As many countries got a glimpse of post-COVID changes for life and work on the horizon, Google Cloud introduced new trainings, features, and products to help you make the most of what the future holds. Here’s our recap from last month’s most popular Google Cloud blog posts.

Google Cloud trainings help you increase your cloud skills at no cost.

Since January, we’ve introduced a number of no-cost training opportunities for you to grow your cloud computing knowledge and showcase your cloud skills. You can now see all the trainings from the first quarter of 2021 in one place. These included skills challenges in areas like data analytics and artificial intelligence, and events like Google Cloud OnBoards that offer introductions to the core components of Google Cloud. Other trainings explore specific Google Cloud products such as Looker and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Check back regularly for the latest updates.

Visual cheat sheets illustrate Google Cloud products.

Last month we introduced a number of cheat sheets designed by Cloud Developer Advocate Priyanka Vergadia to help developers visually navigate important decisions. The cheat sheets cover topics like determining the best way to move your business to the cloud, options totransfer your data to the cloud or deciding on the best storage options for your business data. You can find colorful cheat sheets to guide you through scenarios for using Google Cloud products like Dataproc and VMware Engine. Finally, for those just getting started with the cloud or those looking to brush up on their cloud knowledge, check out this list that quickly summarizes every Google Cloud product in four words or less.

Three new products arrived to help you manage your documents.

We announced the general availability of three different Google Cloud products to help customers make the most of their documents. Document (Doc) AI platform

https://cloud.google.com/document-ai

Boost your Workspace productivity with video tips.

We also introduced recent updates to the Google Workspace Productivity Tips video series to help Workspace users get the most out of Gmail, Meet, Docs, Sheets and Slides. The series of video topics walk you through mastering your inbox with Gmail’s right-click menu, asking Google Assistant to take notes, and filtering out distractions with noise cancellation in Meet. These videos come from Google’s productivity expert, Laura Mae Martin, and you can check out her entire series of videos online for more productivity tips. 

That’s a wrap for April. Stay tuned to the Google Cloud blog for all things cloud.

Spring brings new growth and possibilities, and with COVID-19 vaccinations underway, this spring feels even more hopeful than usual. In the spirit of spring, the most popular Google Cloud blog posts from last month focused on the new: features, resources, innovations and awards. Here’s our recap.

Our popular cheat sheet helps you learn Google Cloud technologies in four words or less.
Back by popular demand, our developer’s cheat sheet summarizes Google Cloud products, each in four words or less, for a quick, handy reference. You can print the cheat sheet and post it by your desk, or make it your desktop wallpaper. If you see a product that piques your interest, learn more about it on our GitHub page. Or check out a couple of other resources mentioned in the same blog: GCP Sketchnotes describe each Google Cloud product in a format that combines art and technology. The video series Cloud Bytes summarizes individual Google Cloud products in less than two minutes. 

Google Workspace showed off new features.
A mantra that captures the last year of work might be “flexibility in the face of change.” Last month we announced new features in Google Workspace that will help in all the ways work gets done in an ever-changing world. Many features will contribute to what we call collaboration equity, or the ability to contribute equally, regardless of location, role, experience level, language or device preference. We also launched a new offering, Google Workspace Frontline, to open up safe and secure communication and collaboration channels between frontline workers and corporate teams. Finally, we shared that Google Assistant can now be used with Google Workspace for tasks like joining a meeting or sending a message. 

Users can now include carbon emissions in their app’s location choice.
We recently set a new sustainability goal: running our business on carbon-free energy 24/7, everywhere, by 2030. Decarbonizing our data center electricity supply is the critical next step in realizing that carbon-free future and providing Google Cloud customers with the cleanest cloud in the industry. Last month, we were excited to share news about our new Carbon Free Energy Percentage (CFE%), which will help our customers select Google Cloud regions based on the carbon-free energy supplying them. This way, our customers can incorporate carbon emissions into decisions on where to locate their services across our infrastructure. 

