In another attempt to make its cloud service relevant versus much larger rivals, Google LLC today introduced a new cloud database for software developers to store all the data used in their mobile and web apps.

The Cloud Firestore is a so-called NoSQL database, a kind of database that handles less structured data than that stored in traditional relational databases such as Oracle Corp.’s. NoSQL databases are used in big data and real-time applications.

Google already offers a NoSQL cloud database, called Firebase Realtime Database, which Google acquired when it bought the “backend as a service” startup Firebase in 2014 and turned it into its mobile app development service last year. That database helped get past limitations of standard databases by allowing databases to scale to large size, handle real-time app actions and provide offline support through a smaller database on the device.

But as apps got more and more complex, top apps had trouble scaling up the database for massive numbers of queries, Firebase co-founder and Chief Executive and now group product manager James Tamplin said in an interview. In fact, Firebase product manager Alex Dufetel said he ran into just this problem when he founded LiveMinutes, a real-time collaboration app that was bought by Fuze in 2015.

Cloud Firestore offers several features needed by the largest mobile app developers. For one, it can synchronize data between devices in real time. It also uses concepts called collections and documents to structure and query data, allowing queries to scale up far higher. And among other things, it allows apps to work offline with a database on the mobile device so apps work even when connectivity is lost.

The database has been in private alpha test for the past year and now will be generally available in beta. It’s used by, among others, CNN on an internal tool that allows the team to create new news features and HomeAway for building a recommendation app for tips on businesses from local people.

In a sense, databases, at least those that are successful in getting customers, are becoming a key leverage point for cloud computing providers, and Cloud Firestore is at least partly intended to provide that potential for Google’s cloud platform. “Being the data store for an application is advantageous competitively,” said Tamplin.

Firebase Realtime Database will remain available, and the two databases can be used together. But Firestore product manager Dan McGrath said Firestore will be recommended for most use cases down the road, the one exception being apps that require writing data very fast, such as from a cursor movement.

Though NoSQL databases still trail far behind in usage behind traditional ones, they’re becoming more popular. MongoDB Inc., which makes a NoSQL database, on Sept. 14 filed to go public.

Image: Google