Regulatory-induced Challenges Create Hurdles to Cloud Adoption for Financial Services Firms - Build What's Next
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Regulatory-induced Challenges Create Hurdles to Cloud Adoption for Financial Services Firms

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A recent survey by Google Cloud with Harris Poll involving over 1,300 leaders across the global financial services industry revealed that most respondents find slow regulatory approvals and uncertainties impact cloud adoption. Read further!

The financial services industry is evolving at a rapid pace, with shifting consumer expectations, new technologies, and developing regulatory requirements. Financial services firms need the right technology to help them stay agile and prepare for the future. 

The cloud is a key point of leverage for firms looking to improve performance across a broad range of activities. Moving to the public cloud can advance operational resiliency, improve staff productivity, increase regulatory compliance and enhance business model innovation. 

However, there are a number of financial services companies that are still hesitant in their cloud journeys. The barriers to adoption vary, from the complexity of legacy systems, to trust and skills gaps, regulatory uncertainty, and fragmentation of compliance requirements. Although many companies have embraced the benefits of cloud technology, more robust cloud adoption—especially around core back-office functions—will require additional facilitation, including through regulatory harmonization and streamlining.

A new comprehensive study on cloud adoption in financial services

To better understand the challenges and opportunities of cloud adoption in financial services Google Cloud, together with the Harris Poll, surveyed more than 1,300 leaders from the financial services industry across the United States, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Australia. 

There were five noteworthy takeaways from the study:  

1. A vast majority of financial services companies are already using some form of public cloud. A large number of surveyed financial services companies (83%) report they are deploying cloud technology as part of their primary computing infrastructures. Of those using cloud technology, the most popular architecture of choice is hybrid cloud (38%), followed by single cloud (28%), and multicloud (17%). Notably, of respondents without a multicloud deployment, 88% reported they are considering adopting a multicloud strategy in the next 12 months.

global cloud usage.jpg

2. Financial services institutions in North America are leading in cloud adoption. Of the financial services companies who are implementing a cloud strategy, the highest levels of cloud workload adoption were reported in North America, with institutions in the U.S. (54%) and Canada (52%) leading the way. The lowest level of cloud adoption was reported in Japan (42%).

workload adoption.jpg

3. As financial services companies continue to use the cloud, more core functionalities can and will be migrated. While many financial services companies have migrated substantial workloads to the cloud, the industry is far from full adoption when it comes to core, back-office workloads. Of financial services companies currently using a majority cloud strategy in the United States, for example, only half (54%) of their workloads are fully deployed in the cloud. Data and IT security (74%), regulatory reporting (57%), and fraud detection and prevention (57%) rank among the highest workload adoption. Core underwriting activity (40%) and data reconciliation (48%) ranked lowest. Across Europe, cloud usage for core activities like underwriting also scored low with the UK listing only 30% adoption.


4. Among respondents, there is a very strong positive perception of the potential for cloud technology to assist in business operations and regulatory compliance. Nearly all respondents (>88%) agreed that cloud adoption can:

  1. help adapt to changing customer behaviors and expectations,  
  2. enhance operational resilience, 
  3. support the creation of innovative new products and services, 
  4. enhance financial services institutions’ data security capabilities, and 
  5. better connect siloed legacy software infrastructure within financial services institutions. 

5. Certain regulator-induced challenges, including the complexity of sectorial compliance frameworks and fragmentation, create hurdles to cloud adoption for financial services companies. While 88% of respondents had a positive view of current regulatory efforts to provide guidance and clarity for cloud implementation, the results showed that more needs to be done to facilitate adoption. Most respondents (84%) agree that regulatory reviews and approvals take too long because of regulatory fragmentation across regulatory bodies. And 78% say that regulatory uncertainty over the use of public cloud prevents their organizations from adopting cloud technologies that would otherwise provide benefit to them. Additionally, a third of all on-premises respondents (38%) say that the large investment of resources for the regulatory approval process is a reason why they’re not using cloud services.

“While many banks have already deployed hybrid cloud environments, others are still in various stages of planning and deploying,” said Jerry Silva, research vice president for IDC Financial Insights. “Clearly, hybrid infrastructure is a reality, and financial institutions must focus not only on leveraging the modern infrastructure model to gain efficiencies, resilience and agility, but also on taking the necessary steps to manage such environments, including the security and compliance of cloud services.”

