Google takes a run at enterprise cloud data management Posted on : Apr 18 - 2019

New Google Cloud boss Thomas Kurian is putting databases and data management at the forefront at Google. The vendor has forged key data deals, showing a more mature Google Cloud.

Meeting the needs of enterprise cloud users requires a reset of sorts for Google. It is a consumer-oriented powerhouse and a leader in cutting-edge AI, machine learning and big data, but it has lagged in supporting enterprise cloud data management.

Moving from the cutting edge to the enterprise was a clear goal for Google at its recent Google Cloud Next '19 user conference. It was the first such event since enterprise computing veteran Thomas Kurian, former president of product development at Oracle, took over Google Cloud operations late last year.

Kurian made clear to conference attendees that Google will make databases and data management integral to its cloud efforts. He pointed to an upcoming beta release of Cloud Data Fusion integration services, new database migration services, AutoML services, and deeper upcoming support for PostgreSQL and SQL Server relational databases as cloud services.

Google intends to broaden its offerings for enterprise cloud data management with these various agreements with third-party software providers -- many of which are glad to align with what is considered a top-notch AI operation.

Digging for data

Like others, Google is exploiting cloud's enhanced scalability and providing computation across availability zones around the world.

That was a factor last year that led information management giant Iron Mountain to partner with Google to develop services to analyze physical and digital data repositories. Inside those repositories resides what some call dark data -- dormant data yet to be exploited.

"Cloud is important. Today, as needs require, you have to have computation that scales up and scales down," said Fidelma Russo, CTO at Iron Mountain, based in Boston. Google's capabilities in AI and machine learning are a plus when it comes to navigating dark data, she said in a phone interview from the conference floor.

"Google has a large investment in machine learning and AI models," Russo said. "The tools allow us to provide value to combining the physical world and digital world."

At Google Cloud Next, Iron Mountain demonstrated the first results of the partnership. The company's InSight platform employs the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for portions of AI processing to search many kinds of semi-structured data. At the Google event, San Francisco Giants representatives showed InSight's ability to delve into archives of video, audio and other content to highlight famous baseball players and plays. View More