Google, Intel Beef Up Anthos Cloud
Source: Google Cloud
Google is ramping up its Anthos cloud services platform with next-general Intel Xeon Scalable processors as the partners broaden their cloud collaboration around hybrid and multiple cloud deployments.
Anthos, formerly Google’s cloud services platform, combines Kubernetes, the Istio service mesh and related open-source components into a framework aimed at achieving interoperability between the Google cloud and on-premise infrastructure.
The Xeon upgrade to Anthos includes Google’s Kubernetes engine for on-premises deployments running on VMware vSphere and using its ESXi hypervisor. The platform also uses VMware’s vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure.
The Xeon-based hybrid cloud will be offered as an Intel service running on the Anthos platform. It will soon be available from Intel’s Select Solutions brand. Anthos also will soon be available from server vendor Lenovo (OTCMKTS: LNVGY), Quanta Cloud Technology, SHI and World Wide Technology, the partners said Monday (Aug. 26).
Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) notes it was the first public cloud vendor offer Intel’s Optane DC persistent memory beginning last fall. The cloud vendor also has announced three new virtual machine instances based on the 2ndGen Xeon Scalable processor (Cascade Lake). Anthos uses existing VMware environments, a feature designed to allow users to simplify installation and upgrades.
Google Cloud said earlier this year it is applying Optane to big data workloads such as in-memory database applications—as are other early users such as software giant SAP’s flagship HANA database management platform.
The Anthos reference design was tuned to Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) Xeon architecture and is aimed at customers shifting to hybrid or multi-cloud deployments by leveraging existing VMware vSphere and vSAN environments.
Taken together, the expanded collaboration with Intel and others illustrates Google Cloud’s multi-cloud strategy as more cloud adopters decide to hedge their bets rather than going with a single cloud vendor.
With Athos, Google Cloud is offering an alternative to public cloud leaders Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft Azure (NASDAQ: MSFT). It is buttressing that strategy through closer ties to VMware (NYSE: VMW), which last year acquired Heptio, the startup founded by the creators of Kubernetes.
