Google Cloud SQL is a MySQL database server instance that lives in the Google cloud infrastructure; it can be used from outside Google Cloud Platform within applications that don't run on the App Engine platform. We will learn how to use it both ways: by adding code to our Notes application and creating a standalone script that runs on our workstation.
Google offers two billing plans for Cloud SQL, Packages and Per Use, without providing any free tier. This means we have to pay to execute the code in this chapter, though choosing the Per Use plan and running the instance for the sole purpose of going through the chapter should be extremely cheap.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
How to create, configure, and run a Cloud SQL instance
How to manage a running instance
How to use Cloud SQL from App Engine
How to use Cloud SQL from outside App Engine