Google Cloud Next: News From Broadcom, NetApp, CrowdStrike, More
There’s a slew of announcements coming out of Google Cloud Nest from vendors including Broadcom, NetApp, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Snorkel AI, Vast Data, Cast AI, Dynatrace, Informatica and more.
![Expo Hall entrance at Google Cloud Next '24 Expo Hall entrance at Google Cloud Next '24](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt622be43388759f37/661843f0a6edc6eff425a7e7/Expo_Hall_Entrance_Google_Cloud_Next_24.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Google Cloud Next '24 attendees await the opening of the expo hall.
Broadcom is amping up its work with Google Cloud with the goal of accelerating innovation for enterprises.
The work will involve, in part, optimizing VMware workloads for Google Cloud. Other aspects call for joint sales collaboration, and the inclusion of more Broadcom products and services to the Google Cloud Marketplace. For example, Symantec Network Protection soon will debut on the marketplace. Plus, Broadcom will add more of Google Cloud’s generative AI to its portfolio.
And, making good on a deal inked earlier this year, Google Cloud will support the portability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 or later licenses to Google Cloud VMware Engine. That should be available by this July.
In essence, the model delivers platform-agnostic licensing, as Google Cloud-only managed service provider SADA told Channel Futures. The same subscription will be valid for running workloads on both Google Google Cloud VMware Engine and in a customer’s own on-premises data centers. Users retain subscription rights and may move that subscription among supported environments as needed.
Users may buy VCF subscriptions directly from Broadcom and they won't be tied to a specific location. They also may choose a fully integrated GCVE environment inclusive of VCF directly from Google Cloud, as SADA explained.
"Together with Broadcom, we will enhance user experiences by streamlining operations with generative AI and enabling license portability for VMware Cloud Foundation users,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, corporate vice president, global partner ecosystem and channels at Google Cloud.
NetApp and Google Cloud announced the Flex service level for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, supporting storage volumes of nearly any size — primarily, those tied to generative AI.
“Increasing demand for data-intensive applications and insights has reinforced the need for a new approach to unified data storage that gives organizations the agility to move and store data wherever it is needed at any point in time,” said Pravjit Tiwana, senior vice president and general manager of cloud storage at NetApp.
NetApp Volumes customers now may choose from four service levels: standard, premium, extreme and Flex. Flex will be generally available by this quarter across 15 Google Cloud regions; the remainder will get the service by the end of this year.
Extending the Google Cloud collaboration means NetApp can deliver “a flexible form factor that can be run on existing infrastructure across Google Cloud system without any tradeoffs to enterprise data management capabilities,” Tiwana noted.
Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud came to Next with a big announcement in tow: they’ve agreed to the “most significant” expansion of their partnership to date, they said.
As such, cybersecurity vendor Palo Alto Networks said it has committed to spending 10 figures over multiple years with Google Cloud, and made Google Cloud its AI and infrastructure provider of choice. In return, Google Cloud continues to consider Palo Alto Networks as its preferred next-generation firewall provider.
"As the threat landscape intensifies, organizations are betting on AI-powered platformization to protect their most valuable assets," said Nikesh Arora, president and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, in a prepared statement. "The increased depth of Palo Alto Network's partnership with Google Cloud empowers customers to transform their digital futures without sacrificing security.”
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, agreed.
“Through this major partnership expansion, we will combine our security expertise, product leadership and trusted infrastructure to help businesses protect against sophisticated threats using tools powered by Google Cloud's generative AI,” he said.
Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud have partnered since 2018.
Snorkel AI, which sells through channel partners, unveiled Snorkel Custom at Google Cloud Next ‘24.
The tool helps enterprises speed up delivery of production applications. It combines the company’s programmatic AI data development platform with hands-on work from internal experts. Together, the capabilities deliver AI applications targeted to an organization’s unique data and use cases.
“Snorkel Custom is a lifeline for teams that are being pushed to show business value from AI applications and need to accelerate their time to market,” said Alex Ratner, CEO and co-founder of Snorkel AI.
As enterprises deal with large structured and unstructured data sets, they want different ways to manage AI workloads.
So, Vast Data has released its Vast Data Platform with Google Cloud.
There’s opportunity in that for the channel.
“By extending the Vast Data Platform's global namespace with Google Cloud, Vast Data is further empowering partners to enable their customers with fast access, security, and unified data management capabilities, regardless of where their data sits,” Gregg Machon, vice president of channels at Vast Data, told Channel Futures. “Partners that can offer that scalability, performance and efficiency across hybrid multicloud environments are well positioned to support their customers with flexible, future-proof infrastructure.”
