Category Archives: Google for Work Blog

Work is going Google

Join Diane Greene, Sundar Pichai and Eric Schmidt at Google Cloud Next ‘17

We're eight weeks out from the most influential cloud conference of the year, and today we're excited to announce new keynote speakers. On March 8-10, 2017, Google Cloud Next '17 will bring together thousands of developers, partners, customers and IT professionals with industry leaders and experts from Google at Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

Next ‘17 is a unique opportunity to hear from the Google leaders who are helping define the future of the cloud, including Diane Greene, SVP of Google Cloud; Urs Holzle, SVP of Technical Infrastructure, Google Cloud; Brian Stevens, VP of Cloud Platforms and Prabhakar Raghavan, VP of Apps, to name a few.

In addition, we're excited that Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet will be sharing their vision in keynotes at Next.  

You'll also have the chance to hear from some of the brightest minds in technology, including Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist for ML/AI, Google Cloud and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford; Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and Sam Ramji, VP of Compute and Developer Services, Google Cloud. We have more exciting industry leaders that will be joining us onstage, so stay tuned for more updates.

We've planned three packed days of content, sessions, talks and tracks to share what's next for Google Cloud and the industry more broadly. Day one will focus on our vision and business strategy, day two will share Google's cloud technology and product roadmap and day three of Next '17 will center around the cloud ecosystem and why we’re committed to building an open cloud.

Beyond the keynotes, Next ‘17 offers opportunities to engage in hundreds of sessions, code labs, solutions workshops, machine learning activities, technical training, bootcamps and certification programs. Participate in more than 250 technical sessions led by Google experts paired with customers and partners. You can learn about everything cloud, from using cloud machine learning and container development on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), to building with an API-first architecture, to creating G Suite add-ons. 

Ready to register? Take advantage of early bird pricing ($500 discount!) until January 17.  

We look forward to welcoming you in March.

Source: Google Cloud


One-click software Test Drives by Orbitera, now on GCP

Since joining the Google Cloud team in August, we’ve been hard at work bringing Orbitera to Google Cloud Platform customers and partners. Today, we’re excited to announce that Orbitera supports Test Drives that run on GCP and we’ve completed a successful Test Drive beta that includes software providers like Barracuda, DivvyCloud, Looker, and Vormetric. Thanks to the support of our partners and great team we continue to provide immediate value to customers looking to experience third-party solutions on GCP.

Orbitera Test Drives are fully functioning and interactive software demonstrations offered on the cloud. This is a popular way for businesses to try software before buying it — no software license, credit card or even cloud account required.

At Orbitera we make it easier for businesses to try, buy, deploy and manage complex software in the cloud. One-click Test Drives empower businesses to try software before buying it, and comprehensive consumption billing management gives corporate IT unprecedented visibility and control.

Here’s what some leading software providers had to say about their Orbitera Test Drives on GCP:

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Looker is a Data Platform that makes it easy for everyone to find, explore and understand the data that drives their business.

“First impressions are very important, and that’s why we chose Orbitera Test Drives to increase lead-to-deal conversions. Trying a fully-functional instance of Looker’s Analytics Platform with just a few clicks and no procurement or deployment hassle is a great introduction to Looker.”

- Keenan Rice, VP, Alliances at Looker

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Vormetric’s comprehensive high performance data security platform protects data wherever it resides with transparent encryption, powerful access controls, and centralized key management.

“Comprehensive solutions like ours can be a challenge for prospective customers to get up and running in a test environment, making it hard for them to really get to know the product and its capabilities. With an Orbitera Test Drive on GCP, customers can get a fully functional environment in minutes, and that makes for a very favorable first impression and gives our sales team a real head start on closing the deal.”

- CJ Radford, VP, Cloud at Vormetric

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DivvyCloud’s BotFactory is a simple point-and-click tool for users to configure, build and deploy bots that automate cloud management tasks.

"We've worked with some of the leading cloud adopters in the world to solve common cloud problems through automation of policies. We're very excited to bring this solution to the broader market through our bot system in BotFactory. This Test Drive will show customers how they can connect a cloud account to BotFactory and find and fix these cloud problems in a matter of minutes."