Undersea cables connect the world.
Speaking of infrastructure, Google works hard to build technologies that connect people, geographies and businesses. Last month, we announced our new investment in Echo, a subsea cable that will run from California to Singapore, with a stopover in Guam, with plans to also land in Indonesia. Additional landings are possible in the future. Echo will be the first-ever cable to connect the U.S. to Singapore with direct fiber pairs over an express route. It will help users connect even faster to applications running in Google Cloud regions in the area, home to some of the world’s most vibrant financial and technology centers. 

Google Cloud rode the Forrester Wave of recognition.
Google was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouse, Q1 2021 report. Using feedback from our customers as one of their inputs, Forrester measured and scored BigQuery, our cloud data warehouse for analyzing lots of data quickly, and gave it a 5 out of 5 across 19 different criteria. Forrester said, “Customers like Google’s frequency of data warehouse releases, business value, future proof architecture, high-end scale, geospatial capabilities, strong AI/ML capabilities, good security capabilities, and broad analytical use cases.”  

That’s a wrap for March! Stay tuned to the Google Cloud blog for all things cloud.

Spring brings new growth and possibilities, and with COVID-19 vaccinations underway, this spring feels even more hopeful than usual. In the spirit of spring, the most popular Google Cloud blog posts from last month focused on the new: features, resources, innovations and awards. Here’s our recap.

Our popular cheat sheet helps you learn Google Cloud technologies in four words or less.
Back by popular demand, our developer’s cheat sheet summarizes Google Cloud products, each in four words or less, for a quick, handy reference. You can print the cheat sheet and post it by your desk, or make it your desktop wallpaper. If you see a product that piques your interest, learn more about it on our GitHub page. Or check out a couple of other resources mentioned in the same blog: GCP Sketchnotes describe each Google Cloud product in a format that combines art and technology. The video series Cloud Bytes summarizes individual Google Cloud products in less than two minutes. 

Google Workspace showed off new features.
A mantra that captures the last year of work might be “flexibility in the face of change.” Last month we announced new features in Google Workspace that will help in all the ways work gets done in an ever-changing world. Many features will contribute to what we call collaboration equity, or the ability to contribute equally, regardless of location, role, experience level, language or device preference. We also launched a new offering, Google Workspace Frontline, to open up safe and secure communication and collaboration channels between frontline workers and corporate teams. Finally, we shared that Google Assistant can now be used with Google Workspace for tasks like joining a meeting or sending a message. 

Users can now include carbon emissions in their app’s location choice.
We recently set a new sustainability goal: running our business on carbon-free energy 24/7, everywhere, by 2030. Decarbonizing our data center electricity supply is the critical next step in realizing that carbon-free future and providing Google Cloud customers with the cleanest cloud in the industry. Last month, we were excited to share news about our new Carbon Free Energy Percentage (CFE%), which will help our customers select Google Cloud regions based on the carbon-free energy supplying them. This way, our customers can incorporate carbon emissions into decisions on where to locate their services across our infrastructure. 

Undersea cables connect the world.
Speaking of infrastructure, Google works hard to build technologies that connect people, geographies and businesses. Last month, we announced our new investment in Echo, a subsea cable that will run from California to Singapore, with a stopover in Guam, with plans to also land in Indonesia. Additional landings are possible in the future. Echo will be the first-ever cable to connect the U.S. to Singapore with direct fiber pairs over an express route. It will help users connect even faster to applications running in Google Cloud regions in the area, home to some of the world’s most vibrant financial and technology centers. 

Google Cloud rode the Forrester Wave of recognition.
Google was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Data Warehouse, Q1 2021 report. Using feedback from our customers as one of their inputs, Forrester measured and scored BigQuery, our cloud data warehouse for analyzing lots of data quickly, and gave it a 5 out of 5 across 19 different criteria. Forrester said, “Customers like Google’s frequency of data warehouse releases, business value, future proof architecture, high-end scale, geospatial capabilities, strong AI/ML capabilities, good security capabilities, and broad analytical use cases.”  

