Google Cloud has expanded features in Anthos, its multi-cloud application platform which will enable enterprises to modernise existing applications, build new ones, and run them anywhere in a secure manner. Whether customers run workloads on Google Cloud, on-premise or other cloud providers, Anthos provides a consistent platform on which teams can build great applications. 

The company believes that — In times of uncertainty, every enterprise needs an architecture that offers agility and flexibility. According to the company release — The new features added to expand Anthos feature base will help customers in further building applications that can thrive in any environment. Additionally, it provides enterprises with greater choice and flexibility in these uncertain times. 

During these uncertain times, enterprises need an application platform that embraces the technology choices they have already made. With the new features at Anthos, Google Cloud is offering greater flexibility and agility to customers to help them weather change and adapt to what comes next.

Anthos support for multi-cloud will now be generally available for operations across on-premises, Google Cloud and other clouds. According to the release — Enterprises need the cloud to help drive cost efficiency and digital transformation. Last year, Google Cloud announced multi-cloud vision and previewed Anthos running and managing applications on AWS. Expanding the feature, Anthos support for multi-cloud is now Generally Available (GA). It will now enable the customers to consolidate all operations across on-premises, Google Cloud, and other clouds starting with AWS (support for Microsoft Azure is currently in preview). 

The flexibility to run applications where customers need them without added complexity has been a key factor to opt for Anthos. With Anthos, customers will have a common management layer which not only delivers quality services but allows them to manage their tasks with low overhead while they use their existing investments both on-premises as well as in other clouds.

Multiple applications, one solution — Anthos has now enabled management of two most complex pieces of traditional workloads:

• Policy and configuration management – With Anthos Config Management, users can now use a programmatic and declarative approach to manage policies for VMs on Google Cloud just as it is done for your containers. This reduces the likelihood of configuration errors due to manual intervention while speeding up time to delivery. In the meantime, the platform ensures that applications are running with the desired state at all times. 

• Managing services on heterogeneous deployments – Over the coming months, with the use of a sidecar proxy that acts as a network gateway, Anthos Service Mesh will now support the applications running in virtual machines. This will enable the customers to consistently manage service networking across all different workloads, in Google Cloud, on-premises and in other clouds.

Driving efficiency and building future:

• Focusing on performance enhancement, beginning later this year, customers will be able to run Anthos with no third-party hypervisor. This will further reduce the costs and eliminate the management overhead vendor relationships.

• Simplifying the application modernisation procedures, the latest release of Migrate for Anthos will help the users simplify day-two operations and integrate migrated workloads with other Anthos services. This will further reduce the costs for customers and improve performance without having to re-architect or re-platform workloads manually.

Anthos is unique and helps customers adopt cloud without being locked in, having numerous choices and simplifies the integration with existing on-premise services. With Anthos, it’s about establishing a software stack for the next 20 years. It’s a true revolution that shifts paths to the cloud.