Our customers tell us they don’t just want to migrate their applications from point A to point B, they want to modernize their applications with cloud-native technologies and techniques, wherever those applications may be. 

Today, we’re excited to tell you about a variety of new customers that are using Anthos to transform their application portfolio, as well as new cloud migration, API management, and application development offerings:

• New customers leveraging Anthos for a variety of on-prem, cloud and edge use cases
• The general availability of Migrate for Anthos
• Apigee hybrid in general availability
• The general availability of Cloud Code

Accelerating app modernization with Anthos

Anthos was the first open app modernization platform to offer a unified control plane and service delivery across diverse cloud environments—managed cloud, on-premises and edge. Since it became generally available in the spring, organizations across a variety of industries and geographies have turned to Anthos to bring the benefits of cloud, containers and microservices to their applications. 

According to the findings from Forrester’s Total Economic Impact study, customers adopting Anthos have seen up to 5x return on investment based on the savings from ongoing license and support costs, and the incremental savings from operations and developer productivity. For one customer in the financial services industry, rolling out new features and updates to their core banking application used to take at least a quarter. Now with Anthos, they were able to eliminate months long development and release cycles, and roll out on a weekly basis. That’s a 13x improvement on time to market. 

This week, several new European Anthos customers will take the stage at Next UK to talk about how they’re using Anthos to transform their IT operations. 

Kaeser Kompressoren SE of Coburg, Germany, is a provider of compressed air products and services. The company needed a consistent platform to deploy and manage existing on-prem SAP workloads, like SAP Data Hub, and also wanted to be able to tap into other services running in Google Cloud to get more value from those environments. 

“Application modernization is enabling business innovation for Kaeser,” said Falko Lameter, CIO. “To gain better insights from data, we knew we needed to incorporate advanced machine learning and data analytics in all our applications. We chose Google Cloud’s Anthos because it offered the flexibility to incrementally modernize our legacy application on-premises without business disruption, while allowing us to run other applications on Anthos in Google Cloud and take advantage of its managed data analytics and ML/AI services.”

Then there’s Denizbank. Based in Turkey, Denizbank provides a variety of commercial banking services, and established the first Digital Banking Department in Turkey in 2012. Denizbank turned to Anthos for an open application modernization platform to help it develop its next-generation mobile banking applications.

“We operate in 11 different countries and have to comply with various regulatory requirements like data locality and sovereignty, which mandates some or all applications to reside on premises in certain countries, while the rest of the apps can move to the cloud in other countries,” said Dilek Duman, COO of DenizBank. “We chose Google Cloud’s Anthos for its flexibility to modernize our existing application investments with ease, and to deliver AI/ML powered software faster while improving operational security and governance. Anthos gives us the ability to have a unified management view of our hybrid deployments, giving us a consistent platform to run our banking workloads across environments.” 

Anthos is even starting to be deployed to edge locations, where, thanks to its 100% software-based design, it can run on any number of hardware form factors. We’re in advanced discussions with customers in telecommunications, retail, manufacturing and entertainment about using Anthos for edge use cases, as well as with global hardware OEMs.

Move and modernize with Migrate for Anthos

In addition to leveraging cloud technology for their on-premises environments with Anthos, customers also want to simultaneously migrate to the cloud and modernize with containers. That’s why we’re happy to announce the general availability of Migrate for Anthos, which provides a fast, low-friction path to convert physical servers or virtual machines from a variety of sources (on-prem, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Compute Engine) directly into containers in Anthos GKE.

Migrate for Anthos makes it easy to modernize your applications without a lot of manual effort or specialized training. After upgrading your on-prem systems to containers with Migrate for Anthos, you’ll benefit from a reduction in OS-level management and maintenance, more efficient resource utilization, and easy integration with Google Cloud services for data analytics, AI and ML, and more. 

DevFactory aims to offload repetitive tasks in software development so that dev teams can focus on coding and productivity. As advocates for optimization through containers, they found Migrate for Anthos a key way to help deliver on their goals:  

“We usually see less than 1% resource utilization in data centers. Migrate for Anthos is a remarkable tool that allows us to migrate data center workloads to the cloud in a few simple steps,” said Rahul Subramaniam, CEO, Devfactory. “By automatically converting servers and virtual machines into containers with Migrate for Anthos, we get better resource utilization and dramatically reduced costs along with managed infrastructure in the end state, which makes this a very exciting and much-needed solution.” 

Migrate for Anthos is available at no additional cost, and can be used with or without an Anthos subscription.

