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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Google Cloud opened its Tokyo region, asia-northeast1, on November 8, 2016. It was Google’s second cloud region in Asia, after Taiwan, and increased the number of Google Cloud zones in Asia from three to six at launch. The move brought Google’s compute, storage and networking services closer to Japanese customers; it was a 2016 infrastructure expansion, not a description of today’s regional service lineup.
When did Google Cloud open its Tokyo region?
Google announced that the Tokyo region was open for business on November 8, 2016. In March that year, the company had said it planned to open a region in Japan in the second half of 2016, referring to it as the East Asia region. The region opened under the code asia-northeast1. Google’s November 8, 2016 launch announcement
What changed when Tokyo became a Google Cloud region?
A cloud region places cloud infrastructure in a particular geographic area. Google said the Tokyo region would put compute, storage and networking services closer to Japanese businesses. At opening, Google described Tokyo as its second region in Asia after Taiwan and said the number of zones it offered in Asia rose from three to six. These figures describe the 2016 launch, not Google Cloud’s present-day footprint.
Google’s stated case for adding a local region was that proximity could help customers whose applications need low latency and high performance. Mercari Principal Engineer Tatsuya Tsuruoka said: “Now that the Tokyo region is open, we can use GCP for other services that have low-latency requirements.” Google’s launch announcement
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What did Google report about Tokyo-region latency?
Google reported that its tests found 50–85% lower average latency when comparing service from the Tokyo region with service from Taiwan for users in Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo and Nagoya. This is Google’s 2016 result, not an independently verified benchmark. The announcement excerpt does not give the test methodology, and the figure should not be treated as a guaranteed improvement for every application or workload. Google’s launch announcement
Does Google Cloud have a region in Japan?
Yes. Tokyo was the first Google Cloud region in Japan. Google opened a second Japanese region in Osaka on May 14, 2019, describing it as Japan’s second region after Tokyo. The Osaka launch announcement described three zones and services including Compute Engine, App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Bigtable, Spanner and BigQuery. That list records what Google announced for Osaka in 2019; it is not a current availability list. Google’s Osaka launch announcement
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to choose a Google Cloud region today
The 2016 Tokyo launch explains why Google added infrastructure in Japan, but it cannot establish which products are available there now or how a particular application will perform. Google says regional availability changes over time and varies by service. Check the current listing for each product rather than relying on a launch-era inventory. Google Cloud locations
For a deployment decision, evaluate these factors together:
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11- Service availability: Confirm that every required product is offered in the specific region you are considering.
- User latency: Consider where your application’s users are and measure performance for your own workload; the 2016 Tokyo-versus-Taiwan figure is not a prediction for a current deployment.
- Data location: Check the location controls and terms that apply to the particular service. A region name alone does not prove an exact facility address or a data-residency guarantee.
- Resilience: Plan how the application will handle zone or regional outages, based on the service’s capabilities and your recovery requirements.
- Cost and other priorities: Compare applicable prices and use Google’s region picker, which considers carbon footprint, price and latency.
Google’s location information is a starting point, not a substitute for service-specific checks. A 2022 Japanese Fair Trade Commission report said Google had data centers in Tokyo and Osaka as of May 2022, while cautioning that a provider’s region name does not necessarily mean its facilities are physically within the named prefecture. Japan Fair Trade Commission, 2022 report
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