Top Features of Google Cloud Firestore to Streamline Database Activities

An exceptional database makes it easy to store data in a highly-organised manner. It also enables effortless data fetching and management while offering functionalities that aid to automates different database management activities. These characteristics make the database an essential tool for businesses in various industry niches. 

One of the database platforms admired by enterprises worldwide is Google Cloud Firestore. It has unique features that facilitate advanced data management and real-time operations to improve the app development process significantly. 

In this post, we will understand what Google Cloud Firestore is and its number of exceptional features. So let’s get going.  

Google Cloud Firestore – What is it? 

As the name depicts, Google Cloud Firestore is a cloud-based NoSQL database server that performs very well with storing and syncing data. Mobile and Web applications can collaborate promptly with Firstote using native SDKs. 

Firestore is a powerful database that helps with automatic scaling. Moreover, it is extremely easy to use and highly reliable. It offers developers the ability to work with Firebase through an extensive range of technology variety such as,

• Java 

• Node.js SDKs 

• C++ 

• Go

• Unity 

• RPC APIs
• REST APIs

Google Cloud Firestore helps to synchronise the information on multiple client apps with the use of real-time listeners and store that information as documents that are sensibly categorised into a collection. The document supports different file types, strings, digits, as well as nested objects.  

It is highly secure, trustworthy, and incorporates flawlessly with the Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Firestore uses Cloud Identity and Access Management technology provided by Google to deal with validation.

Exceptional Features of Google Cloud Firestore

#1. Built for Native Cloud Applications 

Google Cloud Firestore is specifically designed and developed for cloud and native apps. 

That is the reason it is the best choice to easily develop rich mobile and web applications whether it is social media apps, corporate apps with real-time interaction, retail catalogues, leaderboards, or any industry-specific apps, etc.  

#2. ACID Transaction 

While working with databases, users will often come across situations to preserve the ACID principles. 

Google Cloud Firestore supports multi-document ACID transactions means, 

It aids to keep the database documents in a steady condition and overlook race situations while two users are updating the same entity at the same time. 

#3. Multi-Region Replication 

There are three classifications of regionalizations:

Google Cloud Firestore is a multi-region. A multi-region place is a common geographical field like the US. Information in a multi-region place is simulated in different regions. Inside a region, information is simulated throughout the zones. 

Choose a multi-region location to increase the database’s accessibility and durability. Multi-region locations can maintain the loss of the whole location and maintain availability without any data loss. 

In the future, Google plans to expand to provide regional offerings in all GCP locations and additional locations.

#4. Serverless 

Serverless development can help developers to develop high-quality and robust applications. Serverless does not indicate that there is no need for servers. It means users can focus more on design and coding without worrying about the services running on the application servers. 

With serverless development, it is pretty effortless to initiate coding instantly by skipping a lot of internal complications, making it simple to get to market. There is no need to develop a complete fixed infrastructure. Users can scale up/down based on the usage, so need to pay only for the usage. 

Google Cloud Firestore offers a client-SDK that manages networking and validations. It also comprises back-end security controls that manage modern authentication logic on information while enabling flawless data access. 

#5. Autoscaling 

Google Cloud Firestore scales up automatically without any downtime. This scaling mechanism enables Google Cloud Firestore to serve thousands of requests per second as well as millions of concurrent connections.

Native Mode of Firestore can scale operations of document update to an utmost 10k writes each second and 1million+ connections. If an app surpasses write rate limitations, it is suggested to use Datastore Mode which scales millions of writes each second. Firestore scales up automatically when the data demands from the users grow.

#6. Offline Mode and Live Syncing 

Google Cloud Firestore supports offline data persistence. The feature of offline mode caches a copy of the Firestore data that the app is using currently. So, the app can have the accessibility of the data when the device is offline. Users can write/read/listen and query the cached data.  

When the device comes back in the online mode, Google Cloud Firestore syncs any local modifications performed by the application into the back-end. 

To use offline persistence, there is no need to tweak the code used to access data. By just enabling offline persistence, the client library of Firestore automatically deals with online/offline data accessibility. 

#7. Powerful Query Engine

Google Cloud Firestore facilitates users to run sophisticated ACID transactions against the NoSQL document data. So users can structure their data with more flexibility. 

The best part is that the performance of the database stays steady. The response to query time does not degrade even when the database size has enlarged.

#8. High Security

Google Cloud Firestore leverages Google’s highly established security parameters to offer superior security features for mobile and web applications. 

Firestore flawlessly incorporates Firebase Authentication and Identity Platform, to enable tailor-made identity-based security access controls and facilitates data authentication through a configuration language. 

Certain security functions comprises,

• Automatic data validation 

• Non-cascading rules 

• Data protection 

• Functional disaster recovery 

Summing Up 

Whether it is an offline synchronisation, multi-region deployment, serverless architecture, automatic scaling, user-friendliness, or security, Google Cloud Firestore is a one-stop solution for all the database-relevant needs. 

Firestore has a ‘pay by the usage’ pricing structure that costs according to the size and usage of the mobile and web applications. Please note that it is not the best possible solution for the users who are searching for SQL databases and it does not have any customised plan for businesses also. For that, you can choose the alternate options available.