Storage Data Models

There are three broad categories of data models available in GCP: object, relational, and NoSQL. In addition, we will treat mobile optimized products like Cloud Firestore and Firebase as a fourth category, although these datastores use a NoSQL model. Their mobile supporting features are sufficiently important to warrant their own description.

Object: Cloud Storage

The object storage data model treats files as atomic objects. You cannot use object storage commands to read blocks of data or overwrite parts of the object. If you need to update an object, you must copy it to a server, make the change, and then copy the updated version back to the object storage system.

Object storage is used when you need to store large volumes of data and do not need fine-grained access to data within an object while it is in the object store. This data model is well suited for archived data, machine learning training data, and old Internet of Things (IoT) data that needs to be saved...