Google Unveils Topaz, the New Subsea Cable Connecting Asia and Canada
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There’s a new subsea cable in town: Topaz, the first-ever fiber cable to connect Canada and Asia.
Once complete, Topaz will run from Vancouver to the small town of Port Alberni on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and across the Pacific Ocean to the prefectures of Mie and Ibaraki in Japan. We expect the cable to be ready for service in 2023, not only delivering low-latency access to Search, Gmail and YouTube, Google Cloud, and other Google services, but also increasing capacity to the region for a variety of network operators in both Japan and Canada.
Google is spearheading construction of the project, joined by a number of local partners in Japan and Canada to deliver the full Topaz subsea cable system. Other networks and internet service providers will be able to benefit from the cable’s additional capacity, whether for their own use or to provide to third parties. And, similar to other cables we’ve built, with Topaz we will exchange fiber pairs with partners who have systems along similar routes. This is a longstanding practice in the industry that strengthens the intercontinental network lattice for network operators, for Google, and for users around the world.
Network infrastructure investments like Topaz bring significant economic activity to the regions where they land. For example, according to a recent Analysys Mason study, Google’s historical and future network infrastructure investments in Japan are forecasted to enable an additional $303 billion (USD) in GDP cumulatively between 2022 and 2026.
The width of a garden hose, the Topaz cable will house 16 fiber pairs, for a total capacity of 240 Terabits per second (not to be confused with TSPs). It includes support for Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS), an efficient and software-defined way to carve up the spectrum on an optical fiber pair for flexibility in routing and advanced resilience. We’re proud to bring WSS to Topaz and to see the technology is being implemented widely across the submarine cable industry.
While Topaz is the first trans-Pacific fiber cable to land on the West Coast of Canada, it’s not the first communication cable to connect to Vancouver Island. In the 1960s, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System (COMPAC) was a copper undersea cable linking Vancouver with Honolulu (United States), Sydney (Australia), and Auckland (New Zealand), expanding high-quality international phone connectivity. Today, COMPAC is no longer in service but its legacy lives on. The original cable landing station in Vancouver — the facility where COMPAC made landfall on Canadian soil — has been upgraded to fit the needs of modern fiber optics and will house the eastern end of the Topaz cable.
Traditional and treaty rights, and local communities, are deeply important to our infrastructure projects. The Topaz cable is built alongside the traditional territories of the Hupacasath, Maa-nulth, and Tseshaht, and we have consulted with and partnered with these First Nations every step of the way.
“Tseshaht is very proud of this collaboration and our partnership with Google, who has been very respectful and thoughtful in its engagement with our Nation. That’s how we carry ourselves and that’s how we want business to carry themselves in our territory.“ — Tseshaht First Nation – Elected Chief Councillor-Ken Watts
“The five First Nations of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society are pleased that we have concluded an agreement with Google Canada and have consented to the installation of a new, high-speed fiber optic cable through our traditional territories. This agreement, in which both Google Canada and our Nations benefit, is based on respect for our constitutionally protected treaty and aboriginal rights and enhances the process of reconciliation. We would also like to acknowledge the sensitivity that Google Canada expressed during our talks in regard to the pain and trauma experienced by our people as a result of residential school experience. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Google Canada.” —Chief Charlie Cootes, President of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society
“Google’s respect towards our Nation is appreciated and has good energy behind it.” —Hupacasath First Nation – Elected Chief Councilor – Brandy Lauder
With the addition of Topaz today, we have announced investments in 20 subsea cable projects. This includes Curie, Dunant, Equiano, Firmina and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like Blue, Echo, Havfrue and Raman — all connecting 29 cloud regions, 88 zones, 146 network edge locations across more than 200 countries and territories. Learn about Google Cloud’s network and infrastructure on our website and in the below video.
Building Unique Customer Experiences with Speed & Scale: Sprinklr & Google Cloud
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Enterprises are increasingly seeking out technologies that help them create unique experiences for customers with speed and at scale. At the same time, customers want flexibility when deciding where to manage their enterprise data, particularly when it comes to business-critical applications.
