Advancing control and visibility in the cloud
November 20, 2019
Bare Metal Solution: Enabling specialized workloads in Google Cloud
November 20, 2019
Since launching Google Cloud in Europe in 2012, we’ve been inspired by all the ways enterprises in the region are transforming their businesses in our cloud. We continue to deliver new capabilities to support our European customers and bring the cloud to more organizations.
In the last year, we added to our existing cloud region footprint of Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK by launching our new cloud region in Zurich, and announced plans for another new region in Poland. We also expanded our compliance certifications, most recently adding HDS, TISAX, and obtaining an ISAE 3000 report (relating to FINMA compliance) to our growing list. And we’re growing our ecosystem of partners which are key to customers in Europe such as Accenture, Atos, Deloitte, HCL, SAP, and many others. And all the while, we’ve maintained our strong commitment to clean energy, matching our entire annual electricity consumption with renewable energy.
This week, we welcome thousands of customers, partners, business leaders and developers to Google Cloud Next UK in London–our largest Google Cloud event in Europe. On a personal note, I’m excited to round out my first three months at Google Cloud with my first Next, and I look forward to listening deeply to our customers and learning from their cloud journeys.
Our commitment to our European customers
Europe’s ambition for a successful digital transition is something we have always strived to support and enable. Our cloud is designed to fully empower European organizations’ strict data security and privacy requirements and preferences. Where data resides, who has access to customers’ data, and protections for the privacy and security of customers’ data is central to our offering.
With the capabilities we offer and are introducing, Google Cloud customers can store data in a European region, ensure data is not moved outside of Europe, and prevent users and administrators outside Europe from accessing their data. They can manage their own encryption keys, ensure the keys are stored in a European region, and store their encryption keys outside Google Cloud’s infrastructure. They can also receive a detailed justification each time a key is requested to decrypt data, and deny Google the ability to decrypt their data for any reason. You can learn more by reading our security blog post.
These capabilities reflect our belief that customers should have the strongest levels of control over data stored in the cloud in addition to the highest level of security. For insight into what this commitment to customers means from a technical perspective, please see our post, “Understanding your options for data residency, operational transparency, and control on Google Cloud Platform”
How our European customers are building on Google Cloud
We continue to be inspired by the many ways Google Cloud customers across Europe leverage the capabilities of the cloud to transform their businesses. From digital natives building a technology business, to retail companies that have been around for more than 100 years, we are here to support these European organizations in their quests for innovation and growth on a global scale. Here are a few of our favorite stories from the past 12 months:
WPP, the world’s largest advertising holding company, is using Google Cloud to help them do everything from building a media planning stewardship system, to using AI tools like image recognition and natural language processing to improve campaigns. By incorporating cloud technology into WPP’s daily practices, teams can speed up their time-to-insight and uncover new opportunities for clients. Learn more in our WPP blog post.
The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) oversees 24 separate agencies and public bodies to support the movement of people and goods. Its digital team delivers technology across DfT’s operations and supports the department’s broader modernization goals, which often requires it to search through and consume data produced by its constituent agencies. DfT needed to modernize its core technology stack to support digital transformation, which is why it’s working with Google Cloud. It’s anticipated that by June 2020 the department will operate as a cloud-first organization. Read more on Department for Transport and the cloud in our DfT blog post.
With a growing fleet of 325 aircraft that cover more than 1,000 routes across 158 airports, easyJet is one of Europe’s most popular airlines, so a helpful mobile experience for its customers is a key priority. Powered by Dialogflow, Google Cloud’s natural language understanding tool for building conversational experiences, easyJet partnered with technology company Travelport to develop Speak Now, a new feature on easyJet’s mobile app. Speak Now lets customers ask questions to determine exactly what they’re looking for–from destinations, to dates and times, to airports they want to fly from. Find out more in our easyJet blog post.
Customer experience and network data are key assets for Vodafone, one of the world’s leading telecom and technology services companies. It’s working with Google Cloud to transform its data operations to further improve services, engage customers, and create powerful new products. Learn more by reading Vodafone blog post.
Just Eat, the popular online food ordering and delivery service, turned to Google Cloud to power sophisticated consumer recommendations on both its app and website. It also makes heavy use of features offered by Google Cloud Platform, including BigQuery for running analytics on its customer data set and Cloud Pub/Sub for messaging app users with relevant offers in real-time.
Ride-hailing service Kapten has been skyrocketing in popularity in Paris and is now in the process of expanding to new cities in France and across Europe. To support its growth, Kapten has migrated its microservices-based architecture to Google Cloud to take advantage of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), where it now runs 135 microservices. Now that it benefits from the orchestration layer offered by GKE, Kapten no longer needs to spend time developing the tools to manage these microservices and find workarounds.
Clothing retailer AllSaints had already embraced G Suite to ensure strong collaboration between corporate offices and retail locations. This year, they embarked on an ambitious migration to Google Cloud Platform as well. Moving to a microservices architecture on Google Cloud helped them cut costs by half and improve page load times by 32%, resulting in increased online sales.
These compliment the wealth of stories we’ve shared throughout the past 12 months, from Deutsche Borse Group, Sanofi, The Telegraph, Sainsbury’s, Lush and many more. We look forward to learning more from these and other customers throughout Next UK.
Looking ahead
Today’s announcements and updates are part of our ongoing commitment to make Google Cloud the best place for digital transformation for European organizations–across infrastructure, platforms, and industry-specific solutions that enable businesses to move faster. Learn more by reading stories from our customers, in Europe and beyond, or visit our website.