The new release lets organizations deploy multi-node Vast Clusters either on their own, with Google Cloud or alongside on-premises Vast clusters. The result is efficient and limitless scale among applications or users, without the need to manage multiple copies of data, Vast Data said.
Cast AI, which delivers Kubernetes automation platform, took the wraps off its AI Optimizer service this week.
Through a variety of mechanisms, AI Optimizer automatically reduces the cost of deploying large language models. That’s important as LLM and generative AI adoption soar. Just like the early days of cloud computing, organizations are experiencing some sticker shock around AI deployments.
“What makes AI Optimizer so compelling is that it significantly reduces costs without requiring organizations to swap their existing technology stacks or even change a line of application code, which will help democratize generative AI,” said Cast AI co-founder and CTO Leon Kuperman.
The ability to automatically identify the LLM that offers the most optimal performance and the lowest inference costs is generally available now. Later this quarter, look for automated deployment of the LLM on Cast AI optimized Kubernetes clusters.
As cloud intrusions grow more common, CrowdStrike and Google Cloud are expanding their work together to deter bad actors.
They’re doing that by combining AI-powered cloud services from Google Cloud and threat hunting capabilities with the CrowdStrike Falcon XDR platform.
“We are broadening our global reach, giving organizations access to the cloud security they need to stop breaches,” said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike.
Google Cloud customers may access the capabilities from the Google Cloud Marketplace.
In the meantime, Google Cloud is integrating more of its products with the CrowdStrike platform. For example, there’s new support for Kubernetes Admission Controller, GKE Autopilot and Google Cloud Run.
Observability and security vendor Dynatrace is expanding its sales partnership with Google Cloud.
The companies are pushing adoption of the Dynatrace platform on Google Cloud for AI-powered analytics and automation of cloud-native environments. As such, they’ll do joint sales enablement and marketing initiatives, including customer solution workshops, marketing campaigns and events.
“Cloud observability and security are essential for business success in the modern digital world,” said Jay Snyder, senior vice president of global partner and alliances at Dynatrace. “They help organizations speed up software development and innovation, improve user experiences and boost customer satisfaction. … Through this expanded partnership, we will drive increased speed to value and outcomes.”
Google Cloud customers may use their committed Google Cloud budgets to buy the Dynatrace platform through the online marketplace. The Dynatrace platform also supports a variety of Google Cloud services.
Enterprise cloud data management provider Informatica launched its Master Data Management Extension for Google Cloud BigQuery at Google Cloud Next.
The extension makes getting trusted MDM data easier and faster, the company said. From there, it can be used for analytics and generative AI applications across industries such as retail, financial services and health care.
The MDM Extension for BigQuery can reduce the time it takes to port customer master data, cutting that process down from weeks to minutes, per Informatica. That way, customers may develop their data platforms and gen AI apps more quickly on Google Cloud.
The result is better marketing strategies, accurate forecasting and deeper customer insights, Informatica said.
Enterprise cloud data management provider Informatica launched its Master Data Management Extension for Google Cloud BigQuery at Google Cloud Next.
The extension makes getting trusted MDM data easier and faster, the company said. From there, it can be used for analytics and generative AI applications across industries such as retail, financial services and health care.
The MDM Extension for BigQuery can reduce the time it takes to port customer master data, cutting that process down from weeks to minutes, per Informatica. That way, customers may develop their data platforms and gen AI apps more quickly on Google Cloud.
The result is better marketing strategies, accurate forecasting and deeper customer insights, Informatica said.
GOOGLE CLOUD NEXT — There’s so much news coming out of Google Cloud Next that it’s impossible to report all of it. That said, we’ve got some important updates from the likes of Broadcom, NetApp, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and more that channel partners will want to know.
Here, we’ve curated some select announcements from channel-centric vendors. Most of the news revolves around artificial intelligence, which should come as no surprise to anyone watching the flood of information coming out of Google Cloud Next this week.
But there are also some tidbits concerning cybersecurity and licensing portability (VMware by Broadcom partners will want to take note of that, in particular.). Some of these announcements you may already have seen; others, probably not. We bring you a mix of both, noting, of course, that the slideshow above represents just a snapshot of all the Google Cloud Next news.
Here we present mostly high-level outtakes; for the full announcements, go to each vendor’s virtual newsroom.
Let’s kick off with a look at what Broadcom is doing with Google Cloud for VMware workloads and more.
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