Google Cloud kicked off Next OnAir today and announced new solutions across its smart data analytics and security portfolios to help accelerate customers’ ability to digitally transform with cloud computing. Data is one of the most important assets for driving digital transformation but is often siloed across on-premises machines, proprietary systems, or multiple clouds. 

The tech giant introduces BigQuery Omni, a multi-cloud analytics solution, that enables customers to bring the power of BigQuery to data stored in Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure (coming soon). Today, BigQuery Omni is available in Private Alpha for AWS S3, with Azure support coming soon. BigQuery Omni supports Avro, CSV, JSON, ORC, and Parquet. 

Powered by Google Cloud’s Anthos, BigQuery Omni will allow customers to connect directly to their data across Google Cloud, AWS and Azure for analysis without having to move or copy datasets. Through a single user interface, customers will be able to analyze data in the region where it is stored, providing a unified analytics experience.

“For customers, moving data across different clouds is both cumbersome and expensive. To address this, we continue to invest in multi-cloud in an effort to democratise access to the best technologies for our customers, no matter what cloud provider they’re using today,” said Debanjan Saha, General Manager of Data Analytics, Google Cloud. “BigQuery Omni provides enterprises with the openness portability they need to break down silos and create actionable business insights, all without having to pay expensive egress fees for moving data from other cloud providers to Google Cloud.”

Another announcement was about the new Confidential Computing portfolio, which enables encryption of data in-use. As organisations move workloads to the cloud, one of the biggest concerns they have is how to process sensitive data while keeping it private. Google Cloud encrypts data at-rest and in-transit, but customer data must be decrypted for processing.

Confidential Computing is a breakthrough technology which encrypts data in-use — while it is being processed. Confidential Computing environments keep data encrypted in memory and elsewhere outside the central processing unit (CPU). This technology will transform the way organisations process data in the cloud, maintain control over their data, and preserve confidentiality.

Confidential VMs is the first product in Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing portfolio. Google Cloud already employs a variety of isolation and sandboxing techniques as part of its cloud infrastructure to help make its multi-tenant architecture secure. Confidential VMs, now in beta, take this to the next level by offering memory encryption so that customers can further isolate workloads in the cloud.

Google Cloud is the first major cloud provider to offer this level of security and isolation while giving customers an easy-to-use solution that doesn’t require changing code in apps or compromising on performance. Confidential VMs are available on AMD CPUs and take advantage of the secure encrypted virtualisation supported by 2nd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs.

“Customers across all industries are navigating the complexities of compliance and privacy in the cloud, especially those in regulated industries, such as financial services firms, healthcare companies, and government agencies,” said Sunil Potti, General Manager and VP of Security at Google Cloud. “These companies want to adopt the latest cloud technologies, but strict requirements for data privacy or compliance are often barriers. Confidential VMs will help us better serve customers in these industries, so they can securely take advantage of the innovation of the cloud while also simplifying security operations.” 

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