What is Cloud Native?
Cloud Native is a way of building and running software using cloud technologies and principles, with a focus on scalability, resilience, and agility.
This approach represents a fundamental shift away from traditional monolithic software architectures and towards scalable and reliable Cloud-based architectures that can meet the demands of modern businesses.
As a public cloud provider, Google Cloud is a frontrunner in the creation of cutting edge Cloud Native technologies.
We covered the top 7 technologies from Google Cloud in the Cloud Native era in our 2023 TechRadar. They all have the following characteristics in common:
- Help to accelerate business impact
- Inherently scalable and production-ready
- Investment by Google Cloud for the future
- Exciting roadmap and commitment from Google to further develop them
- Cloud Native – Container-first approach
Let’s dive into each of these Google Cloud technologies.
Top 7 Google Cloud Technologies for the Cloud Native Era
- Vertex AI – Data-driven Intelligence
Vertex AI is Google Cloud’s one-stop shop for machine learning model design, model training, model serving, and monitoring. Vertex AI helps build, deploy, and scale ML (machine learning) models and AI applications faster, with fully managed tools for any use case. It covers the full MLOps life cycle with a Unified UI for the entire ML workflow, including metadata tracking, identifying the best model for a use case, model versioning, feature management, and open source frameworks support such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and sci-kit-learn. Using Vertex AI, you can train models, test them then deploy them and get predictions. Vertex AI Workbench provides a single environment for data engineers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers, allowing your teams to work together using a single set of tools. Vertex AI includes AutoML and custom training in one unified data and AI platform. Vertex AI provides an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface and a library of pre-trained APIs for natural language, vision, video, and more.
It also helps identify holes in your process, reminds you of what’s required to build a robust machine learning process, and it’s an inherently scalable model if you follow it.
2. Appsheet – Business Automation
AppSheet gives non-programmers the power to build no-code applications to streamline business processes. It has integrations with your day-to-day sources of truth in Google Workspace, like Gmail, Drive, Sheets, or Spaces, as well as AWS, SQL databases, Apigee, REST APIs, and OData. AppSheet can also connect to third-party apps such as Office 365, Dropbox, and Salesforce.
AppSheet allows users to create apps easily in an editor that automatically generates prototypes and provides smart suggestions. It also comes with a large library of templates ready to copy or customise, such as kanban boards, project trackers, delivery tracking, CRM, quote generators, lead tracking, IT ticketing, and many more.
3. Anthos – Distributed Cloud
Anthos is a Cloud-centric container platform that allows organisations to run modern apps consistently at scale in a Hybrid Cloud environment. It’s a solution for streamlined application development, service discovery and telemetry, service management, and workload migration from On-prem to Cloud. It can be extended to manage on-premises edge Virtual Machines. With Anthos, you can manage Google Kubernetes Engine clusters and workloads that run on VMs across different environments, providing a unified management experience. Policies and security are also automated at scale, ensuring compliance and country-specific regulations are met.
4. Apigee – Digital Business & Products
Apigee is a highly performant and reliable platform for building, managing and securing APIs. Multiple architectural styles are available to match various needs and development preferences: REST, gRPC, SOAP, GraphQL, and more. Apigee works well with Anthos Service Mesh, the technology mentioned above, to standardise, secure, and control communications between microservices.
Apigee is suited for organisations with an API-first approach. It helps bring digital products to life more efficiently and securely. It can also open up a new revenue stream for businesses through API monetisation.
5. Carbon Footprint – Sustainability enabled by digital
When transitioning to the Cloud, we usually think about performance, cost, and development time. But sustainability is also a key metric to consider, especially for GreenOps companies. GreenOps is a framework that allows organisations to gain insight into the environmental implications of their IT strategies while fostering environmental accountability across all levels of the enterprise.
Google Carbon Footprint helps organisations measure, report, and reduce their Cloud carbon emissions. The dashboard shows an overview of the gross carbon emissions from electricity associated with the usage of Google Cloud services, broken down by region, project, product, and month. The information can be exported to BigQuery in order to perform data analysis, create custom dashboards and reports, or include the data in your organisation’s emissions accounting tools.
6. Cloud Run – Digital Business & Products
Cloud Run, the next generation of Serverless technology, is a fully managed compute environment that allows you to deploy and scale serverless HTTP containers. It implements Kubernetes KNative, making the applications using Cloud Run portable and thus avoiding vendor lock-in. With Cloud Run, you can build and deploy scalable containerised apps written in any language, including .NET, Java, Go, Python, Node.js, or Ruby. There are two ways to run the code: as a service, responding to web requests or events, or as a job, performing a task and quitting when that task is done. Standard service features include fast request-based auto-scaling, built-in traffic management, access restriction, and a unique HTTP(S) endpoint for every service. Cloud Run is a good choice for code that handles requests or events, such as websites, APIs, microservices, and streaming data processing.
Using containerisation and serving through Cloud Run allows developers to focus on new features and not worry about security, scalability, availability, or observability, as those are built in.
7. Chronicle – Trust & Cybersecurity
Knowledge is power, and with Chronicle, you get one of the few systems in the market that gather information across all your systems and networks to detect anomalies and security attacks.
Chronicle Security Operations is a cloud-native security analytics platform that enables detection, investigation, and threat hunting at Google speed and scale. It provides an integrated experience with its three components: Chronicle SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), Chronicle SOAR (Security Automation Orchestration and Response), and Threat Intelligence. SecOps teams can detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats by leveraging Google’s cyber intelligence. Chronicle SIEM helps answer the usual SIEM legacy architecture issues, makes threat hunting efficient, extends detection capabilities, and limits cost based on the pricing model and the log retention period. Chronicle SOAR enables SecOps teams to respond to cyber threats in minutes and track real-time SOC metrics and KPIs with out-of-the-box interactive dashboards. Automation is used for closing false positives and remediation sequences (block URLs on FW, reset user credentials, delete similar emails, etc.).
Chronicle has a unique pricing point based on the number of users, not the amount of data processed, which gives it a compelling advantage.
Cloud Native Trends for 2023
As we navigate this Cloud Native Era, there’s a growing need to leverage past knowledge and technologies to accelerate the development process.
- Serverless computing
Containerisation has paved the way for Serverless computing, enabling faster application deployment and reducing infrastructure overheads.
- Security
The shared resources in Cloud Native environments have brought security concerns to the forefront, and it is crucial to prioritise secure implementation practices.
- Sustainability
Sustainability is also emerging as a key factor, with GreenOps taking on a role similar to that of FinOps. Technology choices are now influenced by their environmental impact.
Google Cloud is uniquely positioned to be the right provider for organisations that want to speed up their Cloud Native journey and secure the future of their business. By leveraging Google Cloud technologies, organisations can balance speed, security, and sustainability to thrive in this new era of computing.
Want to know more?
For expert insights on the market readiness of Google Cloud’s technologies for the Cloud Native Era, check out Devoteam’s 2023 TechRadar.
