Google Cloud's globally distributed database that combines the benefits of relational databases with horizontal scaling. Like having a database that works like a local one but can handle global-scale traffic.
A global financial services company uses Cloud Spanner to handle millions of transactions worldwide with strong consistency.
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent relational database with horizontal scaling. AWS has no exact like-for-like equivalent: Aurora is relational and scalable but typically regional (global options use cross-region replication with different consistency/latency tradeoffs). Azure Cosmos DB is globally distributed with strong consistency options but is primarily a NoSQL/multi-model database (not a traditional relational SQL system). OCI Autonomous Database is a managed Oracle relational database; it can be deployed with high availability and disaster recovery, but it is not the same as Spanner’s native global, synchronous, horizontally scalable architecture.