Future recommendations for financial services regulators

Financial services firms should continue to maximize the potential of technology by migrating more core workloads to the cloud, and actively considering multicloud and hybrid-cloud strategies. Such strategies enhance resiliency of existing IT infrastructure and reduce concerns over vendor lock-in. 

The research also points to steps that regulators could take to provide additional clarity and guidance, such as aligning regulatory reviews across agencies to avoid fragmentation; developing regulatory “safe harbors” for cloud adopters based on adherence to accepted standards and best practices; training regulatory staff on emerging tech; and advancing data reporting requirements via cloud and related technologies.

In the past few years, many regulators across the globe have taken a robust approach to rationalizing rules and guidance to cloud adoption in the financial sector, which has helped significantly stimulate adoption. But further assurances and harmonization of best practices around supervision is needed to advance risk-based and secure digital innovation.  

At Google Cloud, we’re committed to working with financial services customers and regulators to provide them with controls and assurances on risk management, data locality, transparency, and compliance. We are constantly engaging with regulators to share information, respond to their considerations and concerns, and address questions in the interest of transparency and building trust. 

To learn more about these findings and more, download our infographic and our full report


Research methodology

The survey was conducted online by the Harris Poll on behalf of Google Cloud, from December 7, 2020, to January 4, 2021, among 1,363 senior executives in France (n=113), Germany (n=178), the UK (n=192), Hong Kong (n=99), Indonesia (n=100), Japan (n=142), Singapore (n=71), Australia (n=134), Canada (134), and the United States (n=200) who are employed full-time, part-time, or self-employed whose main functional role is in risk/compliance or IT at a company in the banking, finance, or financial services industry with a title of director level or higher. The data in each country were weighted by the number of employees to bring them into line with actual company size proportions in the population. A global post-weight was applied to ensure equal weight of each country in the global total.

Case Study

There are 2 Key Traits You Need to Battle the Slowdown. FM Logistic Know How to Enable Them

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As companies move forward slowly to recover, many find that two key traits can help accelerate them: Openness and mobility. With over 26,000 employees worldwide, FM Logistic found a neat trick to enable it. And it did not take long to implement.

FM Logistic provides its international customers with complete logistics solutions that cover everything from warehousing and handling, to transport and distribution, co-packing and co-manufacturing, and supply chain optimization. Operating in 14 countries including France, Russia, Poland, India, Vietnam, Brazil, and China, FM Logistic supports its clients by offering specialized services across a number of markets including consumer goods, retail, cosmetics, and health.

“We are in the process of transforming all our tools and integrating new solutions to be able to work faster and more efficiently. Two main IT priorities are mobility and openness, in terms of working from anywhere and being able to interact with other information systems.”

– Communication Manager, FM Logistic

As a business that has existed since 1967 and in 2018 achieved a turnover of €1.178 billion with 9.5% annual growth, FM Logistic is always looking to help secure the company’s position within an evolving sector. To better serve its customers, FM Logistic decided to launch an innovation project in 2017 to transform the internal digital tools of the company and replace its intranet, email, and productivity software. The company looked for an integrated solution that would enable more collaborative ways of working and bring its international operations closer together. The company found that implementing G Suite and LumApps social intranet was the perfect combination.

“We are in the process of transforming all our tools and integrating new solutions to be able to work faster and more efficiently,” says the Communication Manager at FM Logistic. “Two main IT priorities are mobility and openness, in terms of working from anywhere and being able to interact with other information systems.”

A global transformation

For large international companies with global operations, implementing a single integrated solution to enable collaboration across regions while respecting regional variations can be a real challenge.

“We have 26,000 employees spread across a broad geography, with a variation in cultures and technological maturity. There was an aspiration to work in collaboration, but the necessary tools were not in place,” says FM Logistic’s Communication Manager. FM Logistic looked for a solution to enable new, more collaborative work practices, which were flexible in terms of usage and that, most importantly, would work as part of an integrated solution.

To do that, FM Logistic worked with Google Partner Devoteam G Cloud to implement G Suite alongside the LumApps intranet portal. It took six months to complete the migration of 7,000 accounts, with employees accessing the Business or Basic G Suite edition according to their needs. “Before, with our physical infrastructure we found ourselves buying additional hard drives as we ran out of storage,” says the Technical Project Manager at FM Logistic. “That’s no longer a problem, and we can tailor access depending on whether or not employees need unlimited storage .”

“It’s a real advantage to be able to access your account from any device and work from anywhere. Hangouts Meet has been really transformational in that respect: it has reduced the need for travel significantly, even in the few months we’ve been using it so far.”

