Google launched its new “Google Compute Engine” yesterday at I/O. Here’s more info about GCE on the Google Developer’s Blog, and a nice analysis by Ben Kepes on CloudAve. If “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” then it’s clear the guys at Google hold the Amazon Web Services EC2 in very high regard. In many ways, GCE is a really good copy of EC2 circa 2007/2008. There are some differences – like really great encryption for data at rest and in motion – but essentially GCE is a copy of EC2 4-5 years ago.