This past year brought both new challenges and successes for our customers around the world. We thought life was going to return to normal… and then it didn’t. Despite the uncertainty, it was exciting to see customers make huge transformations in when, where, and how they run their businesses, with cloud infrastructure as a major enabler. 

According to IDC, “by 2024, 50% of organizations will use applications built on abstraction provided by managed services including cloud-native technologies to enable consistency in running in any and many locations.”¹ Over the past year we were honored to work with so many of you to start to make this prediction a reality.

Let’s take a deeper look at where our infrastructure progressed in 2021, and where we’re headed in the new year.

Google Cloud is recognized by independent experts for its leadership

For the fourth consecutive year, Google Cloud was named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services.

The Forrester Wave for AI infrastructure placed Google at the topmost position, a testament to Google’s investments in tomorrow’s AI-first world. 

Google Cloud also won the HPC Wire Editor’s Choice award for the best use of HPC in the cloud.    

We made it easier to migrate enterprise applications

To support enterprises in their transformation journeys we focused on expanding our support for enterprise applications in our cloud. The Home Depot just wrote about its successful migration of SAP to Google Cloud, highlighting how crucial it is to have good processes and strong partnerships. For other companies using SAP applications we also launched Filestore Enterprise, which delivers 99.99% regional availability ​​backed by an SLA. 

Our partner NetApp deepened its integration with Google Cloud to enable easier and faster Windows-based application migration, and provided flexible deployment options to modernize workloads. We also added new Network Connectivity Center partners to include companies like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, and VMware, so as you migrate over time you can easily connect all your networking resources together in one place. 

For those of you considering migration to cloud, Forrester dove deeper into the economics of migrating enterprise applications to cloud. (Spoiler alert: companies are finding major cost savings and performance benefits!) It’s so important to us that companies trust that their biggest, most complex applications will run smoothly and securely with us, and we’re pleased at the progress we’ve made toward supporting more enterprise applications this year.

We also made it easier for you to migrate VMware workloads to the cloud by expanding Google Cloud VMware Engine to 12 regions worldwide and enabling several new capabilities across networking, compliance, and scale. Customers such as Mitel and Carrefour migrated their VMware estates to Google Cloud to transform their applications with Google services to increase agility, save money (up to 45%) and reduce energy costs (about 35%) compared to running on-premises. 

For High Performance Computing (HPC), we continued to add capabilities such as optimized VM images for HPC, enhanced integration with schedulers such as SchedMD, Slurm, and Altair PBSPro.    

New cost and performance options

To further support customers doing high performance computing for things like real-time advertising, dynamic e-commerce, and gaming, we launched a new VM family: Tau VMs. Tau VMs offer 56% higher absolute performance and 42% higher price-performance compared to general-purpose VMs from any of the leading public cloud vendors.  We are seeing companies such as Nylas switching from other cloud platforms to Google Cloud to make the most of Tau VMs.

That isn’t the only VM advancement we made. For customers with higher levels of fault tolerance and looking for greater cost efficiencies, we launched Spot VMs, which open up access to Google Cloud’s idle capacity so you can run your application at the lowest price possible. With Spot VMs, you save anywhere from 60-91% off the price of on-demand VMs. 

We also launched more options for the highest performance ephemeral block storage — 6TB and 9TB Local SSDs, which offer greater IOPS per dollar when attached to general purpose N2 Compute Engine VMs. 

Distributed cloud brings us closer to you

For years, the industry has been telling companies, “move to cloud!” but not all workloads can move to the public cloud immediately or entirely. Factors include industry- or region-specific compliance and data sovereignty needs, low latency or local data-processing requirements, or the need to run applications close to other services. 

In October, we expanded our distributed cloud strategy and announced Google Distributed Cloud, a portfolio of fully managed hardware and software solutions that extend Google Cloud’s infrastructure and services to data centers and the edge. This is a major step forward in our ability to meet you where you are, in private data centers and at the edge, and we’re excited to see how this helps you as we move into 2022.

