Google has introduced a new cross-platform API that’s designed to deliver faster access to its Cloud Datastore NoSQL database for non-Google App Engine users.

Google’s Cloud Datastore API is currently in beta for the company’s cloud customers, and is said to bring improvements to both the performance and reliability of the database when accessed by Google Compute Engine, Container Engine, and other platforms, said Google Cloud Product Manager Dan McGrath in a statement.

As well as the new API, Google also provided a few details of the service-level agreement (SLA) that’ll come into effect once the API reaches general availability. However, Google hasn’t yet said when that might happen.

The SLA covers both the regional and multi-region services of Google’s Cloud Datastore, the company said. Under the terms of the deal, Google is guaranteeing at least 99.5 percent uptime for Cloud Datastore multi-region customers, and 99 percent or more uptime for regional service users. That’s around 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime per year. Should Google fail to deliver its promised uptime, the SLA states that its liable to compensate customers with up to 10 percent off their monthly bills, though bigger customers can receive up to 50 percent off if uptime falls below 95 percent.

Google released its Cloud Datastore back in 2014, providing its cloud customers with a NoSQL Web and mobile application database. It’s one of several storage services Google offers, alongside Google Cloud Storage, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud SQL and Google Drive. Just last week, Google revamped the pricing structure for Cloud Datastore, introducing a simplified model that the company says should lead to lower costs for most of its users. That model will go into effect on July 1.

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