- Jeremy Snyder, VP of Business Development at DivvyCloud, creators of BotFactory

Test drive Orbitera today

See how easy it is to try full-stack software with Orbitera — take a Test Drive for yourself. Try Looker and BotFactory by DivvyCloud, and come back soon for more Test Drives by leading software providers.

Google Cloud Partners: for a limited time, we’re running a promotion to let you create, operate, and run a Test Drive of your software on GCP at no cost for up to one year. Follow this link to sign up.

Source: Google Cloud


Update on Android and Google Play’s progress in enterprise

Two years ago, we launched Android for Work to help connect organizations and enable their employees to work smarter and more efficiently. As a program, Android for Work introduced a common set of APIs built directly into Android and Play, providing a consistent way of managing any Android device.

Android has extended enterprise support significantly since Lollipop, with security as a top priority. Android helps protect enterprise data and user privacy at a platform level by storing work and personal data separately on personal devices. Most recently, with Nougat, we added support for file-based encryption, always-on VPN, and a separate password for work apps. These and other management capabilities expand on the multiple layers of protection that come built-in with Android.

With the expansion of capabilities in Android, we've also seen partners unlock new use cases for customers. As an open platform that can fit any form factor, Android now powers a growing range of purpose-built devices from leading manufacturers such as Zebra and Honeywell that can help companies and their employees work in new ways.

Android: Powering the world's work devices

Android: Powering the world's work devices

Thanks to these investments and the work of our partners, Android has become the most popular operating system on enterprise smartphones shipped globally. Android devices account for 62 percent of worldwide enterprise smartphone shipments, according to IDC*.

Worldwide share of enterprise device shipments 2Q2016
Worldwide enterprise smartphone shipments by platform

To match the progress of enterprise support in Android, going forward we’ll refer to enterprise capabilities simply as part of Android and Google Play. With platform-level support shipping with every GMS compatible device, Android for Work and Play for Work have become a core part of Android and Google Play. We think this change better reflects the built-in nature of enterprise features of Android and our commitment to enterprise mobility.

We've only begun to see how mobile technology can benefit businesses, and as a platform, we rely on the innovation that comes from our ecosystem partners. To further that collaboration, our London office will be hosting an Android Enterprise Partner Summit in January for our Android partners -- to apply for a spot to attend and learn more, go here.

Customers interested in how Android can improve their business can learn more or get started and try it here.

Source: *IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker 2016 H1.

Source: Google Cloud


Google and Slack deepen partnership to help teams work better together

Google and Slack share the same vision for the future of work: that smart software can bring teams together and make all of their work and conversations seamlessly available in one place. The result is that teams can move faster and more efficiently. We’ve each been building towards this vision independently, and today we’re announcing a partnership that represents our intent to build towards this vision together.

We also share the same commitment with Slack to offer our customers choice through open platforms. We want our customers to use the tools they need to be successful and for many companies, including AOL, R/GA and Shopify, that's a combination of G Suite and Slack.

Through this partnership we’re increasing our joint product and engineering efforts to strengthen the link between the content in Google Drive and the communication in Slack.

“At R/GA, we’ve found that we create our best work when we can bring teams together in real time from different disciplines, and often different locations. Rolling out G Suite and Slack across the agency, we’ve been able to seamlessly collaborate, connect more easily with our clients, produce better work and reduce the time it takes to get the work done. We depend on smooth integrations to make the most of what both platforms can do for our teams and our clients,” says Nick Coronges, Chief Technology Officer at R/GA.

Google Docs and Drive were among the earliest Slack integrations and remain the most popular. In fact, a Drive file is imported in Slack approximately 60,000 times every weekday; that’s a file shared every 1.4 seconds.