That’s a wrap for March! Stay tuned to the Google Cloud blog for all things cloud.

Last month, Google Cloud introduced new tools and resources to help vaccinate communities, avoid email scams, connect the world (under the sea!) and build with new technologies. Check out the most popular Cloud blog posts from February.  

Technology helps get more vaccines into more communities.

To help the global challenge of immunizing millions of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, we announced Google Cloud’s Intelligent Vaccine Impact solution. Powered by several Google Cloud technologies, this effort will help state and local governments create successful public health strategies. The Intelligent Vaccine Impact solution will also increase vaccine availability and equitable access to those who need it, and assist governments in building awareness, confidence and acceptance of vaccines. This builds on our foundation of projects supporting state and local health agencies and governments during the pandemic. 

Here’s how to understand and avoid email scams. 

Every day, we stop more than 100 million harmful emails from reaching Gmail users. Last month we shared news about a recent study we conducted with Stanford University about email scams, including common patterns and risk factors for abuse. We found that where you live, what devices you use and whether your information appeared in previous third-party data breaches can increase your odds of being a target. We also shared tips to prevent being a target, including completing a Security Checkup for personalized security advice. You can also enroll in Google's Advanced Protection program, which provides Google's strongest security to users at increased risk of targeted online attacks. Or use the Enhanced Safe Browsing Protection in Google Chrome to increase your defenses against dangerous websites and downloads on the web. 

5G will speed up our network future. 

Last month we announced a collaboration with Intel to develop ideas, products and services for communications service providers to help them benefit from new 5G connectivity. 5G is the next generation of mobile network that provides higher data speeds, real-time responses and better  connectivity. Our efforts with Intel will help businesses build systems and processes that use 5G and edge computing, which brings applications and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to save bandwidth and improve computer response times. 

A global network lives under the sea.

We were excited to announce our new Dunant submarine cable system, which crosses the Atlantic Ocean between the U.S. and France, is now ready for service. The Dunant system — named after the founder of the Red Cross and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize — expands Google’s global network to add dedicated capacity while connecting to other network systems in the region. Made possible in partnership with SubCom, a global partner for undersea data transport, the Dunant system delivers data across the ocean at a record-breaking capacity of 250 terabits per second (Tbps) — enough to transmit the entire digitized Library of Congress three times every second. 

APIs help software communicate.

Last month we also announced the launch of Apigee X, a major release of our application programming interface (API) management platform. APIs let multiple pieces of software work together, no matter their systems and programs, making it easier to collaborate with other teams or publicly over the web. Apigee X seamlessly weaves together Google Cloud’s expertise in APIs, artificial intelligence (AI), security and networking to help businesses deliver secure and high-performance APIs at global scale.  

That’s a wrap for February! Stay tuned to the Google Cloud blog for all things cloud.

After a year of many challenges, January represented a new start. A new year is a chance to hit the refresh button and look to the future, to see what’s in store for home, school and work. As always, Google Cloud continued to introduce new resources and solutions to help you meet that future. Here are our top posts from last month.  

AppSheet lets you build your own workout app in five steps.

With a new year comes new resolutions, like new fitness routines. Last month we shared steps to build a custom fitness application using AppSheet, Google Cloud’s intelligent, no-code software application development platform. With AppSheet, you can do things like record your sets, reps and weights, log your workouts and show your overall progress. The blog post explores the technical details behind five steps:

1. Set up your data and create your app.

2. Create a form to log your exercises.

3. Set up your digital workout log book.

4. Create your Stats Dashboard.

5. Personalize your app and send it to your phone.

Beyond workout apps, AppSheet offers many ways to simplify your life by building apps, no code required. To date, more than three million apps have been developed around the world with AppSheet. 

