Google has launched an updated version of its hybrid Anthos container management platform offering multiple features. It includes the feature to enable integration with more than just cloud services, improved developer productivity, security, and bare-metal deployments to attract large corporate customers.
Anthos, which was generally available in April 2019, contains a complex software set, such as Google Kubernetes Engine, the Istio service mesh, and Stackdriver for system logging and monitoring. It also includes Config Management that customers can use to enforce policies on workloads. Google Anthos provides tools for managing containers across public cloud and on-premise environments.
Al Gillen, an open-source analyst at IDC, said: “The center of the funnel is Kubernetes orchestration systems. Everybody has got some strategy. What is telling us that Google has woken up and realized to have a strong cloud business, they need a solution that is also on-prem.”
The latest version of Google Anthos adds initial support for Google AI technology on-premises. An initial AI service, Speech-to-Text On-Prem, is now generally available on Anthos that represents Anthos’ first hybrid AI tool. The speech transcription service includes support for five languages, with additional ones in the works.
The new Google Anthos updates also include the Anthos Attached Clusters that will bring Kubernetes clusters into Anthos. This feature allows customers the ability to manage Kubernetes clusters in third-party services along with ones in GKE.
The update also supports implementing bare metal with the ability to run Anthos on-premises and at the edge without a hypervisor. A bare-metal option allows customers to avoid the licensing overhead of VMware. Anthos for bare metal is now in beta stage.
Google added new features for developers in the Anthos update, including integration between Google’s Cloud Code IDE and Cloud Run for Anthos. With this integration, developers can create serverless applications from familiar IDEs such as VS Code.
Additionally, this new version has introduced the Anthos Identity Service to enable identity tools to operate with Anthos workloads. Anthos Identity Service will support OpenID Connect and be available for Anthos on-premises and Anthos on AWS beta.
Gillen further added, “With Anthos, Google focuses on customers with broad on-premises footprints, with an eye on the future. They want to get them on a series of stepping stones that will take them to the Google cloud. We just see the maturity of Google’s go-to-market strategy here.”
