Spanner Omni Reaches GA, Replacing Google's Atomic Clocks and File System with Software

Google has released Spanner Omni for general availability, allowing its distributed SQL database to run across local environments, laptops, and third-party cloud providers. This release represents a significant technical shift, as the service replaces Google's proprietary hardware-based Colossus file system and TrueTime atomic clocks with software-defined abstractions. By removing these infrastructure dependencies, Google enables users to deploy the database in heterogeneous environments, though the service currently lacks a formal availability service level agreement.