App Engine for PHP allows PHP developers to quickly build robust, scalable and secure PHP applications. But the beating heart of almost every great PHP project is a robust MySQL database. Recently we announced the General Availability of Google Cloud SQL - our enterprise class, fully managed MySQL service. And as you would hope, it integrates seamlessly with Google App Engine.



Because Cloud SQL is based on MySQL, PHP users will find that using App Engine and Cloud SQL together feels very familiar. You can use many standard MySQL tools to manage your app’s Cloud SQL database, such as the MySQL command-line client, MySQL Workbench, phpMyAdmin, as well as the Cloud SDK. You can even set up phpMyAdmin as an App Engine app itself.



Cloud SQL allows developers to spin up complex PHP applications on App Engine very easily - and take advantage of App Engine’s security and scalability. For example, it is trivial to get WordPress running on App Engine.



There are lots of features that make Cloud SQL a great fit for sites with low and intermittent traffic.


  • The per-use billing plan means you only pay for the time the database is being accessed; the rest of the time you only pay for storage. You can also start with a small instance costing just $0.025/h, and at any time you can increase capacity with just a few seconds downtime.

  • The same scalability applies to storage: you don't need to reserve space in advance, and you only pay for the data you actually store — up to a whopping 500GB.

  • Reliability and robustness are crucial, so all data is replicated multiple times in multiple locations, and automatically backed up. All data is also encrypted when stored, and when on Google's networks.


While being able to run applications on the cheap is nice, Cloud SQL is also being used by large businesses like Costco to provide storage for major e-commerce sites, because of features like automated backups, data replication, and automated patches. In fact, SaaS providers like Kissflow can provide a database for each of the customers of their workflow service, without worrying about issues like noisy neighbors or resource allocation.



Links:

WordPress starter project

Google Cloud Platform project sign-up

Cloud SQL documentation

Getting Started with App Engine for PHP



-Posted by Amy Unruh, Developer Relations