API-first, everywhere, with Apigee hybrid 

To drive modernization and innovation, enterprises are increasingly adopting API-first approaches to connecting services across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. To address the need for hybrid API management, we’re announcing the general availability of Apigee hybrid, giving you the flexibility to deploy your API runtimes in a hybrid environment, while using cloud-based Apigee capabilities such as developer portals, API monitoring, and analytics. Apigee hybrid can be deployed as a workload on Anthos, giving you the benefits of an integrated Google Cloud stack, with Anthos’ automation and security benefits. 

Gap Inc. uses Apigee to publish, secure, and analyze APIs and easily onboard the development teams working with those APIs. Apigee hybrid will help Gap Inc. overcome the traditional tradeoffs between on-premises and cloud, providing the best of both worlds.   

“With Apigee hybrid, we can have an easy to manage, localized runtime for scenarios where latency or data sensitivity require it. At the same time, we can continue to enjoy all the benefits of Apigee such as Apigee’s developer portal and its rich API-lifecycle management capabilities,” said Patrick McMichael, Enterprise Architect at Gap Inc. 

Simplifying the developer experience

Google Cloud application development tools are designed to help you simplify creating apps for containers and Kubernetes, incorporate security and compliance into your pipelines, and scale up or down depending on demand, so you only pay for what you use. 

With these goals in mind, last week, we announced the general availability of Cloud Run and Cloud Run for Anthos. Cloud Run is a managed compute platform on Google Cloud that lets you run serverless containers on on a fully managed environment or on Anthos. With Cloud Run fully managed, you can easily deploy and run stateless containers written in any language, and enjoy serverless benefits such as automatic scale up and scale down and pay-for-use—without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. 

Cloud Run for Anthos, meanwhile, brings those same serverless developer experience to Anthos managed clusters, giving developers access to a modern, serverless compute platform while their organization modernizes its on-prem environment with Kubernetes. 

Easier Kubernetes development with Cloud Code

Today, we’re excited to announce the general availability of another important member of the Google Cloud application development stack: Cloud Code, which lets developers write, debug and deploy code to Google Cloud or any Kubernetes cluster through extensions to popular Integrated Developer Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ. 

Developers are most productive while working in their favorite IDE. By embracing developers’ existing workflow and tools, Cloud Code makes working with Kubernetes feel like you are working with a local application, while preserving the investment you’ve made to configure your tools to your own specific needs. Cloud Code dramatically simplifies the creation and maintenance of Kubernetes applications.

In addition, Cloud Code speeds up development against Kubernetes by extending the edit-debug-review “inner loop” to the cloud. You get rapid feedback on your changes, ensuring that they’re of high quality. And when it comes to moving code to the production environment, Cloud Code supports popular continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) tools like Cloud Build. 

Finally, with Cloud Code, diagnosing issues does not require a deep understanding of Kubernetes, thanks to connected debuggers and cluster-wide logging that help you address issues all from the context of your favorite tool. 

Toward modern, efficient applications

Application modernization means a lot of things to a lot of people. Depending on your environment, it can mean updating VMs to containers and Kubernetes, it can mean moving them to the cloud, or it can mean distributing them to edge locations and unifying workloads with consistent API and service management. For others, application modernization means using cloud-native tools and concepts like serverless and CI/CD. Whatever your definition, we can help you realize your business and modernization goals, achieving greater agility while improving overall governance.

Editor’s note: Today’s post is a Q&A with the VCCP London and VCCP CX team. VCCP London conceived of and built the Cadbury Worldwide Hide platform using Google Maps Platform as a way to get consumers ‘hiding’ eggs and engaging with loved ones during a time when they could not be physically together.

How did the team come up with the idea for the ‘Cadbury Worldwide Hide’?

VCCP London is the agency of record for Cadbury both locally in the UK and centrally with the Global team. So, when Cadbury briefed us in May for their Easter 2021 campaign, they wanted us to come up with a creative way to encourage people to hide eggs and get consumers excited about interacting with loved ones. At the time, the pandemic was constantly changing, and it was looking like we were going to continue to be in lock-down for the foreseeable future, into the Easter season.

We then came up with an idea: wouldn’t it be really cool if somehow you could still hide a real Easter egg for someone you love, but do it virtually. And then once it’s found, that real egg could be delivered to the seeker’s home. With the use of some creativity and technology, we brought this idea to life. The experience we developed allowed our users to purchase a real Cadbury Easter Egg, hide it virtually on the map in a special location, then write the recipient a personalized clue for him to find the egg. Once the seeker found the egg, they would receive a real, physical egg the hider bought for her delivered to her home.

