TigerGraph Inc. has launched its managed graph database on Google Cloud, enabling customers of the search giant’s infrastructure-as-a-service platform to use the software in their analytics projects.

The Redwood City, California-based startup said today that the offering is now the first distributed graph database-as-a-service offering to work across all three major public clouds. TigerGraph, which closed a $105 million funding round in February, has already supported Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp.’s Azure.

Graph databases differ from most relational and NoSQL systems in that they feature specialized optimizations for storing relationships between disparate pieces of information. That allows them to perform certain tasks faster. A graph database can, for example, efficiently analyze the relationships between the hardware components of a carrier network to identify performance bottlenecks. 

Analyzing information technology infrastructure for opportunities to improve efficiency is just one of the use cases TigerGraph targets. Its database also powers a wide range of applications in other areas, from recommendation engines to healthcare analytics systems.

The database’s architecture allows it to provide significantly better performance than traditional databases for use cases that rely heavily on data relationships. According to TigerGraph, queries carried out against tens of millions of data points take under a second to return in some cases. The startup also provides a specialized query language called GSQL that makes it less complicated to run graph analyses. 

TigerGraph Cloud, the managed version of the database that TigerGraph has launched on Google Cloud, provides the same features in a package designed to be easier to use. Organizations don’t have to manage the underlying infrastructure resources or perform related tasks such as creating backups. TigerGraph sells the service on a pay-as-you-go-basis similar to the pricing model of the cloud platforms on which customers deploy the software.

Bringing the database to Google Cloud will potentially boost the startup’s sales efforts by allowing it to target customers of the search giant more effectively. It will also enhance a key aspect of TigerGraph Cloud’s value proposition: The service avoids vendor lock-in because it works on multiple infrastructure-as-a-service platforms. Now that TigerGraph supports all three major public clouds, it should have a more compelling pitch for enterprises adopting multicloud operating models.

Alongside the Google Cloud support, TigerGraph today announced a pair of new connectors. The first will allow companies to move data from Snowflake Inc.’s cloud data warehouse to its database. The other makes it easier to visualize information stored in TigerGraph using Salesforce.com Inc.’s Tableau business intelligence platform.

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