Google’s Cloud Next ’21 digital event – New Features

Google Cloud is great for data storage and analytics, considering its capabilities. However, it has led to regression for data professionals. This is because the major providers have introduced multiple database platforms and left the customers with an arbitrary choice of the right combination of services.

Gerrit Kazmaier, SAP Data and Analytics Executive Vice President, is the newly established Vice President and General Manager of Google Cloud. Hence, at Google’s Cloud Next ’21 digital event, quite a few updates were announced.

The first significant innovation in Google Cloud is an upgrade to a Vertex AI service called Vertex AI Workbench. Workbench integrates critical components of Vertex AI and parts of the data platform such as Dataproc, BigQuery, and Dataplex. This integration helps data scientists to avoid speed changes and unforeseen events.

Another vital application of Google Cloud was the availability of BigQuery Omni. This allows BigQuery users to access data from Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.

BigQuery is central to Google’s “data cloud” strategy. Providing BigQuery access to data stored for Google is essential.

Spark Google Cloud, a preview service, has taken a spark for analysts in the global commodity industry. Hence, the providers created serverless Spark. Its use in AI pipelines requires an explicit provision of the Spark cluster.

This feature will be pretty handy on Google Cloud with BigQuery. Dataplex, BigQuery, Vertex AI and Dataproc allow users to access infrastructure without additional management.

Cloud Spanner

Google has introduced PostgreSQL (Database Service) interface in Cloud Spanner. While this is not an implementation of Postgres, this offer allows code to work on Spanner. However, in the case of the Spanner Postgres interface, large-scale databases in the Cloud are accessible to people with Postgres skills. The Spanner Postgres offer is available for preview.

Google added some more integrations. These include 50+ petabytes of Google Earth data available to Google Maps, BigQuery, ML Technologies, and Google Cloud users. The service, Google Earth Engine, is activated during the preview.

Conclusion

Google Cloud currently owns Looker. Looker can define semantic models that make data analysis easier. Google’s new technology gives Google Sheets users data in BigQuery, making it adaptable with LookML. According to Google Cloud, it will release the update by the end of the year.

It is worth noting that Google Cloud has frequently applied for affiliate links lately. Therefore, the company seems to know that it cannot be a dominant data provider without the help of analytics partners.

According to Google Cloud, all cloud providers recognize the criticality of service integration. However, they do have the ability to simplify and improve service over time.