Google’s Cloud Next conference is underway this week, and the company has already announced several new products and offerings, as well as updates to existing Google Workplace apps, with solutions ranging from enhanced cybersecurity tools, new collaboration features and a new portfolio of managed hardware and software solutions called Distributed Cloud.
Google’s Distributed Cloud offering is one of the most notable announcements the company made during the event. In a post Google says Distributed Cloud is built on Anthos, an open-source platform that unifies the management of infrastructure and applications across on-premises, edge and in multiple public clouds.
“Google Distributed Cloud taps into our planet-scale infrastructure that delivers the highest levels of performance, availability, and security, while Anthos running on Google-managed hardware at the customer or edge location provides a services platform on which to run applications securely and remotely,” wrote Sachin Gupta, Google’s general manager and vice president of product for Infrastructure as a Service.
The offering is available in preview today, but it is designed to allow customers to migrate or modernize applications and process data locally with Google Cloud services and leverage third-party services from vendors in their own dedicated environment. Cisco, Dell, HPE and NetApp are Google’s partners that will support the service at launch.
The company also announced new capabilities to BeyondCorp Enterprise, Google’s Zero Trust access solution. The new features are designed to cover all modern and legacy apps, and a new client connector enables identity and context-aware access to the client-server applications. Another tool, App Connector, enables access to enterprise web applications outside of Google Cloud. Other features will make it easier for admins to diagnose failure, triage events and unblock users.
Also in the way of security, the company announced the creation of the Google Cybersecurity Action Team, which is comprised of security experts from across the company. It’s mission, Google says, is to use the company’s cloud technologies to support the security and digital transformation of government, infrastructure and businesses via a company framework aligned with NIST’s cybersecurity framework.
For Workspace, the announcements so far all deal with security and privacy, including a new offering called Work Safer Program that combines Workspace tools with cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.
Google is also bringing Client-side encryption — which was previously brought to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides — to collaboration app Google Meet. According to the company, this gives customers more control over encryption keys.
Other Workspace features include Data Loss Prevention for Chat, Drive labels and other security tools that safeguard against dangerous content in Google Docs and Slides.
Read this running blog from Google for more products and announcements from Cloud Next.
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