Kick off the new year with free Google Cloud training.
We introduced readers to our new skills challenge, which provides no-cost training to build in-demand cloud computing skills in several tracks, along with a chance to earn digital skill badges to showcase your cloud competencies. The current tracks available are Getting Started, Data Analytics, Kubernetes, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and Native App Deployment. Select your challenge track and start earning the recommended Google Cloud skill badges by completing the series of hands-on labs and final challenge labs to test your skills. Interested? To begin, sign up for the skills challenge to receive 30 days free access to Google Cloud labs. 

Improving security without slowing you down: Introducing BeyondCorp Enterprise.
Cyber attackers are getting smarter and their attacks on businesses more sophisticated. The challenge is to enable new innovations in security to help our customers without disrupting their security operations. We recently announced the general availability of Google’s zero trust product offering, BeyondCorp Enterprise. BeyondCorp Enterprise offers secure access to web applications, SaaS applications and cloud services. It creates an environment in which every interaction between users and resources is strongly authenticated, continuously authorized and encrypted to ensure users are who they claim to be and have access to only the resources they need. We at Google are using the BeyondCorp architecture to protect our own applications, data and users. You can register to learn more in our upcoming webinar on February 23. 

Place a car in your driveway without leaving your house: Google Cloud streams augmented reality.
Every year Google takes part in CES, a trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. This year, in light of the pandemic, CES will be an all-virtual event, which raises a challenge for participants: How can CES create immersive experiences for attendees tuning in remotely? Our blog post last month looked at how Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Google Cloud partnered to solve this challenge. 

As part of FCA's Virtual Showroom CES event this year, you can experience the new 2021 Jeep Wrangler 4xe by scanning a QR code with your phone. You can then see an augmented reality (AR) model of the Wrangler right in front of you in available colors and from any angle with incredible details. Google Cloud is working to make these capabilities available to all enterprise customers so that down the road, businesses can enable new customer experiences across many industries.

That’s a wrap for January! Stay tuned to the Google Cloud blog for all things cloud.

December marked the end of a tumultuous year, one that brought new challenges to work, school, and home. At Google Cloud, we helped our customers respond to the challenges and prepare for opportunities in the coming year with new tools, resources, strategies and partnerships.  

Google acquires Actifio 

Last month, we announced Google Cloud’s acquisition of Actifio, a leader in data backup and disaster recovery (DR). Their business continuity products help customers protect and manage virtual copies of data in their native formats and use these copies in areas like application development and testing. This new acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to helping enterprises prevent data loss and downtime due to external threats, human errors, network failures and other disruptions.  

Free Google Cloud trainings available

Our December blog post sharing no-cost learning opportunities to help you build in-demand cloud skills was popular with readers. These training sessions can help you further your knowledge of artificial intelligence, Kubernetes, multi-cloud technologies and data analytics. We’re announcing more free learning opportunities in the new year. In January, we’re introducing our skills challenge, which will provide you with no-cost training to earn Google Cloud skill badges in four initial tracks: Getting Started, Data Analytics, Hybrid and Multi-Cloud, and Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. To begin, sign up for your preferred skills challenge to receive 30 days free access to Google Cloud labs. 

Taking the cloud to the stars for new discoveries in astronomy 

Last month we also shared news about our pioneering collaboration in the science of astronomy with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, and researchers at the California Institute of Technology. The Rubin Observatory will host its Interim Data Facility (IDF) on Google Cloud, processing the astronomical data it collects and making it available to the broader scientific community. Separately, Caltech’s Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) has begun to use Google Cloud’s tools, such as machine learning (ML) models to identify the objects observed in their research at a greatly accelerated rate. This past October, their new ML model identified Comet C/2020 T2, the first ever such discovery attributed to artificial intelligence. 

Introducing Google Workflows for easier tasks at work

In August we introduced Workflows, a powerful new addition to Google Cloud’s application development and management toolset. Whether your company is processing transactions, producing goods or delivering services, you need to manage the flow of work across a variety of systems. And doing so is much easier with a purpose-built product. Our December blog explored Workflows in depth, including its technical details and how it can be used in common business uses like generating invoices and processing customer transactions.