– Communication Manager, FM Logistic

“We followed Google’s G Suite migration advice and had early adopter ambassadors in every country. By the time we got around to the final country, very little input was needed as they were ready to go!” says the Technical Project Manager. “Many of them were already familiar with the product, so it was very intuitive. Our feedback surveys gave a satisfaction rating of almost 4.5 out of 5 in relation to the transition. We also had significant executive support, with two members of the executive committee on the steering board. That really helped the project to move quickly.”

As a result, employees were quick to understand the benefits of the new system. “It’s a real advantage to be able to access your account from any device and work from anywhere. That was clear from the start,” says the Communication Manager. “Hangouts Meet has been really transformational in that respect: it has reduced the need for travel significantly, even in the few months we’ve been using it so far.”

LumApps: a fully-integrated enterprise hub

One of FM Logistic’s main reasons for choosing G Suite was the seamless integration with LumApps’ intranet portal. LumApps adds value to G Suite, thereby boosting and sustaining employee adoption. FM Logistic chose LumApps to create a hub for its enterprise, where everything is centralized from internal communications to business apps.

“We didn’t want a patchwork of solutions, we needed a platform that worked as an integral whole,” says the Technical Project Manager. “With LumApps, employees access the intranet using their Google authentication and can access all their G Suite tools through the intranet. Moreover, LumApps is Google native, so the integration is seamless and we know that it will evolve to accommodate any changes that might take place.”

“The main advantages we see are communication and knowledge sharing,” says the Communication Manager. “With LumApps, all 26,000 of our employees are now able to access the portal in their own language and access local news.”

For the next step, FM Logistic is considering integrating social communities so that employees can express themselves and be more engaged in the corporate culture.

Supporting digital maturity

Thanks to Drive, employees can now work from wherever they are, and are able to work more efficiently and more collaboratively. “From an administrative point of view, users can benefit from automatic updates, so there is less pressure on the IT department,” says the Technical Project Manager. “And we’re seeing many innovative uses of the tools to work in more efficient ways: many services have gone paperless with Forms, so less time is wasted; commercial agents are using Drive to work together on tenders simultaneously; and with Sheets, tasks are automatically sent from the team manager’s file to employee’s Calendar.”

“G Suite and LumApps are the first step of our digital transformation, in terms of collaboration and moving into the cloud. We have real confidence in our partners LumApps and Google, and we’re investing in those relationships for the long-term benefit of the company.”

– Communication Manager, FM Logistic

Now, FM Logistic wants to further support its employees in exploring all the tools G Suite has to offer. “We are embarking on a second phase to give our employees the skills they need for advanced uses of Docs, Sheets, and Forms,” says the Communication Manager. “It’s a learning curve, but it’s key to our goal of transforming our everyday processes.”

“G Suite and LumApps are the first step of our digital transformation, in terms of collaboration and moving into the cloud. We have real confidence in our partners LumApps and Google, and we’re investing in those relationships for the long-term benefit of the company.”

Blog

Strategic Consulting, Training & Implementation Guidelines with Public Sector PSO Helps Governments Stay Compliant

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Google Cloud's Public Sector Professional Service Organization (PSO) is dedicated towards helping enterprises meet their cloud security and compliance needs by offering consulting. Read about Google Cloud's commitment towards scaling cloud adoption!

Did you know that by 2025, enterprise IT spending on public cloud computing will overtake traditional IT spending? In fact, 51% of IT spend in application software, infrastructure software, business process services, and system infrastructure will transition to the public cloud, compared to 41% in 20221.. As enterprises continue to rapidly shift to the cloud, government agencies must prioritize and accelerate security and compliance implementation.

In May 2021, the White House issued an Executive Order requiring US Federal agencies to accelerate cloud adoption, embrace security best practices, develop plans to implement Zero Trust architectures, and map implementation frameworks to FedRAMP. The Administration’s focus on secure cloud adoption marks a critical shift to prioritizing cybersecurity at scale. Google Cloud’s Public Sector Professional Services Organization (PSO) has committed to helping customers meet security and compliance requirements in the cloud through specialized consulting engagements.

Accelerating Authority to Operate (ATO)


The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) was established in 2011 as a government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services across the federal government. FedRAMP provides a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies. US Federal agencies are required to utilize and implement FedRAMP cloud service offerings as part of the “Cloud First” federal cloud computing strategy.

