Google Cloud Next: Everything you need to know about the new strategy
Google Cloud Platform CEO Thomas Kurian made his debut as leader of the company and outlined a strategy that will look familiar to enterprise technology buyers.
In fact, some of Kurian's strategy looked cribbed from his alma mater: Oracle. Yes, Google Cloud Platform checked all the boxes at Google Cloud Next. Check out the separated-at-birth slides between Oracle and Google Cloud.
Oracle's decades-old industry nameplate slide:
And now Google:
Here's the rundown and what you need to know:
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is using its Kubernetes expertise to be a hybrid cloud player via an effort called Anthos. By using containers, GCP wants to be a bridge with hybrid cloud infrastructures as well as app development and serverless functions. (See: Google's app management platform aims to connect clouds -- even AWS, Microsoft Azure | What serverless computing really means, and everything else you need to know)
- The company rounded out its partner base to hit all the enterprise bases with familiar vendors including VMware, Dell Technologies, HPE, and Cisco, to name a few. (See: Google Cloud announces new partnerships, expanded global footprint)
- Launched managed services for the wares of open source partners such as Confluent, DataStax, Elastic, InfluxData, MongoDB, Neo4j, and Redis Labs. (See: Google challenges AWS with open-source support | Google Cloud gives open-source data vendors a break. Will that save open source? | TechRepublic: Google's open source partner play is good business, not "some sort of generous magical deal")
- Kurian outlined an industry focused sales approach where it will use GCP's core expertise and tailor it to verticals such as financial services, media, and transportation. (See: Thomas Kurian brings a stepped up customer focus to Google Cloud | Google Cloud Platform launches Cloud Run, aims to bring enterprise workloads to serverless, Kubernetes)
- GCP wants to be seen as a digital transformation enabler.
None of this GCP playbook is unique if you're used to buying hardware and software from the likes of Dell, HPE, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, and a host of other vendors. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that GCP is firmly speaking enterprise technology and that reality may finally make it a larger threat to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
On the second day of Google's cloud conference, the company leaned into artificial intelligence and industry specific partnerships.
- The biggest AI effort was the launch of AI Platform in beta. AI Platform is a development platform that doubles as a collaboration tool for engineers, developers and data scientists on machine learning projects. The company also launched new versions of Cloud AutoML. The upshot is more enterprise tools to scale AI. (See: Google announces new AI, smart analytics tools)
- GCP launched some handy uses to transform Android devices into security keys. (See: Google transforms Android phones into security keys)
- Google also said Assistant will come to G Suite in a move that could be useful for things like scheduling. (See: Google brings Assistant to G Suite)
- There were also a series of partnership announcements as Accenture and Deloitte expanded GCP alliances to better focus on industry use cases. (See: Confluent, Fivetran announce deep Google Cloud integration | How Google Cloud for Retail will help digitally transform shopping)
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Buying resources:
- Google Cloud Platform: An insider's guide TechRepublic download
- Vendor comparison: Azure, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud Tech Pro Research
- How 'cloud-native' applications are transforming IT, and why it took so long
- Microsoft Azure: Everything you need to know about Redmond's cloud service
- The rise of Kubernetes epitomizes the transition from big data to flexible data
- AWS: Complete business guide to the world's largest provider of cloud services
- How to save money and reduce costs with a yearly auto-renew services checkup
- Public cloud spending to surge as companies start moving from cloud-first to cloud-only