Google has announced a preview of AlloyDB Omni, a self-managed and downloadable version of AlloyDB which can be run by users on-premises, on their edge devices and even on their developer systems. Omni runs on the same engine as their AlloyDB service, a PostgreSQL-compatible database service which was made generally available last year. 

A blog published by the company has stated that Omni is twice as fast for transactional workloads and can deliver 100 times faster analytical queries as compared to standard, open-source PostgreSQL. Google has made several innovations to the core database engine to tune and optimise it. 

Omni has used the columnar engine to minimise latency for query results by storing the frequently accessed data in an in-memory format which quickens scanning, joining and aggregating data. The system also uses ML to automatically organise data from different formats and convert data formats as and when required. 

Andi Gutmans, GM and VP of engineering for databases at Google Cloud explained that Google wanted to help customers ease the cloud migration process which more often than not involved a multicloud strategy. 

“When we announced AlloyDB, we talked a lot about the fact that many customers had approached us and talked about their interest in getting off legacy databases and moving to open APIs, whether those are customers coming from Oracle, [Microsoft’s] SQL Server, [IBM’s] Db2. And part of the mission of AlloyDB was really to help customers modernize their existing legacy databases, onto open APIs, while the focus of our AlloyDB managed service was to bridge some of those gaps between the higher-end legacy database environments that customers are running on premises and what they could get from open source,” he stated. 

Richard Seroter, Director of Developer Relations and Outbound Product Management tweeted the announcement saying, “Google isn’t a conventional company, so why should we have a conventional @googlecloud strategy? AlloyDB is a premium PostgreSQL cloud service, and we just announced a preview of AlloyDB Omni, premium software you can run ANYWHERE, supported by us.” 

Since AlloyDB Omni is an alternative to PostgreSQL and is compatible with PostgreSQL applications, companies using Postgre-compatible tools can back up and replicate their databases. 

Google has said that while there will be a free developer edition available, commercial users will have to pay for their licenses. 

There will be a free developer edition, while commercial users will have to pay for their licenses. Google has also stated that once AlloyDB Omni becomes generally available it will offer enterprise support, including technical support to clients.