While Google Cloud provides a FedRAMP-authorized cloud services platform and a robust catalog of FedRAMP-approved products and services (92 services and counting), customers are still tasked with achieving Agency ATO for the products and services they use, and Google Cloud provides many resources to assist customers with this journey. Google Cloud’s FedRAMP package can be accessed by completing the FedRAMP Package Access Request Form and submitting it to info@fedramp.gov. Additionally, customers can use Google’s NIST 800-53 ATO Accelerator as a starting point for documenting control implementation. Finally, Google Cloud’s Public Sector PSO offers the following strategic consulting engagements to help customers streamline the Agency ATO process.

  • Cloud Discover: FedRAMP is a six-week interactive workshop to support customers that are just getting started with the ATO process on Google Cloud. Customers are educated on FedRAMP fundamentals, Google’s security and compliance posture, and how to approach ATO on Google Cloud. Through deep-dive interviews and design sessions, PSO helps customers craft an actionable ATO plan, assess FedRAMP readiness, and develop a conceptual ATO boundary. This engagement helps organizations establish a clear understanding and roadmap for FedRAMP ATO on Google Cloud.
  • FedRAMP Security Review is a ten to twelve week engagement that aids customers in FedRAMP operational readiness. PSO consultants perform detailed FedRAMP architecture reviews to identify potential gaps in NIST 800-53 security control implementation and Google Cloud secure architecture best practices. Findings from the security reviews are shared with the customer along with configuration guidance and recommendations. This engagement helps organizations prepare for the third-party or independent security assessment that is required for FedRAMP ATO.
  • Cloud Deploy: FedRAMP is a multi-month engagement designed to help customers document the details of their FedRAMP System Security Plan (SSP) and corresponding NIST 800-53 security controls, in preparation for Agency ATO on Google Cloud at FedRAMP Low, Moderate, or High. PSO collaborates with customers to develop a detailed technical infrastructure design document and security control matrix capturing evidence of the FedRAMP system architecture, security control implementation, data flows and system components. PSO can also partner with a third-party assessment organization (3PAO) or an independent assessor (IA) to support customer efforts for FedRAMP security assessment. This engagement helps customer system owners prepare for Agency ATO assessment and package submission.

Developing a Zero Trust Strategy


In addition to providing FedRAMP enablement, Public Sector PSO has partnered with the Google Cloud Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) team to assist organizations with developing a zero trust architecture and strategy.


Zero Trust Foundations is a seven-week engagement co-delivered by Google Cloud’s CISO and PSO teams. CISO and PSO educate customers on zero trust fundamentals, Google’s journey to zero trust through BeyondCorp, and defense in depth best practices. The CISO team walks customers through a Zero Trust Assessment (ZTA) to understand the organization’s current security posture and maturity. Insights from the ZTA enable the CISO team to work with the customer to identify an ideal first-mover workload for zero trust adoption. Following the CISO ZTA, PSO facilitates a deep-dive Zero Trust Workshop (ZTW), collaborating with key customer stakeholders to develop a NIST 800-207 aligned, cloud-agnostic zero trust architecture for the identified first-mover workload. The zero trust architecture is part of a comprehensive zero trust strategy deliverable that is based on focus areas called out in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Federal Zero Trust Strategy released January 2022.

Scaling Secure Cloud Adoption with PSO


Public Sector PSO enables customer success by sharing our technical expertise, providing cloud strategy, implementation guidance, training and enablement using our proven methodology. As enterprise IT, operations, and organizational models continue to evolve, our goal is to help government agencies accelerate their security and compliance journeys in the cloud. To learn more about the work we are doing with the federal government, visit cloud.google.com/solutions/federal-government.

1 Gartner Says More Than Half of Enterprise IT Spending in Key Market Segments Will Shift to the Cloud by 2025

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The Future of Cloud Computing

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Increasingly, technology, data, and human interactions will follow a new model of real-time inputs, enabling change without interruption and positive iteration. Cloud computing powers an important shift for information technology, and it will usher in new and better ways to serve customers, make discoveries, and build great products and services.

As part of this transformation, technology models will become more flexible, interoperable, and open; office cultures will shift toward transparency, collaboration, and constant learning. That means innovation and team building – the best parts of work – can happen more frequently and efficiently. Customer focus can sharpen and become more responsive. Corporate knowledge gained over decades of competing and innovating can be brought to bear more easily and meaningfully.