That’s why I’m thrilled that Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, has partnered with Google Cloud to accelerate its go-to-market strategy and grow awareness among our joint customers. Sprinklr will work closely with our global salesforce, benefitting from our deep relationships with enterprises that have chosen to build on Google Cloud.
Akin to Google Cloud’s mission to accelerate every organization’s ability to digitally transform their business through data-powered innovation, Sprinklr’s primary objective is to empower the world’s largest and most loved brands to make their customers happier by listening, learning, and taking action through insights. With this strategic partnership now in place, Sprinklr and Google Cloud will go-to-market together with the end-customer as our sole focus.
Traditionally, brands have adopted point solutions to manage segments of the customer journey. In isolation, these may work — but they rarely work collaboratively, even when vendors build “Frankenstacks” of disconnected products. These solutions can’t deliver a 360° view of the customer, and often reinforce departmental silos. All of which creates point-solution chaos.
Sprinklr’s approach is fundamentally different and is the way out of the aforementioned point-solution chaos. As the first platform purpose-built for unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) and trusted by the enterprise, Sprinklr’s industry-leading AI and powerful Care, Marketing, Research, and Engagement solutions enable the world’s top brands to learn about their customers, understand the marketplace, and reach, engage, and serve customers on all channels to drive business growth.
Sprinklr was built from the ground up as a platform-first solution, designed to evolve and grow with the rapid expansion of digital channels and applications. The results? Faster innovation. Stronger performance. And a future-proof strategy for customer engagement on an enterprise scale.
“Sprinklr works with large, global companies that want flexibility when deciding where to manage their enterprise data and consider our platform a business-critical application,” said Doug Balut, Senior Vice President of Global Alliances, Sprinklr. “Giving our customers the opportunity to manage Sprinklr on Google Cloud empowers them to create engaging customer experiences while maintaining the high security, scalability, and performance they need to run their business.”
To learn more about this exciting partnership and the challenges we jointly solve for customers, check out the recent conversation between Google Cloud’s VP of Marketing, Sarah Kennedy, and Sprinklr’s Chief Experience Officer, Grad Conn. Or read the press release on the partnership.
Giving Customers More Choice: Google Cloud’s New Product and Pricing Options
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Over the past several years, Google Cloud has made significant investments in our infrastructure product portfolio. We launched new Tau T2D VMs, which deliver 42% better price-performance vs. other leading cloud providers. We upgraded Cloud Storage to offer more flexibility to support customers’ enterprise and analytics workloads, with dual-region buckets and upcoming Turbo Replication. And we’ve delivered numerous improvements to our global network, including expansion to 29 cloud regions.
However, from conversations with customers, we’ve also learned we can do more to align our capabilities and pricing with their varied workloads. So, today, we are announcing we will adjust our infrastructure product and pricing structure to give customers more choice in how they pay for what they use alongside new, flexible SKUs with new product options and capabilities. These changes are designed to help ensure better product fit for our customers’ use cases across a wider array of workloads. They are also designed to better align with how other leading cloud providers charge for similar products, so customers can more easily compare services between leading cloud providers.
Some of these changes will provide new, lower-cost options and features for Google Cloud products. Other changes will raise prices on certain products. Ultimately, our goal is to provide more flexible pricing models and options for how customers are using our cloud services. Here’s an overview of what customers can expect:
Which services are changing? What new services are being introduced?
We are changing prices for some storage, compute, and networking products. The changes provide customers with new ways to optimize their spending based on workload type and size, or data portability needs, as well as reducing costs on some services. Specific changes include:
- Cloud Storage pricing changes for data mobility, including replication of data written to a dual- or multi-region storage bucket, and inter-region data access
- Introduction of a new lower-cost archive snapshot option for Persistent Disk (PD), so that compliance/archiving use cases are charged less than compute-intensive DevOps workloads
- New outbound data processing pricing for Cloud Load Balancing, in line with other leading cloud providers
- New pricing for Network Topology, which will include Performance Dashboard within Network Intelligence Center at no additional charge
Will customers’ bills increase? Decrease?