Our partnership will focus on several new, richer features including:

  • Instant permissions: We’re smoothing out permissions so that files shared in Slack are immediately available to the right teammates. When a file from Google Drive is shared in a Slack channel, the system will automatically confirm that everyone in the channel has access to that file. You can easily add or remove file collaborators with a single click.
  • Previews and notifications: Files shared in Slack will preview the content you need at a glance. And you’ll never miss an update, since Google Drive and Docs notifications will be delivered to you in Slack.
  • Slack channels + Team Drives: Team Drives keep teams in sync by creating a central place for shared content, enabled by a new group-level ownership model. Announced in September, Team Drives is currently available to early adopter customers and slated for broader release in 2017. Customers will be able to pair Team Drives and Slack channels to keep content and conversations in sync. New files uploaded to the connected Slack channel will be automatically stored in the Team Drive; relevant Team Drive updates will be shared in Slack, and the set of people with access will stay in sync between the two products.
  • Provisioning Slack from G Suite: Companies that run on G Suite already run their organizations via the cloud, and soon with just a couple of clicks in the G Suite Admin console they can provision Slack for teams or the entire company.

Working with Slack, we’ll continue to explore how we can make our products work better together, but also ways Google products and technologies can help Slack scale and serve their customers. We look forward to the many ways we can work with Slack and to the enhanced experience we'll deliver together for our customers.

Source: Google Cloud


Google and Slack deepen partnership to help teams work better together

Google and Slack share the same vision for the future of work: that smart software can bring teams together and make all of their work and conversations seamlessly available in one place. The result is that teams can move faster and more efficiently. We’ve each been building towards this vision independently, and today we’re announcing a partnership that represents our intent to build towards this vision together.

We also share the same commitment with Slack to offer our customers choice through open platforms. We want our customers to use the tools they need to be successful and for many companies, including AOL, R/GA and Shopify, that's a combination of G Suite and Slack.

Through this partnership we’re increasing our joint product and engineering efforts to strengthen the link between the content in Google Drive and the communication in Slack.

“At R/GA, we’ve found that we create our best work when we can bring teams together in real time from different disciplines, and often different locations. Rolling out G Suite and Slack across the agency, we’ve been able to seamlessly collaborate, connect more easily with our clients, produce better work and reduce the time it takes to get the work done. We depend on smooth integrations to make the most of what both platforms can do for our teams and our clients,” says Nick Coronges, Chief Technology Officer at R/GA.

Google Docs and Drive were among the earliest Slack integrations and remain the most popular. In fact, a Drive file is imported in Slack approximately 60,000 times every weekday; that’s a file shared every 1.4 seconds.

Our partnership will focus on several new, richer features including:

  • Instant permissions: We’re smoothing out permissions so that files shared in Slack are immediately available to the right teammates. When a file from Google Drive is shared in a Slack channel, the system will automatically confirm that everyone in the channel has access to that file. You can easily add or remove file collaborators with a single click.
  • Previews and notifications: Files shared in Slack will preview the content you need at a glance. And you’ll never miss an update, since Google Drive and Docs notifications will be delivered to you in Slack.
  • Slack channels + Team Drives: Team Drives keep teams in sync by creating a central place for shared content, enabled by a new group-level ownership model. Announced in September, Team Drives is currently available to early adopter customers and slated for broader release in 2017. Customers will be able to pair Team Drives and Slack channels to keep content and conversations in sync. New files uploaded to the connected Slack channel will be automatically stored in the Team Drive; relevant Team Drive updates will be shared in Slack, and the set of people with access will stay in sync between the two products.
  • Provisioning Slack from G Suite: Companies that run on G Suite already run their organizations via the cloud, and soon with just a couple of clicks in the G Suite Admin console they can provision Slack for teams or the entire company.

Working with Slack, we’ll continue to explore how we can make our products work better together, but also ways Google products and technologies can help Slack scale and serve their customers. We look forward to the many ways we can work with Slack and to the enhanced experience we'll deliver together for our customers.

Source: Google Cloud


Google and Slack deepen partnership to help teams work better together

Google and Slack share the same vision for the future of work: that smart software can bring teams together and make all of their work and conversations seamlessly available in one place. The result is that teams can move faster and more efficiently. We’ve each been building towards this vision independently, and today we’re announcing a partnership that represents our intent to build towards this vision together.

