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Google Cloud Managed Lustre

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Spec score 9.1 #1 of 32 in Distributed File System Software

What it is

Google Cloud Managed Lustre is a fully managed parallel file system for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads. Documented uses include HPC simulations, modeling and analysis, and machine-learning training and inference. It supports throughput up to 10 TBps and storage capacity up to 84,016,000 GiB (80.1 PiB). POSIX compliance is intended to preserve compatibility with existing applications, tools, and workflows. Instances can mount to Compute Engine virtual machines and Google Kubernetes Engine clusters. The service imports data from and exports data to Cloud Storage, including incremental transfers of new or changed files; only one transfer operation per instance can run at a time. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit to and within Google Cloud. Per-instance policies define maintenance windows and exclusion periods. Capacity is provisioned, and unused provisioned capacity is billed. Pricing is from $0.06/mo; hourly rates vary by month, and monthly charges use the hourly rate and hours in that month. Files can be up to 0.5 PiB, with 20 instances maximum per project. Lustre over TCP is supported, and managed backups are not available.

Spec sheet

What it does
Google Cloud Managed Lustre is a fully managed parallel file system aimed at AI and high-performance computing workloads.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Purpose
Google Cloud Managed Lustre is a fully managed parallel file system optimized for AI and high-performance computing applications.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Security
Data stored in a Managed Lustre file system is encrypted at rest, and data in transit to and within Google Cloud is encrypted.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
API surface
Google publishes a v1 REST API with location, instance and operation resources and a lustre.googleapis.com endpoint.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Authentication
Programmatic access uses Google Cloud authentication and IAM authorization, with workload identity federation recommended outside Google Cloud.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Availability target
The Managed Lustre SLA specifies at least 99.9% monthly uptime for an instance.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
Capacity
The documentation lists capacity from 9,000 GiB to 12,240,000 GiB and maximum file size of 0.5 PiB.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Capacity limits
The maximum file size is 0.5 PiB, and the maximum number of instances per project is 20.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Client operating systems
The Compute Engine guide supports HPC Rocky Linux 8, Rocky Linux 9, RHEL 9, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04, with Ubuntu 24.04 limited to Arm VMs.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Client requirement
Lustre client packages are kernel-version specific on Ubuntu, so kernel upgrades can require reinstalling matching packages.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Cloud Storage integration
Managed Lustre provides managed high-speed transfers into and out of Cloud Storage.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Company founded
Gartner’s company details list Google as founded in 1998 and headquartered in Mountain View, California.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Company headquarters and size
Google’s LinkedIn profile lists Mountain View, California headquarters and 10,001-plus employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
Company legal name
Crunchbase identifies the maker as Google LLC and lists it as a subsidiary of Alphabet.Read 15 Oct 2026 · crunchbase.com
Compatibility
POSIX compliance supports compatibility with existing applications, tools, and workflows.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Compute integrations
Instances can be mounted by Compute Engine virtual machines and Google Kubernetes Engine applications.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Developer tooling
Documentation links REST, gcloud lustre commands, Terraform resources and a Cluster Toolkit module.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Dynamic tier
The Dynamic tier adds scalable capacity, a caching layer and cache monitoring for cacheable workloads.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Independent technology announcement
DDN describes Managed Lustre as a zonal service with petabyte-scale capacity, sub-millisecond latency, millions of IOPS and up to 1 TB/s throughput in its 2025 announcement.Read 15 Oct 2026 · ddn.com
Intended workloads
The documentation identifies HPC simulations, modeling and analysis, and machine-learning training and inference as use cases.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
IOPS
Published limits reach 5,800 read IOPS and 5,600 write IOPS per TiB.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Licence: Lustre
The community Lustre filesystem is open source; its kernel modules use GPL-2.0 with the Linux syscall exception and other components use compatible per-file licences.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Limit: Google Cloud billing complexity
The same Gartner review said billing complexity causes headaches despite positive overall experience.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Limit: project quota
The quotas page documents a maximum of 20 Managed Lustre instances per project and 20,000 client connections per instance.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Limit: zonal placement
The product is provisioned in an individual zone and the documentation recommends locating it in the same zone as client VMs or GKE clusters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Maintenance
Per-instance maintenance policies let customers specify maintenance windows and exclusion periods.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Maintenance behavior
Planned maintenance can temporarily stop I/O responses, with typical downtime documented as two to 25 minutes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Metadata performance
At 72 GBps throughput, the service documents up to 410,000 stats, 115,000 creates and 95,000 deletes per second.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Notable news
On April 22, 2026, DDN announced new Managed Lustre capabilities with Google Cloud and stated scaling up to 10 TBps.Read 15 Oct 2026 · ddn.com
Open-source project description
The official Lustre project site describes Lustre as an open-source parallel filesystem for leadership-class HPC simulation environments.Read 15 Oct 2026 · lustre.org
Performance
The service supports throughput up to 10 TBps and storage capacity up to 84,016,000 GiB (80.1 PiB).Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
POSIX compatibility
The service is POSIX compliant so existing applications, tools and workflows can use it.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Praise: Google Cloud platform reliability
A Gartner reviewer praised dependable, scalable performance, identity management, backups, self-service access and global coverage.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Pricing basis
Billing is based on provisioned GiB capacity and zone, even when allocated capacity is unused; throughput and IOPS have no separate charge.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
Rating on Gartner Peer Insights
Google Cloud Platform: 4.7 out of 5 from 2,044 ratingsRead 15 Oct 2026 · gartner.com
Release news
Google documented general availability on July 8, 2025 with four performance tiers from 125 to 1,000 MB/s per TiB and capacity up to 8 PB at that time.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
Security encryption
Data stored in Managed Lustre is encrypted at rest and data moving to or within Google Cloud is encrypted in transit.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Throughput
The overview documents aggregate throughput up to 1.5 TBps.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Transfer limit
Only one data transfer operation per instance can be active at a time.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Underlying technology
Google says the service was developed with DDN and is based on the EXAScaler Lustre distribution.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
VPC Service Controls
Managed Lustre APIs can be placed inside a VPC Service Controls perimeter to reduce data-exfiltration risk, including CMEK integration.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com