Data protection and security that never sleeps

This year we worked hard to help improve your data protection capabilities. We doubled down on our Actifio acquisition by launching several releases that deepened its integration with Google Cloud. For customers with containerized applications, we took a big step forward with the launch of Backup for GKE. We’re particularly excited about how this new option for GKE users allows you to more easily meet your service-level objectives, automate common backup and recovery tasks, and show reporting for compliance and audit purposes. 

We also enhanced Cloud Storage with data protection features like custom region selection for dual-region buckets. Previously, Google Cloud assigned dual-region pairs for you to choose from. With this release, you can  select your own region pairs that meet your regulatory or compliance requirements, or optimize your app performance. We also launched Turbo Replication for dual-region buckets, which replicates 100% of your data between regions in 15 minutes or less, backed by a Service Level Agreement, a first from a leading cloud provider. 

Security is a key area of focus for us and we partnered with Palo Alto Networks to deliver their industry-leading Intrusion Detection System (IDS) solution natively on Google Cloud. With the recent Apache Log4j vulnerability, we automatically updated Cloud IDS to help detect exploit attempts and protect our customers’ environments quickly. We also integrated Cloud Armor with reCAPTCHA Enterprise to deliver a best-in-class bot and fraud management solution to prevent volumetric attacks. Cloud Armor is deployed with our Cloud Load Balancer and Cloud CDN, extending its security benefits at the network edge for traffic coming into Google Cloud. 

We made it easier to build and manage applications

Developers want to focus on code, not configuring, managing or scaling infrastructure. To help, we worked on simplifying networking with new services such as Private Service Connect, which allows you to connect VPCs to applications and services securely without configuring all the network underlay. To make it easier to run workloads in hybrid environments, we introduced BYOIP so you don’t need to change your IP address, and we enhanced Cloud Load Balancer with advanced traffic management, regional and hybrid app delivery to load balance traffic between on-prem and cloud workloads. We also introduced IPv6, DNS policy manager, Cloud Domains, GKE Gateway Controller, eBPF data plane, and Service Directory, all with the goal of making networking easier for developers.

We continue to invest in visibility and observability for efficient day 2 operations. Network Intelligence Center now has dynamic reachability within the Connectivity Tests module, interconnect and VPN visualization in Network Topology, and the Firewall Insights module, which provides visibility into firewall rules to ensure they are being used appropriately and as intended. 

And while not new this year, developers continue to tell us how much they love the ease of architecting storage using Cloud Storage. See how easy it is to configure a dual-region bucket. As a result, developers can treat a continent like a single bucket, dramatically simplifying the application programming model. Google Cloud is unique in offering this capability among major public cloud vendors.

We continue to be the most sustainable cloud for you

Another area Google has invested in deeply and that is becoming increasingly important to more organizations is sustainability. Many cloud providers have a vision for a sustainable future, and many aim to match their electricity consumption with 100% renewable energy by 2025 or 2030. We accomplished 100% renewable energy in 2017, which means we’re the only hyperscale cloud to do this today and on data centers that are twice as energy efficient as the average data center.

We also announced a number of new features like our new Carbon Footprint tool. Every Google Cloud user — that means you! — can see the gross carbon emissions associated with the services you use in Google Cloud. This means picking the data center that meets your sustainability goals, and reducing the overall emissions tied to your infrastructure and applications. And we have some pretty big goals for the future. For more, don’t miss our full sustainability recap.

A big thank you to our customers

While we were busy building out our infrastructure in 2021, we’d be nowhere without the partnership of our amazing customers. It’s hard to pick from all the exciting stories we heard this year, but here are just a few: Pega migrated its SAP applications to Google Cloud with zero downtime. Paypal exited its non-strategic data centers and achieved major cost savings. And Wix used our network to serve tens of millions of requests per day. 

