Google Cloud said on September 30, 2026 that Spanner Omni, the deploy-anywhere version of its Spanner database, is now generally available for production workloads running in customers' own data centers or on other clouds.
What Google announced
In a post by group product managers Jagan R. Athreya and Wenzhe Cao, Google Cloud said Spanner Omni is "ready to power your most demanding production workloads in your on-premises data center or on other clouds."
The company said Spanner Omni was debuted at Google Cloud Next '26 and delivers the same core capabilities as the fully managed Spanner service, with deployments supported on virtual machines or Kubernetes in private data centers, across multiple clouds, or locally on a laptop.
According to Google, Spanner has evolved into an interoperable multi-model database combining SQL, graph, key-value, full-text search, vector search and analytical processing with a columnar engine in a single database.
AI-oriented features
Google said Spanner Omni can natively store and index vector embeddings alongside relational tables, with support for KNN and ANN search, and that Spanner Graph integrates property graphs directly into the engine so graph traversals can be connected with vector search.
The company also said Spanner Omni integrates with agentic systems through Model Context Protocol (MCP) support via MCP Toolbox, which it described as allowing autonomous agents to inspect schemas, retrieve context and use the database as an operational memory layer across multi-cloud deployments.
What is new at GA
Google said the GA release unblocks enterprise capabilities including TLS encryption, authentication and authorization, audit logging, backup and restore, and access to Google Cloud Customer Care.
It also described worker nodes as dedicated, stateless compute nodes unique to Spanner Omni that offload background and resource-intensive operations from primary Spanner Omni servers.
On licensing, Google said a free Developer Edition covers non-commercial, non-production use with a default 90-day license that excludes backup features and worker nodes; in a single-server deployment of 4 vCPUs or less the default license does not expire and backup-restore is supported. Beyond 4 vCPUs, the company said the license can be extended past 90 days via a form. The paid Commercial Edition follows a vCPU-based annual subscription model, with a discounted proof-of-concept license for pre-production evaluation.
Limits versus managed Spanner
Google said customers running Spanner Omni are responsible for day-to-day operations including routine maintenance, version upgrades and infrastructure monitoring, and that Google does not provide availability SLAs because the software runs on customer-managed infrastructure.
The company said Spanner Omni excludes capabilities that rely on Google Cloud-specific services, such as native integrations with BigQuery, Knowledge Catalog or Gemini Enterprise, and acknowledged that some feature gaps with managed Spanner exist today.
Google cited London-based AI-native CRM company Attio as a user. Co-founder and CTO Alexander Christie said: "With Spanner Omni, we have been able to accelerate our production velocity at a truly enhanced level of scale and confidence that was not possible earlier."
What to do
- To use the commercial edition with full features, Google says to contact your Google Cloud account team or reach out via its Spanner Omni consulting page.
- For non-commercial, non-production development and testing, Google says to download the Spanner Omni developer edition.
- If you need a Developer Edition deployment larger than 4 vCPUs to run beyond 90 days, Google says the default license can be extended by filling out its form.
- Google says following its recommended reference architectures can help achieve high availability comparable to the managed service, since no SLA is offered.
Key facts and where they come from
- Spanner Omni is generally available for on-premises and other-cloud deployments.
Spanner Omni, the deploy-anywhere version of Spanner, is now generally available, ready to power your most demanding production workloads in your on-premises data center or on other clouds.
- The product was first shown at Google Cloud Next '26.
When we debuted Spanner Omni at Google Cloud Next ’26, we untethered our distributed database from Google Cloud and brought it directly to your infrastructure.
- GA adds security, backup and support features plus worker nodes.
Support for advanced enterprise security, including TLS encryption, authentication and authorization, and audit logging
- The free Developer Edition default license runs 90 days and omits backup and worker nodes.
The default license lasts for 90-days and includes all features as the commercial edition, except backup features and worker nodes.
- Deployments of 4 vCPUs or less get a non-expiring default license with backup-restore.
When used in a single server deployment of 4 vCPUs or less, the default license does not expire and backup-restore is also supported.
- Google provides no availability SLAs for Spanner Omni.
Because Spanner Omni runs on customer-managed infrastructure, Google does not provide availability SLAs.
- Spanner Omni supports MCP for agentic systems.
Integrate directly with agentic systems using MCP Toolbox.