance up all the time. If your bandwidth usage isn't much, it will be free too.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...bringing it into the world of virtual machines by the hour..."

Before you finish that pricing comparison, it's worth noting that Compute Engine is billed by the minute (albeit with a 10 minute minimum).