I’m proud to look back at how our cloud infrastructure has evolved this year to support each of our customers on their transformation journey. As we head into 2022 I’m excited to continue to partner with you to solve your most difficult challenges together. 

Interested in hearing more about Google’s vision for the future? Listen to Thomas Kurian’s thoughts from Google Cloud Next ‘21.

^{1. IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2022 Predictions}

As an IT leader, you’re asked to do it all: innovate and optimize your tech stack for business outcomes — all while being secure and compliant. It takes heroic efforts to achieve innovation and progress while also tightening budgets and teams. This is why many of you are considering migrating applications to Google Cloud, for benefits like scalability and flexibility, security and compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity, and cutting-edge technologies at lower costs.

To help you do this, we suggest using Google Cloud’s Migrate to Virtual Machines – part of Migration Center. This managed cloud service lets you lift and shift workloads at scale to Google Cloud Compute Engine with minimal changes and risk.

And recently, we rolled out our latest release which introduces support for workload migration from AWS to Google Compute Engine. With this addition, you can now migrate both your on-prem and AWS workloads at scale. This means centralized management for your end to end workload migration journey from both sources via Cloud Console or APIs. 

Simple and easy migrations from AWS and VMware sources to Google Cloud

Migration of AWS EC2 instances directly to Google Compute Engine using Migrate to Virtual Machines follows a well established and easy journey, which means a minimal learning curve for users who are already migrating workloads from VMware. Workload migration is agent-less, which means you do not need to access or alter workloads as a prerequisite for migration, allowing you to execute zero-touch migrations. Migrate instance data with no interruptions to the running workload at the source for a fast cutover to Google Cloud. In addition, our end-to-end cloud console interface surfaces your AWS EC2 inventory, migrations, and groups so you can execute migrations without ever leaving the cloud console interface. 

Large-scale migrations 

Completing a large-scale migration project in a timely manner calls for careful planning and streamlined migration sprints. The Migrate to Virtual Machines’ Groups construct enables you to group source VMs together in the planning phase. When it’s time to execute the planned migration, VM Groups let you execute migration operations on a group level, or on a subset of the group, streamlining the process at scale.

Minimal downtime and risk

Application uptime is key to keeping your business running. Every migration with this latest release of the service periodically replicates data from the source workload to the destination without manual steps or interruptions to the running workload, minimizing workload downtime and enabling fast cutover to Google Cloud. You can also launch non-disruptive migration tests — referred to as test-clones — to help you validate that these workloads will work properly in the cloud before cutting over. This helps avoid issues that might have otherwise been costly or disruptive to your business. 

How the service works

Migrations simply work, at scale, in a managed service fashion. With Migrate to Virtual Machines, there’s no requirement to provision or manage migration-specific resources in the cloud. The service uses replication-based migration technology to lift and shift workloads from source environments to Google Cloud. The Migrate Connection replicates source VM disk snapshots in the background with no interruption to the source workload. Replicated data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and when you instantiate a migrating VM using a test-clone or cut-over, the service seamlessly adapts your source VM operating system to boot and run natively in the cloud — including configuring network settings and deploying Google Cloud guest packages. 

The migration journey of an EC2 instance — or VMware VM — to Google Cloud is comprised of the following steps:

1. Onboarding a source VM for migration: Onboard one or more VMs for migration from the source environment fleet.

2. Configure landing zone target: You can migrate an instance to any Google Cloud project in your environment and update landing zone details at any time before executing a test-clone or cutover.

3. Initiate VM data replication of source workload: Migrate to Virtual Machines periodically replicates instance disks to the cloud with no interruption to the source instance. You can control replication frequently and pause or resume at any point in time. 

4. Test migrating instance: Test-clone creates a copy of your source instance in the defined landing zone to validate the migrating instance in the cloud before executing a cut-over. You can repeat the test-clone multiple times to multiple landing zones for thorough validation

5. Cutover migrating instance: Cutover operation shuts down your source instance and then performs the short final sync to Google Cloud. Migrated VM is instantiated in the target landing zone.

