Feature Spanner supports creating tables without defining primary keys. When you create a table without a primary key, Spanner creates a hidden rowid column that serves as the primary key. For more information, see Create a table without defining a primary key.
Feature You can use Gemini in Spanner Studio to fix errors in your SQL queries. When you run a query that contains an error, you can click Fix to view a line-by-line comparison of your query and a recommended correction, along with an explanation of the change. This feature is available in Preview.
Feature Spanner supports direct connectivity. When enabled, your application traffic is routed directly to Spanner servers, bypassing the Google Front End (GFE) servers. This can reduce your overall latency. Direct connectivity is generally available (GA).
Feature You can publish a Spanner conversational analytics agent in Gemini Enterprise. This feature is in Preview.
Feature Spanner Graph supports a suite of graph algorithms covering use cases such as fraud detection, entity resolution, and recommendations. You can invoke graph algorithms as built-in function calls in Spanner Graph queries. You can save your output to Cloud Storage or Spanner. This feature is available in Preview.
Feature You can optimize Spanner Graph query performance by using factorized execution. If a graph pattern traversal generates duplicate intermediate results, add the @{factorize_mode} hint to the pattern traversal or at the query level to optimize the query. For more information, see Use factorized execution to optimize queries.
Feature Spanner Studio supports query parameters, which let you bind literal values to a templated SQL statement at query time in the Google Cloud console. For more information, see query parameters.
Feature Spanner supports the FACTORIZED_MODE join hint. You can control which sides of a join to factorize (deduplicate) before executing the join by using the FACTORIZE_LEFT, FACTORIZE_RIGHT, or FACTORIZE_BOTH hint values. For more information, see Factorized mode. Announcement The Spanner change streams default retention period has been increased from 1 day to 7 days. This change affects both ne…
Feature Spanner vector index and approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) distance functions are generally available (GA) for PostgreSQL databases.
Feature Spanner full-text search supports custom dictionaries to create custom synonym mappings. You can use custom dictionaries with the SEARCH, SCORE, and SNIPPET functions.
Feature The Spanner remote MCP server is generally available (GA). The Spanner remote MCP server lets you interact with Spanner instances from LLMs, AI applications, and AI-enabled development platforms. Feature You can use the Database Insights remote MCP server to analyze Spanner's performance and system metrics. This feature is generally available (GA). Feature You can now use Spanner Studio to…
Feature Repeatable read isolation is generally available. You can use it to reduce latency and transaction failure rates for workloads that have many reads contending with fewer writes. For more information, see Repeatable read isolation. Feature Spanner supports Gemini Cloud Assist investigation capabilities. You can create, run, and edit Gemini Cloud Assist investigations only if you have a Prem…
Feature Spanner supports importing data from Cloud SQL for MySQL. This feature lets you migrate the schema and perform a one-time bulk data load to evaluate Spanner for your use case. For more information, see Import from Cloud SQL to Spanner. This feature is generally available.
Feature The QueryData tool lets you to query the data in your database using conversational language and build data agents. For more information, see QueryData tool overview. This feature is available in (Preview). The preview release increases the accuracy of SQL generation with value search queries which match values and their context within a database. Value search queries trigger automatically…
Feature Spanner offers conversational analytics, which lets users query their operational data using natural language. This feature is powered by the Conversational Analytics API, which can help you translate complex human dialog into precise database queries to provide actionable insights. This feature is in Preview. For more information, see Conversational analytics for Spanner overview. Feature…
Feature The Spark Spanner connector supports writing a Spark Dataframe to a Spanner table using the Spark data source API. For more information, see Use the Spark Spanner connector.
Feature Spanner now offers AI functions, as a part of machine learning functions, that help you perform semantic operations using Large Language Models (LLMs) in SQL to classify, evaluate, and rank your data: AI.CLASSIFY: Classify a natural language input into user-defined categories. AI.IF: Evaluate a condition described in natural language. AI.SCORE: Rate natural language input and assign it a s…
Feature Spanner supports the optimistic concurrency control mode. Optimistic concurrency control is suitable for transactional workloads with low read-write contention. It assumes that conflicts in transactions are rare. Reads and queries within a read-write transaction proceed without acquiring locks. For more information, see Concurrency control.
Feature You can use continuous queries to stream BigQuery data to Spanner in real time. This feature is generally available (GA).
Feature Spanner supports the ON CONFLICT clause for GoogleSQL INSERT statements to handle unique constraint violations. For more information, see ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING and ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE.
Feature Spanner supports using the pending commit timestamp function as a default value and an ON UPDATE expression for column definitions. For more information, see the GoogleSQL ON UPDATE clause and the PostgreSQL ON UPDATE clause.
Feature Spanner provides JSON string versions of the following statistics columns for PostgreSQL-dialect databases: TOTAL_LATENCY_DISTRIBUTION_JSON_STRING in Transaction statistics OPERATIONS_BY_TABLE_JSON_STRING in Transaction statistics LATENCY_DISTRIBUTION_JSON_STRING in Query statistics SAMPLE_LOCK_REQUESTS_JSON_STRING in Lock statistics You can use these columns to retrieve statistics in JSON…
Feature Spanner supports the following: Monitor the usage of Enterprise edition and Enterprise Plus edition features in your Spanner instance. Downgrade the instance's edition using the Google Cloud console. Verify edition compatibility when restoring from a backup. If the database uses higher-tier features, you must restore the backup to a destination instance that uses the same or a higher-tier…
Feature Spanner provides UNSPLITTABLE_REASONS in hotspot insights and split statistics views to detect when splits can't be split further. Unsplittable reasons can help you identify schema anti-patterns that require intervention. For more information, see Find hotspots in your database and Split statistics. This feature is generally available (GA).
Deprecated Control of MCP use with organization policies is deprecated. After March 17, 2026, organization policies that use the gcp.managed.allowedMCPServices constraint won't work, and you can control MCP use with IAM deny policies. For more information about controlling MCP use, see Control MCP use with IAM. Change After March 17, 2026, when you enable Spanner, the Spanner MCP server is automat…
Feature You can use the Spanner remote MCP server to interact with Spanner instances and databases from agentic AI applications such as Gemini CLI, agent mode in Gemini Code Assist, or Claude.ai. This feature is in Preview.
Feature You can right-click a node in a Spanner Graph query visualization to access options like expanding or collapsing adjacent nodes, highlighting or hiding nodes, and viewing only a node's neighbors. For more information, see Work with visualizations.
Feature You can create and host remote functions in Cloud Run and call them from Spanner queries using the GoogleSQL dialect. This feature is in Preview.
Feature Spanner supports the UUID data type for both GoogleSQL and PostgreSQL-dialect databases. This data type stores universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) as 128-bit values. You can use the GoogleSQL NEW_UUID() function or the PostgreSQL gen_random_uuid() to function to create UUID values. For more information, see Use a universally unique identifier (UUID).
Feature Spanner supports the following compression functions: ZSTD_COMPRESS ZSTD_DECOMPRESS_TO_BYTES ZSTD_DECOMPRESS_TO_STRING These functions use the Zstandard (Zstd) lossless data compression algorithm to compress and decompress STRING or BYTES values. For more information, see Compression functions.