Today at Google Cloud Next, the company made it clear: They want to be the platform for your Windows applications. In the keynote message, Google’s Brian Stevens announced that they were releasing a wide set of tools to help enterprises migrate their Windows-based servers and other solutions to Google Cloud Platform. The company already has SQL Server Enterprise and Windows Server Core in Google Compute Engine but they certainly upped the ante today. Now on GCP, you have SQL Server Enterprise plus a beta of .NET for both Google App Engine and Google Container Engine. Further, things like Active Directory and other Windows-based server solutions can now be migrated to GCP.
The move is aimed at making GCP a solid base by which you can run your Windows-based solutions without having to actually have a physical server sitting on your premise, yet keeping the Windows solutions available to your enterprise. In other words, to use GCP, you don’t necessarily have to use Google solutions.
The relationship between Google and Microsoft hasn’t been a bed of roses for the most part but the two companies have been playing nice as of late. It seems that Google realizes that not all customers can or want to move to Google services wholesale while Microsoft realizes that GCP is a viable solution for cloud computing and storage without it necessarily being their own offering, Azure.
These set of tools will allow companies to take their existing Windows infrastructure, migrate to cloud but not give up the features or control they want. It will also allow users to have things like domain controllers to remain on premise but still interact with GCP.
Overall, it is good news for both companies and better for enterprises as they now have another viable option for their Windows solutions without having to keep things on site.
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