Last month today: Google Cloud in April
Google Cloud Content & Editorial
This month brought spring flowers, and plenty of adaptations to a work-from-home, virtually powered routine. At Google Cloud, we welcomed news of new certifications, lots of updates and news on conferencing with Google Meet, and security additions. Here’s a look at the top stories.
Meet online, securely and at no cost
We announced that Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, is now free for everyone. Meet’s availability will be gradually expanding over the next few weeks, and can be used by anyone with an email address.
Also last month, we announced that we’re extending our offer for all G Suite customers to use advanced Google Meet features for free until Sept. 30. This includes larger meetings for up to 250 participants, live streaming to 100,000 people within your domain, and meeting recording. Along with that news, we heard from customers about how they’re using Meet to adapt to work-from-home environments, speed up product launches, and more.
In addition, Meet’s new features, launched last month, include some top-requested items. These include a tiled layout to see up to 16 meeting participants at once, the ability to present a Chrome tab for higher-quality video content with audio, and noise cancellation.
Securing all-virtual meetings
In an almost-entirely-virtual world, securing online interactions is more important than ever. Our approach to security is simple: Make products safe by default. We designed Meet to operate on a secure foundation, providing the protections needed to keep our users safe, their data secure, and their information private. Meet video meetings are encrypted in transit and we’re regularly updating safety measures and features to help prevent abuse. Learn more.
To meet new requirements for remote work, businesses can now use BeyondCorp Remote Access. This is a cloud solution based on the zero-trust approach used within Google for almost a decade. BeyondCorp Remote Access lets your employees and extended workforce access internal web apps for just about any device anywhere—without needing a VPN.
New phishing and malware threats related to COVID-19 have emerged, and our ML models have evolved to understand and filter these threats. We continue to block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching our users. Learn more.
Multi-cloud capabilities expand, bring flexibility
Multi-cloud platform Anthos can now support AWS applications, so you can consolidate your ops across on-prem, Google Cloud, and AWS, with Microsoft Azure coming soon. This brings flexibility to run apps where you want them without adding complexity. Additionally, Anthos now offers deeper support for virtual machines to make cloud management easier.
Understanding API design models
RPC and REST are the two primary models for API design, and there are varying options to implement modern APIs. This post explores some of the differences, when to choose one or the other, and offers tips on using HTTP for APIs, specifications like OpenAPI, and the benefits of gRPC.
- All this month, you can explore free cloud learning resources from Qwiklabs and Pluralsight. You’ll find cloud basics and courses in on-demand skill areas, like data analytics, machine learning, and Kubernetes. Once you sign up, you’ll get 30 days of free access.
That’s a wrap for April. Stay well and keep in touch on Twitter.