We also share the same commitment with Slack to offer our customers choice through open platforms. We want our customers to use the tools they need to be successful and for many companies, including AOL, R/GA and Shopify, that's a combination of G Suite and Slack.

Through this partnership we’re increasing our joint product and engineering efforts to strengthen the link between the content in Google Drive and the communication in Slack.

“At R/GA, we’ve found that we create our best work when we can bring teams together in real time from different disciplines, and often different locations. Rolling out G Suite and Slack across the agency, we’ve been able to seamlessly collaborate, connect more easily with our clients, produce better work and reduce the time it takes to get the work done. We depend on smooth integrations to make the most of what both platforms can do for our teams and our clients,” says Nick Coronges, Chief Technology Officer at R/GA.

Google Docs and Drive were among the earliest Slack integrations and remain the most popular. In fact, a Drive file is imported in Slack approximately 60,000 times every weekday; that’s a file shared every 1.4 seconds.

Our partnership will focus on several new, richer features including:

  • Instant permissions: We’re smoothing out permissions so that files shared in Slack are immediately available to the right teammates. When a file from Google Drive is shared in a Slack channel, the system will automatically confirm that everyone in the channel has access to that file. You can easily add or remove file collaborators with a single click.
  • Previews and notifications: Files shared in Slack will preview the content you need at a glance. And you’ll never miss an update, since Google Drive and Docs notifications will be delivered to you in Slack.
  • Slack channels + Team Drives: Team Drives keep teams in sync by creating a central place for shared content, enabled by a new group-level ownership model. Announced in September, Team Drives is currently available to early adopter customers and slated for broader release in 2017. Customers will be able to pair Team Drives and Slack channels to keep content and conversations in sync. New files uploaded to the connected Slack channel will be automatically stored in the Team Drive; relevant Team Drive updates will be shared in Slack, and the set of people with access will stay in sync between the two products.
  • Provisioning Slack from G Suite: Companies that run on G Suite already run their organizations via the cloud, and soon with just a couple of clicks in the G Suite Admin console they can provision Slack for teams or the entire company.

Working with Slack, we’ll continue to explore how we can make our products work better together, but also ways Google products and technologies can help Slack scale and serve their customers. We look forward to the many ways we can work with Slack and to the enhanced experience we'll deliver together for our customers.

Source: Google Cloud


We’re set to reach 100% renewable energy — and it’s just the beginning

Every year people search on Google trillions of times; every minute people upload more than 400 hours of YouTube videos. All of that takes an incredible amount of processing power — which means energy. Our engineers have spent years perfecting Google's data centers, making them 50 percent more energy efficient than the industry average. But we still need a lot of energy to power the products and services that our users depend on. We began purchasing renewable energy to reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change — but it also makes business sense.

I’m thrilled to announce that in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations — including both our data centers and offices. We were one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term contracts to buy renewable energy directly; we signed our first agreement to purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010. Today, we are the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy. That’s bigger than many large utilities and more than twice as much as the 1.21 gigawatts it took to send Marty McFly back to the future.

Google PPA Chart

To reach this goal we’ll be directly buying enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit of electricity our operations consume, globally. And we're focusing on creating new energy from renewable sources, so we only buy from projects that are funded by our purchases.

Over the last six years, the cost of wind and solar came down 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, proving that renewables are increasingly becoming the lowest cost option. Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Our 20 renewable energy projects also help support communities, from Grady County, OK, to Rutherford County, NC, to the Atacama Region of Chile to municipalities in Sweden. To date, our purchasing commitments will result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally, about two-thirds of that in the United States. These projects also generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue.

So, we’re on track to match our global energy consumption on an annual basis by next year. But this is just the first step. As we look to the immediate future, we’ll continue to pursue these direct contracts as we grow, with an even greater focus on regional renewable energy purchases in places where we have data centers and significant operations. Since the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, we’ll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day. Our ultimate goal is to create a world where everyone — not just Google — has access to clean energy. For more on these next steps, read our white paper.   