That’s a wrap for December, and for 2020. Stay tuned to the Google Cloud Blog for news and updates in this new year.

2020 will be remembered as a year of profound change, when the world was forced to adapt to unexpected challenges at work, home, and school. Let’s take a look back at the features, products, and services we built to meet those challenges. 

Video conferencing became a critical lifeline 

As more employees, educators, and students worked remotely in response to the spread of COVID-19, we rolled out free access to our advanced Google Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally, including larger meetings, up to 250 participants; live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save to Drive. 

Other top-requested features included a tiled layout that allowed viewers to see up to 49 participants at once; the option to present a Chrome tab in your meeting for high-quality video with audio content; a new mode that optimizes for low lighting conditions; and noise cancellation to limit background distractions. 

As the year unfolded, we kept working to boost the performanceand usefulness of Google Meet. One example is that you can join Meet on your Nest Hub Max. 

As always, privacy and security are paramount at Google Cloud, and we shared some of Google Meet’s key capabilities designed to protect you. These include anti-hijacking for both web meetings and dial-ins; increased moderation capabilities for meeting creators and calendar owners; multiple two-step verification options for accounts; and an optional Advanced Protection Program for additional security measures.

Google Meet’s infrastructure always provides secure, compliant, and reliable measures to all meetings. These include Google Cloud’s defense-in-depth approach to security; incident management; and compliance certifications. 

New ways to work, explore and learn 

In October, we announced the launch of Google Workspace with all of the productivity apps you know and love in one place—Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and many more. Google Workspace introduces three major developments: a deeply integrated user experience; a new brand identity; and new ways to get started. 

Of course, Google Workspace will include the new features that we introduced earlier in the year, integrating core tools like video, chat, email, files, and tasks, and making them better together. For starters, these new features help you move between tasks right in your Gmail inbox, allowing you to join meetings, co-edit team documents, or chat with colleagues in real time. 

Google Cloud is always finding new ways to provide wider access to applications and data for all kinds of people, regardless of experience. AppSheet is an application development platform that helps people create and extend applications without professional coding skills. 

To support the fight against COVID-19, we also made a hosted repository of public datasets, like our COVID-19 Open Data dataset, free to access and query. In addition, researchers can use BigQuery ML to train advanced machine learning (ML) models with this data right inside BigQuery at no additional cost. Quickly sharing results and analysis with colleagues and the public will accelerate our shared understanding of how the virus is spreading.

The increase in ML is an opportunity for developers and others to enhance skills in new areas. To help, 100 Google Cloud training courses and 500 hands-on labs are available online, designed around in-demand core cloud skills such as cloud architecture, data engineering, and ML. They’ll prepare you to solve real-world problems, and get you started on your path to certification. We're offering free training this month including access to our hands-on labs. 

Keeping technology’s back end working

Ensuring that Google Cloud customers stay up and running during the pandemic and beyond remains our highest priority. We shared two videos that detail our business continuity approach, and how we were prepared coming into this unprecedented time. Our infrastructure and technology helped us adapt to large increases in demand for our services like Google Meet. Meanwhile, we activated our business continuity plans, seamlessly shifting most of our staff to work from home, including our customer support organization, which helped our customers make the same kinds of adaptations. 

Our annual Google Cloud Next went digital. Re-watch Google Next ‘20: OnAir or check out a summary of each week’s main events, which covered topics including customer stories, cloud architecture, security, remote work, data analytics and application modernization.

Nearly everything about modern life has changed this year, and in November we announced new features and tools to help you meet the needs of a changing world. Read on for more of what was new last month in Google Cloud.

Google and Harvard partner to improve COVID-19 forecasts
Eight months ago, Google Cloud partnered with Harvard Global Health Institute to develop COVID-19 Public Forecasts, which provide a projection of COVID-19 cases, deaths and other metrics for U.S. counties and states. The forecasts are now used by many organizations across the country, and in November we shared how the forecasts have improved in five major ways. These changes help lengthen forecasts, adapt to interventions like mask mandates, add customization options for organizations everywhere, and provide support for expansion to other countries like Japan. We also shared some valuable lessons learned in the last few months that will help guide future improvements to the forecasts.