Getting started with Migrate to Virtual Machines 

It’s quick and easy to start migrating your AWS EC2 instances and on-premises VMs today:

1. Enable the vmmigration API in a Google Cloud project 
2. Create an AWS source in your environment
3. Onboard and initiate replication of instance data from source 
4. Set migrating instance target details. 
5. Perform non-disruptive tests of your migrating instance using test-clone
6. Cutover your instance to the cloud with minimal down time

You can also visit our website to learn more about Migrate to Virtual Machines. If you know you have to migrate in 2023 but aren’t sure how to get started, you can sign up for a free discovery and assessment of your current IT landscape so we can help craft the ideal migration plan for you and your business.

IT leaders today are being asked to simultaneously support their company’s infrastructure, find opportunities for growth, and meet their goals with fewer resources and smaller budgets than before. Recently we highlighted three customers who are leveraging Google Cloud VMware Engine to achieve these goals while lowering their TCO and transforming their organization. 

It’s because of these successful customer outcomes that we have been awarded the 2023 VMware Cloud Innovation and SaaS Transformation partner achievement award for delivering solutions that accelerate customers’ digital transformation journey. We’re honored to receive this award and continue to stay focused on delivering tremendous value to our customers.

In the past few months, we’ve also made several updates to Google Cloud VMware Engine. Today’s post provides a recap of the latest milestones that make it easier for you to migrate and run your vSphere workloads in a cloud-first, enterprise-class VMware environment in Google Cloud. 

Back in September 2022, we announced a number of updates including the preview of API/CLI support (which is now available). In February 2023, we also talked about how to use NetApp CVS as datastores for VMware Engine.

Key updates this time around include:

Availability of VMware Engine in Delhi, Santiago and Milan regions: This brings the availability of VMware Engine to 17 regions worldwide, each supporting 4 9’s of uptime SLA for clusters 5 or more, serving the needs of our regional and multi-national customers. In addition, we have also added a second zone in the London region.

Filestore datastore support for VMware Engine: Generally Available in all VMware Engine regions, you can use Filestore High Scale and Enterprise tier instances as external NFS datastores for VMware Engine nodes. Filestore is VMware certified as an NFS datastore with VMware Engine. You can size compute and storage capacity independently to meet your workload requirements for your storage-intensive VMs. You can also leverage vSAN for low-latency VM requirements and scale Filestore from TBs to PBs for the capacity hungry VMs. If interested in this feature, please contact your Google account team.

Stretched private clouds: These private clouds stretch across two data zones and a witness zone all within the same Google Cloud region. Stretched private clouds use vSphere and vSAN stretched clusters to provide compute and storage high availability against zone-level failures. This capability is now available in Frankfurt and Sydney regions. Learn more here.

Zerto solution version 9.5u1 support: This recovery solution allows critical infrastructure and application virtual machines (VMs) to be replicated continuously from your on-premises vCenter to your private cloud. Learn more about setting up Zerto here.

Google Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery (GCBDR): GCBDR is available to protect applications running in VMware Engine, and can be managed within the Google Cloud Console. We recently launched GCBDR under Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service simplifying customers’ purchasing and support experience. 

vTPM support: Google Cloud VMware Engine private clouds now support the addition of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 virtual cryptoprocessor to a virtual machine. You can add vTPMs to VMs by following VMware instructions or upgrading your existing VMs to include a vTPM. You can read more about this in the VMware blog.

This brings us to the end of our updates this time. For the latest updates to the service, please bookmark our release notes.

For far too long, managing employee expenses has been a time-consuming process that requires manual data entry and reconciliation to bridge the gap between business bank accounts and ERP systems. In the absence of an integrated workflow, finance teams use multiple systems to manage credit card and cash payments, and finding receipts. In most cases, they also lack real-time visibility into company spending.