The impact of the pricing changes depends on customers’ use cases and usage. While some customers may see an increase in their bills, we’re also introducing new options for some services to better align with usage, which could lower some customers’ bills. In fact, many customers will be able to adapt their portfolios and usage to decrease costs. We’re working directly with customers to help them understand which changes may impact them.
When will the new prices go into effect?
Today, we sent customers a six-month notice on the price changes, which go into effect on October 1, 2022. Customers under existing commit contracts with a floating or fixed discount will not face any changes until renewal. Our goal is to help our customers manage any impact of these changes and allow time for them to adjust or modify their implementations.
What should customers do next?
There are a number of things customers can do to prepare for the changes:
- Read through the Mandatory Service Announcement (MSA) sent on March 14.
- Consider what actions, if any, they may want to take based on current storage, networking, and compute needs. Many of these changes may have simple choices associated with them.
- Consider using the Storage Transfer Service to select the right Cloud Storage bucket locations. Storage Transfer Service will be available free-of-cost for transfers within Cloud Storage, starting April 2 until the end of the year.
For those customers under contract, Google Cloud account representatives are available to discuss these changes. Please visit our pricing page and the links below for more details on our updates to storage, networking, and PD pricing, including information on how to modify your implementations if needed. If you do not have an account manager and still have questions please review our public FAQ, which will be updated regularly, as well as the resource links below.
Note: This pricing analysis is valid as of February 2022.
Resources:
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How Google’s Customer Data Platform Helps Retail Brands Offer Data-driven , Personalized CX
Retail companies need customer insights to deliver personalized experiences that impact revenue generation and cost savings. Watch how Google Cloud’s customer data platform helps brands integrate and build holistic view of data in silos to drive marketing and customer service success.
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Transform Your Business with Google’s Open, Hybrid, and Multi-Cloud Enterprise Network
Modernization and digital transformation starts with the network, which must enable agile access to the innovation promised by cloud, as well as simplified models for multi-cloud, multi-platform deployments. The network must evolve to provide agility, simplicity, and openness that is needed to power this transformation.
Google’s enterprise network is revolutionizing the enterprise networks paradigm, enabling you to use Google’s network as your own to connect your offices, branches, data center, Google, and other public clouds. It provides innovative technical and business models for open multi-cloud, application-centric networks, and integrates with a partner ecosystem, so that you can leverage your current on-premises site investments.
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HSBC Leverages Google Cloud to Deliver Exceptional Cx for 37 Million Customers
HSBC is the world’s largest international bank that has been in existence for 150 years. HSBC is present in 70 countries, has 37 million customers and is the number one bank in trade finance or cross-border finance. HSBC is a systemically important financial institution that is heavily regulated.
Rapid growth in data and aggressive adoption of digital channels by customers drove HSBC to make a significant transformation in their existing IT infrastructure.
The existing IT infrastructure at HSBC has been around for 30 to 40 years and with the growing need to analyze, store and process massive amounts of data it gradually became redundant. To overcome these challenges and balloon the organizations’ compute capacity HSBC decided to adopt a cloud-first strategy.
“Our existing systems are robust, scalable and can do a great job, but they do not have the database structure that allows us to run analytics and machine learning,” says Darryl West, Group CIO, HSBC.
“We are a bank at the core of our business, but we also have a significant technology company embedded within the organization. I asked the management team do we really want to compete with cloud providers, like Google, are we really going to try and do what they do, as well as they do it? Our conclusion was it was better for our business if we do a cloud-first strategy,” says West.
HSBC has been working with Google on some of the most critical business problems. The initial uses cases are typically characterized by business problems that have very large data sets and require very intense computing capability in short bursts. These include anti-money laundering, finance liquidity reporting, risk analytics, risk reporting, valuation services and more.
Watch the full video to understand how HSBC is leveraging Google Cloud Platform to enhance customer experience and deliver continuous innovations.
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