Google Cloud launches machine learning engineer certification 
Two-thirds of global businesses are now using machine learning (ML) in their operations, which is a way to automate more tasks for things like TV recommendations, personalized shopping offers, and more. This explosion in ML has opened up new opportunities for engineers, and last month, we announced our new Google Cloud Machine Learning Engineer certification to help meet this demand. The two-hour exam is designed to assess individuals’ ability to frame ML problems, develop ML models, and build ML solutions. We offered suggestions on how to prepare for the exam, and shared feedback from one of the first participants, who said that Google Cloud has its finger “on the pulse of ML’s future.” 

The Anthos Developer Sandbox is free with a Google account
Google Anthos, our open cloud platform, helps software developers and operators build, deploy, and optimize applications anywhere. With Anthos, developers can package their code once, then run it across different types of clouds, saving a ton of time. Meanwhile, operators get a consistent platform for all application deployments, both legacy as well as cloud-native. In November, we announced free access to the Anthos Developer Sandbox, which allows anyone with a Google account to develop applications on Anthos at no cost. Just with a click of a button, right within the browser, you get access to pre-configured tools and extensions in your favorite languages for developing applications on Anthos.

Google Cloud announces Document AI Platform
Google Cloud helps businesses access the unstructured data contained in their documents, like invoices or W-9s, and make the data easier to understand, analyze and use by providing structure. We do so by using AI and ML to automate the process. Last month, we announced the new Document AI (DocAI) platform, now available in preview, which helps businesses process their documents and glean new insights from their data. You can check out the blog for an example, with instructions, to see how it actually works.

Viessmann transitions employees to Google Workspace and Chrome Enterprise
Last month we shared how Viessmann, a Germany-based manufacturing company with employees across the globe, made a successful and hassle-free transition to remote working with Google Workspace, Chromebooks, and Chrome Browser. With these three tools, Viessman made the remote transition in only one weekend, and was able to slim down hardware budgets, reduce IT administration, and free workers from their desks.

Empowering customers with an open cloud
Last month, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian penned a blog post sharing more about our approach to the open cloud, including our ongoing commitment to open source—software that allows public users to access, modify, or distribute its code, as well as open data, which allows customers to get more insights out of their data. In addition to examples of our history pioneering open source tools and technologies, Kurian also shared info about the Google Cloud Public Datasets program. Here, Google works with data providers to host hundreds of public datasets that allow customers and researchers to discover unique insights for solving real business and societal problems.

That’s a wrap for this month. Keep up-to-date with Google Cloud news on the blog.

Fall weather, pumpkin patches, and a socially distant Halloween greeted many of us here in the U.S. last month. On the collaboration front, we announced more features and a new home that puts all of your Google collaboration tools in one place. Here’s more on that, and other highlights you might have missed from Google Cloud in October. 

Say hello to Google Workspace: everything you need to get anything done
Work is transforming in all new ways: we’re more geographically distributed than ever before, our time is more fragmented, and we’re finding new ways to deepen connection, both with our colleagues and customers. To help people succeed in this new reality, we introducedGoogle Workspace, which brings together everything you need to get anything done in one place. Whether you're returning to the office, working from home, on the frontlines with your mobile device, or connecting with customers, Google Workspace is the best way to create, communicate, and collaborate. 

Enhance your video calls with two new Google Meet features
As part of the introduction of Google Workspace, we offered tips last month on how to use Q&A and Polls in Meet to host more interactive and engaging calls. With Polls, you can quickly capture everyone’s attention and break the ice, gather feedback efficiently during a call, and inspire greater participation from your audience. With Q&A, even those participants who might be too timid to speak up during a call, or who have kids distance learning at home, can participate by submitting or upvoting questions. We hope these enhancements help everyone have a voice on calls regardless of where they’re joining from.