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How Google purchases and uses renewable energy.

Operating our business in an environmentally sustainable way has been a core value from the beginning, and we’re always working on new ideas to make sustainability a reality — like enabling the building of healthy workplaces and creating a living, breathing dashboard for the planet. We’ve reported our carbon footprint and published information on our sustainability programs for many years in white papers, blog posts, and on our website. Now, we’ve put all this information together in a new Environmental Report.

You can also check out our new environment website, where we share stories of how we are finding new ways to do more while using less. Most of our on-campus sustainability initiatives were started by a few passionate Googlers, and have now grown into company-wide efforts. From the solar panels on our roofs to our bike-to-work program, these initiatives sit at the heart of our company culture and help both us and our users reduce our impact on the environment.

economic impact
Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world.

The science tells us that tackling climate change is an urgent global priority. We believe the private sector, in partnership with policy leaders, must take bold steps and that we can do so in a way that leads to growth and opportunity. And we have a responsibility to do so — to our users and the environment.

We have lots of progress left to make, but these achievements we're announcing today feel like a breath of fresh air. Now, back to work.

Source: Google Cloud


A totally rebuilt Sites, customer-tested and open for business

Earlier this year, we announced that a totally rebuilt version of Google Sites was on the way. Since then, we’ve worked with a set of customers through an Early Adopter Program to test the new Sites and fine tune the experience. Today, the new Google Sites is ready for all customers.

We’ve started turning customer feedback into new and improved features.  For example, some customers asked for the ability to measure how much engagement their sites were getting. You can now track site performance with Google Analytics. Other customers asked for more customization and different designs, so you can now choose between six themes to give your site the right look.

Nadia Lee, a product and change manager at Dow Jones, tested the new Sites to build a few informational sites for her teams and had this to say: “Sites is much more user friendly than other tools I’ve used, especially for non-technical people. It’s nice that I can collaborate in real-time with colleagues and see the edits they’re making. And, the final product looks clean and well-designed.”

Since its launch in 2008, Sites has made it possible for employees to build working team and project sites without writing a single line of code (no HTML, CSS or any other all-caps acronym.) But, web technologies have progressed a lot in the past decade, and the new Sites is an even more approachable way to build a site.

Sites as easy to create as a doc

Now, it’s easier than ever to create a site and add text, links, images and more with a quick cut-and-paste, or simply drag-and-drop to rearrange and resize elements on the page.

Sites integrated with your favorite apps

The new Sites is built to work with your favorite Google apps so you can insert content from the tools you use most. It’s easy to embed a schedule from Google Calendar, a video clip from Google Drive, or a location from Google Maps. You can also insert content from Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms and a live version will be presented within the site.

Sites GA GIF

Sites built together

The new Sites is the first truly collaborative tool for building team and project sites. Using the same technology as Google Docs, the new Sites brings real-time, multi-user coauthoring so the whole team can add and update a project site without worrying about conflicts or locked pages.

Sites that are beautiful and functional on any screen

The new Sites also includes themes and layouts designed to intelligently scale and flex to any screen size, so they look great when you access them on a 30-inch monitor at your desk or on your smartphone during your commute. And, an integrated preview mode lets you see what your site will look like on a desktop, a tablet and a smartphone while you’re editing so you can build the most useful team and project sites.

The new Google Sites is open for business. If you’re a G Suite customer with Google Sites enabled, you can get started building on the new Sites now or learn how to enable Sites in the Admin Console. Customers can continue to use classic Sites as we continue to add capabilities and improve the new Sites.

Source: Google Cloud


9 new ways that Google Cloud Machine Learning can help businesses

At Google, we have a rich history of exploring the furthest reaches of what machine learning can do to help increase access to information and improve our daily lives. For more than a decade, we’ve driven machine learning research that powers many of Google’s systems and products. Today, Google Cloud users across industries  — from financial services and healthcare to retail, web services and media and entertainment — now have mightier machine learning models at their disposal through our growing number of intelligent apps and cloud services.