To compete effectively in this changing landscape, business and technology leaders must find ways to embrace the potential of cloud computing – whether in the tools and systems they choose, the institutional cultures they create, or the business strategies they prioritize. Today’s enterprises can set the stage for future success by infusing their unique assets – such as customer relationships, excellent service capabilities, strong partnerships, market knowhow, and technology investment – with the power of innovative IT.

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Neo4J & Google Cloud: Graph Data in Cloud to Address Challenges in FinServ Industry

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Neo4j, a leading graph database technology and fully-integrated graph solution on Google Cloud helps today's financial service companies address three significant industry challenges. Read the blog to learn more about Neo4J and Google's partnership!

Over the last decade, financial service organizations have been adopting a cloud-first mindset. According to InformationWeek, lower costs and enhanced scalability were the biggest drivers for cloud adoption in financial services, and cloud-native applications allow access to the latest technology and talent, enabling adopters to rebuild transaction processing systems capable of supporting very high volumes and low latency.

Both Neo4j and Google Cloud have been using relationship-based data representations since the beginning, and we’re dedicated to using this technology to help financial services customers drive business transformation. We are excited about the prospects of financial services (FinServ) cloud systems and believe that graph data in the cloud can help solve significant challenges in the industry.

Data Challenge #1: Risk Management and Compliance

First among the top concerns for any CIO moving to the cloud is risk management and compliance. Disconnected, uncontextualized, or stale data create opportunities for fraud and financial crimes to occur. The fact is when it comes to FinServ, the question is not “if” but rather how often an attack will occur.  Unfortunately, incidents have been trending upward over the last decade, and COVID has only exacerbated this reality. Financial crimes affect the bottom line both in the remediation of these crimes and in intangibles like brand value.  

Add to this the complexity of international banking, which makes “compliance” a moving target. Penalties due to noncompliance are a constant concern to any FinServ organization.

The tabular representation of information with a fixed number of columns that never change prevents a description of an ever changing world with changing characteristics. Relational databases are great if the world you describe does not move fast but have limitations when data structures are highly interlinked and not homogeneous.

Neo4j Aura on Google Cloud provides a foundation for creating dynamic, futureproof, scalable applications that adhere to the security standards and protocols today’s financial services organizations require to meet the challenges of finding and preventing bad actors. This also includes enterprise scalability; reaching over 1 Billion nodes and relationships to streamline queries and provide solutions that meet regulatory and privacy compliance across geographies. Neo4j has helped some organizations save billions of USD in fraud in the first year of deployment alone.  

What makes graph technology the best choice for fraud detection use cases is that the relationships between the data-points are as important as the data-points themselves. Let’s take as an example, one John Smith approaches a multi-national banking institution to manage the primary account for his new holding corporation.  

While no one has any record of John R Smith Holdings LLC, the bank’s application built on graph technology understands that there are several well-known entities owned by John Smith Holdings. The application also identifies several well-known board members who bank with this institution. Due to this relationship-driven approach, the bank now understands John R Smith is not “John Smith,” who previously attempted to open an account for his holding corporation, which had no information associated with it prior to two months ago.

Data Challenge #2 Manual Processes and Inefficiencies 

The ubiquity of the cloud offers an opportunity to deploy automation at unprecedented levels to tackle the errors and inefficiencies that manual processing allows to creep into processes. When data comes from disparate, perhaps legacy systems – which may have become siloed and “untouchable” over the years – further complexity arises. As an example, if someone in sales types “John Smith” into a CRM system not knowing that John R Smith is the spelling in the customer data master, it may result in two separate and potentially conflicting records. Being able to join those records together in a mastered view helps to solve this problem. In addition, low data quality equates to an increase in risk, costs, and implementation times for new systems. 

Neo4j Aura on Google Cloud provides automation and artificial intelligence (AI) that reduces manual processes and the errors that accompany them. In this graph architecture each node, which can represent a person, will have labels, relationships, and properties associated with it. This allows for the use of AI which can easily understand that John Smith in the CRM is the same John R Smith in the customer master. The information contained in Neo4j can be connected bi-directionally to ensure consistency across applications and data sources. 

One of the benefits of this approach is that linking information allows organizations to keep the full value of the data, rather than forcing the data into predetermined tabular representations, with the risk of losing valuable information and insights.

Data Challenge #3: Customer Engagement and Insight

Another significant concern is the high expectations today’s customers have for every interaction. End users are accustomed to predictable experiences on their digital devices, and FinServ apps are no exception. Added to this, the “Covid economy” has driven digital adoption significantly across demographics; even among customers who might traditionally have used in-person services. This also equates to increased expectations for personalized, predictable experiences with every digital interaction. We know that latency has always been a key consideration for financial trading, but a recent ComputerWeekly study showed that every financial organization should ensure their visible latency is at 10 milliseconds or less. Customers no longer accept their broadband is at fault.

