Google’s new RAD Lab solution helps spin up cloud projects quickly and compliantly

In the public sector, developing new technology requires careful planning—from budgeting, to procurement, to anticipating future software and hardware resources. But even with the best foresight, migrations can be difficult to manage without prior experience working with cloud environments. After all, how can you tell a year in advance what tools your teams will need to address constituent needs? And what if you’re not an expert on cloud systems? 

In academic research labs, scientists are often asked to spin up research modules in the cloud to create more flexibility and collaboration opportunities for their projects. However, lacking the necessary cloud skills, many projects never get off the ground.  

Meet RAD Lab, a secure sandbox for innovation

That’s why today we’re introducing RAD Lab, a Google Cloud-based sandbox environment to help technology and research teams advance quickly from research and development to production. RAD Lab is a cloud-native research, development, and prototyping solution designed to accelerate the stand-up of cloud environments by encouraging experimentation with no risk to existing infrastructure. It’s also designed to meet public sector and academic organizations’ specific technology and scalability requirements with a predictable subscription model to simplify budgeting and procurement. 

With RAD Lab, government agencies, laboratories and university IT departments can quickly create cloud environments for inexperienced and experienced users alike. Teams no longer need to sacrifice simplicity and ease of use for access to the latest, most powerful technologies. With simplified processes and straightforward tools, RAD Lab users can easily spin up projects in just hours. Google Cloud also offers optional workshops to train employees on technology solutions that may be of use in the future. 

RAD Lab delivers a flexible environment to collect data for analysis, giving teams the liberty to experiment and innovate at their own pace, without the risk of cost overruns. Key features include:

• Open-source environment that runs on the cloud for faster deployment—with no hardware investment or vendor lock-in.

• Built on Google Cloud tools that are compliant with regulatory requirements like FedRAMP, HIPAA, and GDPR security policies.

• Common IT governance, logging, and access controls across all projects.

• Integration with analytics tools like BigQuery, Vertex AI, and pre-built notebook templates.

• Best-practice operations guidance, including documentation and code examples, that accelerate training, testing, and building cloud-based environments.

• Optional onboarding workshops for users, conducted by Google Cloud specialists. 

RAD Lab is accelerating cloud development for our customers and partners

As “America’s Innovation Agency,” the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) uses RAD Lab to enable new internal research and development in artificial intelligence/machine learning, data science, enterprise architecture, and more. The agency's technical specialists and business experts leverage RAD Lab’s sandbox environment to vet ideas and to develop prototypes that can scale.

CIO Jamie Holcombe explains, “At the USPTO, we have the privilege to serve American inventors and entrepreneurs—whether they work out of their garages, at Silicon Valley start-ups, or in multinational corporations and research-and-development laboratories. Cloud computing is part of our drive to modernize and transform our agency’s technology to serve that mission. RAD Lab allows our staff—from technical specialists to economists and business experts—to build, test, and validate new cloud solutions to meet critical agency needs.”

RAD Lab also provides Google Cloud partners a foundation to deploy tools easier and faster as they deliver cloud-based environments designed for iteration, experimentation, and prototyping to their customers. Jim Coyne, cloud specialist for Health and Life Sciences at Onix, says, “Our customers are looking for a flexible, scalable sandbox environment to trial different solutions and applications, and see what works best for them. RAD Lab gives us the flexibility to work with our customers to innovate with Google Cloud in entirely new ways.” 

Girish Reddy, CTO of SpringML, says, “We are excited to use RAD Lab to deliver Google Cloud tools to our customers in an accessible, open-source environment. It’s an invaluable tool in helping customers adopt AI/ML solutions and show them the power of their own data.” 

Start experimenting now to make more progress faster

With the rapid deployment of RAD Lab, your teams can be up-and-running and prototyping cloud deployments in hours, rather than weeks or months. In the public sector and other regulated industries, we can help you determine the best cloud capabilities to include in your RAD Lab deployment, ensuring your teams have access to the technology they need when they need it. Contact your Google Cloud team to scope your own RAD Lab projects, or apply now for free research credits in select countries.