Plans and prices

1000 MB/s/TiB Free Hourly pricing varies by month; monthly pricing is hourly price multiplied by hours in the month. Provisioned capacity is billed, including unused capacity · Throughput and IOPS included Read 4 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
125 MB/s/TiB Free Hourly pricing varies by month; monthly pricing is hourly price multiplied by hours in the month. Provisioned capacity is billed, including unused capacity · Throughput and IOPS included Read 4 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
250 MB/s/TiB Free Hourly pricing varies by month; monthly pricing is hourly price multiplied by hours in the month. Provisioned capacity is billed, including unused capacity · Throughput and IOPS included Read 4 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
500 MB/s/TiB Free Hourly pricing varies by month; monthly pricing is hourly price multiplied by hours in the month. Provisioned capacity is billed, including unused capacity · Throughput and IOPS included Read 4 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
Dynamic (25 MB/s/TB) Free Hourly pricing varies by month; monthly pricing is hourly price multiplied by hours in the month. Provisioned capacity is billed, including unused capacity · Throughput and IOPS included Read 4 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
Dynamic (25 MB/s/TiB) $0.06 a month starting per GiB per month Block-level caching · hot/cold unified namespace · cacheable workloads Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
125 MB/s/TiB $0.15 a month starting per GiB per month Capacity-focused parallel workloads Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
250 MB/s/TiB $0.21 a month starting per GiB per month General-purpose HPC · AI inference · preprocessing Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
500 MB/s/TiB $0.34 a month starting per GiB per month High-performance balance · demanding AI/HPC Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com
1000 MB/s/TiB $0.60 a month starting per GiB per month AI/ML training tier · throughput critical Read 15 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com

Every Google Cloud Managed Lustre plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Throughput up to 10 TBps
  • Capacity up to 80.1 PiB
  • POSIX compatibility for existing workflows
  • Mounts to Compute Engine and GKE
  • Encryption at rest and in transit

Limits

  • No free plan or free trial
  • Unused provisioned capacity is billed
  • Managed backups are not available
  • Only one transfer operation per instance

Who it suits

Managed Lustre suits teams running HPC, modeling, analysis, or machine-learning workloads that need a managed POSIX-compatible parallel file system.

Verdict

Managed Lustre targets large, performance-sensitive workloads with Google Cloud integrations and POSIX compatibility. Budgeting should account for provisioned-capacity billing, transfer limits, and the absence of managed backups.

Where Specifiction places it

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