We wanted it to be a truly meaningful one-to-one connection, to bring back some lovely memories for people, and to allow a real chocolate egg to be hidden for a loved one no matter where they were.

Why was this important to Cadbury?

Generosity is at the heart of Cadbury’s brand, and Easter is our opportunity to show that ‘there’s a glass and a half in everyone’. As we enter the second year of our campaign ‘Show you care, hide it’, we are flipping the Easter ritual on its head and showing that the generous act is in hiding an egg for someone you love.

Physical connection has been restricted by the global pandemic and that’s why this year’s Easter campaign sets out to connect people across the UK through the power of generosity.

Tell us a little bit about the technical side of the project. Which Google Maps Platform products did you use to create the user experience?

The Cadbury Worldwide Hide launched across 4 markets (UK, IE, AU, NZ) simultaneously. Integration with regional e-commerce and CRM partners brought the activation into the real world with chocolate eggs being delivered throughout the campaign as seekers found them.

Providing an engaging map experience to our users was key to the execution and by leveraging the Google Maps interface consumers already use on a daily basis, we were able to focus on our core campaign message. We built the platform using both the Maps Javascript API to render the 2D maps and the Street View API, which allowed users to hide their egg anywhere in the world for their loved one to find. We also used Place Autocomplete powered search allowing users to search for their favorite location while contextual hints kept hiders on track. Seekers were aided with a distance meter and hints system if they got stuck. Our Design and Engineering team used Google Maps Platform Cloud-based maps styling to customize the map.

To get the campaign to as many people as possible we prioritized accessibility throughout the site, from screen-reader support and relevant tab indexes through to full keyboard shortcuts within the map experience – allowing users to hide (or find!) their egg without ever using a mouse. Real user testing was done throughout the UX, design and development process to ensure best practices were being followed.

How long did it take the VCCP team to build-out the solution?

Discovery to the roll-out of the solution took about 7 months. Our Design and Engineering team started with a 4-week discovery phase in September 2020 where we developed a service blueprint that set the foundations of the project. By visualizing the entire process of a service from start to finish, listing all the activities that happened at each stage, and the different roles, actions, processes and systems involved, the blueprint allowed all stakeholders to align on the solution.

We started iterative cycles of development in November 2020, beginning with UX (prototype for user testing), UI (look and feel and customization of Google Maps using Cloud-based Maps styling), and then kicked off front end and back end development in December. We launched the Cadbury Worldwide Hide platform in early March 2021—just in time for millions of users around the world to enjoy ahead of Easter.

Did you experience any challenges as you developed the experience?

The biggest challenge was actually around adapting to change in plans in response to the desire to launch the platform across more markets than originally intended. During the development phase, we rapidly scaled up to develop the platform for Ireland, Australia and New Zealand in addition to the UK within the same timeframe.

What results were you able to achieve and how did you measure the success of the project?

One week before Easter Sunday, we had sold out of Cadbury Worldwide Hide chocolate eggs. There were over 2.26 million site visits with an average time spent on the platform of almost five minutes. Over 809k virtual eggs were hidden in total and 14.5k real Cadbury Easter eggs bought. The Cadbury Worldwide Hide platform was the number one Mondelēz International website globally, and a couple even used the platform for a marriage proposal!

Would you recommend this type of campaign and user engagement to other B-to-C brands, if so, why?

Direct to consumer capabilities are increasingly important for brands, particularly in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) space. Local lockdowns and restrictions on physical retail have accelerated our adoption of ecommerce. Not only have brands had to adapt quickly, but consumers are beginning to expect direct-to-consumer capabilities from their favorite brands. Cadbury recognized this behavior shift early. What the Cadbury Worldwide Hide did well was to innovate beyond the traditional DTC and ecommerce experience by gamifying the platform and enabling moments of human connection at a time when physical connection was impossible. 

What advice would you give to other agencies or brands thinking about creating user experiences with Google Maps Platform?

We learned a great deal taking on this project. Here are just a few highlights:

• Assume anything is possible.
• Our ‘Mobile First’ approach allowed consumers to access the platform from any device with consistent, engaging brand experience.
• Think big and beyond the traditional use of Google Maps and treat it as a foundation platform to build upon.
• Prototype and test early to validate your hypotheses. We created a technical proof of concept which enabled us to test using ‘real’ Google Maps and real people early in our design process.
• Don’t assume everything is accessible to everyone. You may need to build upon the ‘out the box’ functionality to ensure as many people as possible can use your solution.