The complexity grows exponentially as businesses expand, especially into new regions. Extra administration required to manage new bank accounts, card issuers, and local accounting systems impedes decision making and negatively impacts revenues and growth. Businesses of all sizes struggle with this, but it can be especially challenging for medium to large enterprises.

Payhawk set out to help businesses overcome these challenges when we founded the company in 2018. We combine VISA company cards, reimbursable expenses, and accounts payable into a single product. Our customers can automate manual processes, maximize efficiency, and accelerate business expansion.

Setting up our first cloud cluster in less than a week

To support growth and attract investment we were keen to launch our solution on a scalable, future-proof IT architecture that didn’t require extensive technical support. This is where Google Cloud made a big impression, especially the user interface and documentation which massively reduces the resources required to set up clusters and put them into production.

I’m a CTO, not a DevOps specialist, but in less than a week I was able to set up a secure, reliable operating infrastructure. This enabled us to fast-track our application development and we were able to issue our first card in just eight months. Our Google Cloud partner, Cloud Office also gave us valuable assistance, guiding us through the deployment process and advising on Google Cloud’s extensive range of solutions.

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) played a critical role, accelerating the deployment and management of our cloud native applications. We use Cloud SQL as our database while other important tools include Cloud Memorystore, Vision AI, Cloud Storage and Artifact Registry for our wider data storage and application needs. With Firebase we’ve been able to build a notification system for mobile devices.

Another incentive is that most other cloud solutions require add-on services to build and keep your product live. With Google Cloud, all the services that Payhawk needs including logging, metrics, monitoring of resources, and utilization of CPU memory come as standard.

For instance, I was really impressed by Google Cloud’s operations suite, which includes Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring. If there are any anomalies in our cloud architecture, we can track and resolve them with minimal disruption to our operations. This also removes the need to invest in an additional observability solution.

Reliability that builds customer trust

Google Cloud also supports Payhawk’s mission to put customers at the center of our organization. Thanks to Google Cloud error reporting and tracking and Google Cloud single sign on, Payhawk’s engineering team can anticipate customer issues and correct them in less than one hour. Trust is everything, and Google Cloud gives us the tools to boost customer satisfaction and build long-term relationships.

As a young business, managing costs is also a priority. The Google for Startups Cloud Program, which includes credits for Google software and tools, enabled us to push the business forward without having to worry about financing our infrastructure, especially in the first year. This gave us breathing room to work through funding, application development, and the onboarding of our first customers.

In addition, Google Cloud gives us confidence that we can grow the business fast. In most months we have seen more than 10% growth — in some cases it’s been 20%. In the first half of 2022, the business doubled in size, but Google Cloud gave us the flexibility to scale our infrastructure, adding storage, memory, and processing power as we onboarded new customers. The pricing model is also generous so that we can grow our revenues while keeping control of operational expenditure.

Since launch we have acquired a valuable mix of customers from startups to large businesses that want to reduce the costs of their expenses programs and increase employee satisfaction. They include ATU, a German automobile servicing company, which has successfully digitized its entire procurement process, and Discordia, a Bulgarian logistics business with 10,000 trucks, which has issued Payhawk cards to all its drivers.

Looking to the future, it’s no exaggeration to say that Google Cloud is a foundation of our business and has given investors confidence in our operations. From a first seeding round of €3 million, early this year we closed a Series B extension of $100 million. This gives us a valuation of $1bn and makes Payhawk the first ever Bulgarian unicorn.

We now operate in 32 countries in Europe and the US, and plan to double our team by the end of the year. It feels like we’ve come a long way since we first started using Google Cloud, and I’m thrilled that we have Google Cloud as a global technology partner supporting our mission to transform expense management and financial operations worldwide.

If you want to learn more about how Google Cloud can help your startup, visit our page here to get more information about our program, and sign up for our communications to get a look at our community activities, digital events, special offers, and more.