Relational databases are pretty familiar technology these days, so we won't spend a whole lot of time discussing exactly what they are. We will introduce them really quickly though, just in case you've never heard the term Structured Query Language (SQL) or Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Then we will jump to the couple of RDBMS options available under GCP, which are Cloud SQL and Cloud Spanner. We will explore both of them in detail and also make comparisons that would give you enough insight for determining the optimum option for your application.

We will go through the following topics in the chapter:

• Relational Databases, SQL and Schemas
• GCP Cloud SQL
• Automatic Backup and Restore
• Cloud Spanner