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

Organizations in every region and industry are developing APIs to enable easier and more standardized delivery of services and data for digital experiences. This increasing shift to digital experiences has grown API usage and traffic volumes. However, as malicious API attacks also have grown, API security has become an important battleground over business risk.

To help customers more easily address their growing API security needs, Google Cloud is announcing today the Preview of Advanced API Security, a comprehensive set of API security capabilities built on Apigee, our API management platform. Advanced API Security enables organizations to more easily detect security threats. Here’s a closer look at the two key functionality included in this launch: identifying API misconfigurations and detecting bots.

Identify API misconfigurations

Misconfigured APIs are one of the leading reasons for API security incidents. In 2017, Gartner® predicted that by 2022 API abuses will be the most frequent attack vector resulting in data breaches for enterprise web applications. Today, our customers tell us application API security is one of their top concerns, which is supported by an independent study from 2021 by Fugue and Sonatype. The report found that misconfigurations are the number one cause of data breaches, and that “too many cloud APIs and interfaces to adequately govern” are frequently the main point of attack in cyberattacks.

While identifying and resolving API misconfigurations is a top priority for many organizations, the configuration management process can be time consuming and require considerable resources.

Advanced API Security can make it easier for API teams to identify API proxies that do not conform to security standards. To help identify APIs that are misconfigured or experiencing abuse, Advanced API Security regularly assesses managed APIs and provides API teams with a recommended action when configuration issues are detected.

Advanced API Security identifies misconfigured API proxies, including the missing CORS policy.
APIs form an integral part of the digital connective tissue that make modern medicine run smoothly for patients and healthcare staff. One common healthcare API use case occurs when a healthcare organization inputs a patient’s medical coverage information into a system that works with insurance companies. Almost instantly, that system determines the patient’s coverage for a specific medication or procedure, a process which is enabled by APIs. Because of the often-sensitive personal healthcare data being transmitted, it is important that the required authentication and authorization policies are implemented so that only authorized users, such as an insurance company, can access the API.

Advanced API Security can detect if those required policies have not been applied, an alert which can help reduce the surface area of API security risks. By leveraging Advanced API Security, API teams at healthcare organizations can more easily detect misconfiguration issues and can reduce security risks to sensitive information.

Detect Bots

Because of the increasing volume of API traffic, there is also an increase in cybercrime in the form of API bot attacks—the automated software programs deployed over the Internet for malicious purposes like identity theft.

Advanced API Security uses pre-configured rules to help provide API teams an easier way to identify malicious bots within API traffic. Each rule represents a different type of unusual traffic from a single IP address. If an API traffic pattern meets any of the rules, Advanced API Security reports it as a bot.

Additionally, Advanced API Security can speed up the process of identifying data breaches by identifying bots that successfully resulted in the HTTP 200 OK success status response code.

Financial services APIs are frequently the target of malicious bot attacks due to the high-value data that is processed. A bank that has adopted open banking standards by making APIs accessible to customers and partners can use Advanced API Security to make it easier to analyze traffic patterns and identify the sources of malicious traffic. You may experience this when your bank allows you to access your data with a third-party application. While a malicious hacker could try to use a bot to access this information, Advanced API Security can help the bank’s API team to identify and stop malicious bot activity in API traffic.

API Security at Equinix

Equinix powers the world’s digital leaders, bringing together and interconnecting infrastructure to fast-track digital advantage. Operating a global network of more than 240 data centers with a 99.999% or greater uptime, Equinix simplifies global interconnections for organizations, saving customers time and effort with the Apigee API management platform.

“A key enabler of our success is Google’s Apigee, delivering digital infrastructure services securely and quickly to our customers and partners,” said Yun Freund, senior vice president of Platform at Equinix. “Security is a key pillar to our API-first strategy and Apigee has been instrumental in enabling our customers to securely bridge the connections they need for their businesses to easily identify potential security risks and mitigate threats in a timely fashion. As our API traffic has grown, so has the amount of time and effort required to secure our APIs. Having a bundled solution in one managed platform gives us a differentiated high-performing solution.”

Getting started

To learn more, check out the documentation or contact us to request access to get started with Advanced API Security.

To learn more about API security best practices, please register to attend our Cloud OnAir webcast on Thursday, July 28th, 2:00 pm PT.