We’ve recently announced several machine learning updates across our public cloud and productivity services. Here’s a rundown of the latest products and features that can help fuel business intelligence, operational efficiency, productivity and collaboration.

  1. Maximize recruitment efforts: The new Cloud Jobs API uses machine learning to help companies hire great talent. By understanding the nuances behind job titles, descriptions, skills and preferences, the API matches job seeker preferences with relevant listings. Learn how it works.

  2. Analyze images faster, for less: We’ve improved performance and efficiency of our Vision API by taking advantage of Google’s custom TPUs, resulting in an ~80% price reduction for large-scale deployments.

  3. Translate long-form docs: For users that need long-form translation services, a new premium edition of Cloud Translation API uses a model tailored to increase accuracy on several major language pairs. This tool is built for particular business use cases, such as translating long-form emails and documents. We’ve also reduced the price of the standard edition for higher usage volumes.

  4. Better understand text structure and sentiment and turn questions into formulas: With Explore, Natural Language Processing translates questions into useful formulas and offers up instant answers in Google Sheets. And the new Cloud Natural Language API, now generally available, does a better job than ever before at identifying names of people, companies and locations in text. It also now offers improved sentiment identification and syntax analysis. Learn more.

  5. Supercharge cloud computation for complex jobs: With hundreds of times as many computational cores as Central Processing Units (CPUs), Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are great for medical analysis, financial calculations, seismic/subsurface exploration, machine learning, video rendering, transcoding, scientific simulations and more. We’ll offer GPUs in early 2017 to Google Compute Engine and Google Cloud Machine Learning users.

  6. Find stored files on mobile nearly 50% faster: Customers can now use Quick Access in Google Drive on their Android devices to easily and instantly access files that they need. Machine intelligence works behind the scenes to understand individual user needs based on interaction with colleagues, recurring meetings and Drive activity.

  7. Use smart scheduling to save time: Our G Suite customers now spend less time finding the right time to meet. They can now schedule a time and book rooms with machine assistance that includes room suggestions based on previous bookings and time suggestions that account for conflicts easiest to resolve, such as recurring 1:1 meetings.

  8. Tap the power of Google Search to strengthen Docs content: Explore in Google Docs taps into Google’s search engine and machine intelligence to add suggestions based on content within documents. It recommends related topics, images and more for web and mobile docs creation.

  9. Format presentations faster: Explore in Google Slides adds ease and speed to creating the most presentable presentations, with design suggestions based on slide content. Recommendations are easy to apply — customers click to add new designs, no cropping, resizing or reformatting required.

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As we continue to build Google Cloud products and services, machine learning will create new pathways for transformation and growth for our users and partners.  

Learn more about Google Cloud Machine Learning here or sign up for a free trial to see firsthand how developer and IT teams can use machine intelligence to build better and faster. To get started or learn more about saving time and driving productivity with machine intelligence in G Suite, visit the G Suite site.

Source: Google Cloud


Welcome Qwiklabs to Google Cloud

Today, we’re excited to announce the acquisition of Qwiklabs. Founded in 2012, Qwiklabs provides hands-on lab learning environments for leading cloud platforms and infrastructure software vendors.

There’s no faster way to get hands-on experience with a cloud environment and to learn all the ins and outs of today’s modern cloud solutions than in a Qwiklabs lab. Qwiklabs offers step-by-step instructions to learn a popular cloud service, test different use cases and train your teams to become cloud experts.

With Qwiklabs, we’re closing the IP skills gap in the cloud. More than half a million users have collectively spent over 5 million hours learning how to successfully deploy and manage multiple cloud technologies through the Qwiklabs platform. We’re focused on offering the most comprehensive, efficient, and fun way to train and onboard people across all our products on Google Cloud, including Google Cloud Platform and G Suite.  

We want to help businesses get the most out of their cloud investment and, with Qwiklabs, we’ll give users a place to learn and expand their cloud skills to deliver more innovation, more features and more efficiency for their customers.

We’re thrilled to welcome Qwiklabs to Google Cloud. Stay tuned for more from the Qwiklabs team at Next ‘17!

Source: Google Cloud