Finally, blind spots in the customer journey often result in dissatisfaction, which ultimately leads to increased churn. Without gaining actionable insights from your customers, there is no room to innovate and iterate on what they are looking for in your products and services. And this translates to losing market share and competitive advantage.

The NoSQL architecture, specifically the dynamic schema and structure of Neo4j Aura gives you the ability to take charge of your data and make changes according to your development cycles or newer data models. This equates to faster builds, more comprehensive releases and a wider, richer data-set that can be contextualized and understood instantly. Graph technology is the logical choice for building a Customer 360 application. Under this approach organizations not only get valuable insight into the individual client’s behavior and patterns, but also those of their family, friends and colleagues. This allows for stronger personalization, targeted campaigns and successful execution, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and retention levels.

Graph Technology on Google Cloud

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Neo4j can help analysts visualize which accounts have shared attributes, making it more likely that they have the same high risk owners.

Neo4j is a recognized leader in graph database technology and the only fully integrated graph solution on Google Cloud, helping to fill a common need for Google Cloud customers. Both Neo4j and Google Cloud are invested in continuing to grow our partnership and mutual product direction.  

You can find and deploy the Neo4j graph database straight from the Google Cloud marketplace, whether you want to download the software for an on-premises deployment, use the virtual machine image, or use the hosted solution, Aura on Google Cloud, the graph database-as-a-service. In any deployment, you get the same enterprise-grade scalability, reliability, and connectivity along with successful, repeatable use cases you can rely on to resolve your particular challenges and integrated billing. 

For a real-world example of how graph technology can optimize financial services, you can read our Case Study with fintech Current. Current, a leading U.S. financial technology platform with over three million members, used Neo4j Aura on Google Cloud to create a personalization engine based on client relationships. 

To learn more about Neo4j Aura on Google Cloud for FinServ organizations, register for our webinar on Thursday, December 16 with Jim Webber, Chief Scientist, CTO Field Ops at Neo4j and Antoine Larmanjat, Technical Director, Office of the CTO, Google Cloud. 

Click here to Register

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Simplify Your Modernization Journey from Windows

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Easily migrate, optimize, and modernize your Windows workloads for agility and scalability with Microsoft and Windows on Google Cloud. With a first-class experience for Windows workloads, you can self-manage workloads or leverage managed services and use license-included images or bring your own licenses.

Microsoft and Windows on Google Cloud provides a first-class experience for Windows workloads. You can self-manage workloads or leverage managed services and use license-included images or bring your own licenses. Now, easily migrate, optimize, and modernize your Windows workloads for agility and scalability.

Start with migration

Migrate to increase IT agility and reduce on-premises footprint. Tools like Migrate for Compute and Migrate for Anthos can help migrate and upgrade.

Optimize license usage to reduce cost

Optimize VM usage. Managed SQL Server and Active Directory reduce total cost of ownership. Move .NET to .NET core. Move SQL Server to Linux.

Modernize to reduce single-vendor dependency

Create an open path to modernization—containerization of Windows server, cloud-native development, and multi-cloud readiness with Anthos. 

Drive a strategy for migration, optimization, and modernization

Plan for the future while reducing your Microsoft licensing dependency. Get all you need to migrate, optimize, and modernize your legacy platform.

Bring your own licenses

In addition to on-demand licenses, Google Cloud provides you with flexibility for bringing your existing licenses and running them on Compute Engine. Use Sole-Tenant Nodes to run on dedicated hardware with configurable maintenance policies to support your on-premises licenses while maintaining workload uptime and security through host-level live migration.

License-included VM images

You can deploy your Windows applications (including SQL Server) on our fully tested images with bundled licenses on Compute Engine and take advantage of many benefits available to virtual machine instances such as reliable storage options, the speed of the Google network, and autoscaling.

Fully managed SQL Server and Active Directory

Use an easy-to-manage and compatible relational database service in the cloud to reduce operational overhead. Use a highly available, hardened service to manage authentication and authorization for your AD-dependent workloads, automate AD server maintenance and security configuration, and connect your on-premises AD domain to the cloud.

Windows on Kubernetes

Running your Windows Server containers on GKE can save you on licensing costs, as you can pack many Windows Server containers on each Windows node.

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