Ongoing commitment to security and privacy
Also during October, we announced new security features for Google Workspace. They help make sure your communications are safe, while letting administrators at businesses keep their data secure. There are now new ways to protect emails and chats from online abuse, and for admins, there’s a new consolidated look at security rules. Google Workspace is the first major productivity solution to receive an accredited ISO/IEC 27701 certification as a data processor. This certification provides customers with benefits including universal privacy controls, greater clarity around privacy-related roles and responsibilities, and streamlined audit processes.

Designing APIs so apps can talk to each other
Developers use application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow software to interact with other software, even if they were never designed to do so. For example, an API might connect your email with another application, and if you use a voice assistant to interact with your favorite apps or smart devices, an API is creating that connection too. When designed and managed with foresight, they can prove invaluable and let a developer create one API that can be used many times, including by other developers, for many different apps. In our APIs 101 blog post, we looked at design challenges and offered best practices for creating efficient APIs.

Build your cloud knowledge
There’s still time to get free access to courses that prepare you for Google Cloud certification. Coursera, one of our training partners, is offering this limited-time access to our growing set of six Google Cloud Professional Certificates. To help you build your cloud knowledge and prepare for the official certification exams, you have until November 19 to take advantage of this no-cost offering. We also announced the launch of three new Professional Certificates on Coursera in cloud networking, security, and DevOps engineering.  

September is typically a month of transition, with students going back to school and most American sports leagues starting their seasons or getting ready for playoffs. But that wasn’t always the case this year. The unique circumstances of 2020 have made these transitions and many others more complicated, creating new challenges for all businesses. We’ve heard recently from everyone from construction companies to Major League Baseball on how they’re meeting new evolving customer needs.

A new “Gateway” to help developers with APIs

To keep pace with rapidly changing environments, developers package workloads as easy-to-use application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs are connectors that let multiple pieces of software work together, no matter what systems and programs your teams use, making it easier to collaborate with other teams or publicly over the web. To help developers focus on building code without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure, we released API Gateway—a fully-managed solution to create, secure and monitor APIs for your serverless workloads.

Make meetings more productive—and more human—with Google Meet Series One hardware

Lockdowns have taught us all the importance of strong video conferencing for connecting and collaboration, and that will continue to be true when we all start moving back into the office. That’s why we partnered with Lenovo to introduce the Series One meeting room kits for Google Meet. The kits include the background noise-cancelling Smart Audio Bar, Google AI-powered video cameras for stronger video quality, powerful computing solutions with built-in Intel i7 processors and much more.

Helping more businesses protect their data

Google Cloud encrypts data at-rest and in-transit, but customer data must be decrypted for processing. Confidential Computing is a breakthrough technology which encrypts data in-use—while it is being processed. Confidential Computing environments keep data encrypted in memory and elsewhere outside the central processing unit (CPU). To protect your data even when it’s being processed, we introduced our take on Confidential Computing in July, starting with the beta of our Confidential VMs—virtual machines that encrypt your data in use while it's being processed—without any code changes to the application. Now we’ve announced that Confidential VMs will soon be generally available to all Google Cloud customers, and we’ve introduced the preview version of our new Confidential GKE Nodes, which can help you achieve encryption in-use for data processed inside your GKE cluster, without the performance degrading.

From the ballpark to the cloud: How MLB is using Anthos

For Major League Baseball (MLB), processing, analyzing and ultimately making decisions based on everything from batting averages to hot-dog sales are key to running a successful organization. With Google Cloud’s help, MLB was able to run workloads in the cloud (even in areas with low bandwidth) with data centers at each of their 30 teams’ ballparks across the U.S. and Canada. And with Anthos, they can collect those workloads and their code into a container so they can run them in whatever location they need to.

That’s a wrap for September. Keep up on all things Google Cloud on our blog.