The company is announcing the service today at its Google Cloud Next ’21 event, a virtual-only conference that runs until Thursday.
“Google Distributed Cloud taps into our planet-scale infrastructure that delivers the highest levels of performance, availability, and security,” said Sachin Gupta (pictured), Google’s general manager and VP of product for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
Google said it has lined up Intel and Nvidia technologies to deliver new 5G and edge use cases for the cloud service.
Gupta added: “We are also committed to delivering cloud capabilities to our partners’ 5G networks and beyond. Google Distributed Cloud Edge furthers our previously announced global, strategic partnerships with both Ericsson and Nokia to bring new solutions built on a cloud-native 5G core and develop the network edge as a business services platform for enterprises.”
Ericsson and Nokia executives gave their approval to the development.
Rishi Bhaskar, VP and head of hyperscale cloud providers for Ericsson North America, said: “The announcement of Google Distributed Cloud supports Ericsson’s vision of the network becoming a platform of innovation, enabling companies across the ecosystem to deliver the applications of the future the way they need to, unlocking the full potential of 5G and edge.”
At Nokia, Nishant Batra, chief strategy and technology officer, said: “This announcement builds on our on-going partnership with Google Cloud to develop Nokia cloud-native 5G core and Nokia radio solutions for Google’s edge computing platform. By extending this relationship into Google Distributed Cloud Edge, we will increase customer choice and flexibility, ultimately helping our global customer base with multiple cloud-based solutions to deliver 5G services on the network edge.”
Gupta said Google Distributed Cloud’s launch will include two products, in different flavours according to customers’ needs.
“Google Distributed Cloud Edge empowers customers to run 5G core and radio access network (RAN) functions at the edge, alongside enterprise applications, to support mission-critical use cases, such as computer vision and Google AI edge inferencing,” he said.
“Google Distributed Cloud Hosted builds on the digital sovereignty vision outlined last year, supporting public-sector customers and commercial entities that have strict data residency, security or privacy requirements.”
He said that the cloud service can run in four locations, Google’s network edge, the operators’ edge, the customers’ edge, and customers’ data centres.
He said the Distributed Cloud Hosted service is designed to run sensitive workloads. “Google builds on the digital sovereignty vision we outlined last year, and supports public-sector customers and commercial entities that have strict data residency, security or privacy requirements,” said Gupta.
The announcement follows last week’s statement by Google and French military equipment company Thales that they are working together on a sovereign cloud offering to be based in France.
It “provides you with a safe and secure way to modernise an on-premises deployment, regardless of whether you do it yourself or choose to host through a designated, trusted partner”, he added.
“Google Distributed Cloud Hosted does not require connectivity to Google Cloud at any time to manage infrastructure, services, APIs, or tooling, and uses a local control plane provided by Anthos for operations.”
Google Distributed Cloud Hosted will be available in preview in the first half of 2022, he added.
Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems is also building a sovereign cloud offering in partnership with Google Cloud for private and public-sector organisations in Germany.
That will become available in mid-2022, said Gupta. Frank Strecker, senior VP for global cloud computing and big data and edge at T-Systems, said: “T-Systems and Google Cloud share a common goal of developing cloud-based solutions for European governments and enterprises that meet their digital sovereignty, sustainability and economic objectives.”
