Launched Zilliz Cloud, an enterprise-grade vector database service, rapidly within months
Simplifies Zilliz Cloud operations and maintenance, with GKE's flexible scaling handling peak demand
Robust security mechanisms protect data from network threats
Increased user retention by offering Zilliz Cloud on Google Cloud Marketplace, streamlining purchasing
By using Google Cloud, Zilliz Cloud achieved rapid development, reduced operational overhead, and secured user data with comprehensive security features.
By using Google Cloud, Zilliz Cloud achieved rapid development, reduced operational overhead, and secured user data with comprehensive security features.
Zilliz is a global leader in vector database systems and specializes in unstructured data processing, providing next-generation AI database technology. Recognizing the rise of unstructured data (images, videos, audio, and others) in the AI era, Zilliz developed Milvus, an open-source vector database. They also launched Zilliz Cloud, a fully-managed, enterprise-grade service built on Milvus, in 2023, which met the growing demand of the generative AI boom. By the end of 2024, Milvus and Zilliz Cloud had over 10,000 global enterprise customers.
Building the cloud-based vector database service Zilliz Cloud rapidly on Google Cloud
As is well known, Google is a technology leader in the AI field. Google Cloud has gathered the largest number of AI developers globally. Zilliz mainly serves these AI developers and the AI applications they build. Therefore, it is natural for us to choose Google Cloud as the infrastructure platform for Zilliz Cloud.
James Luan
Zilliz Partner, VP of Engineering
Zilliz Cloud is a cloud-based vector database platform built on Google Cloud. The choice of Google Cloud is based on the target users. Google's leadership in AI, with technologies like TensorFlow, the Transformer framework, and Gemini, makes Google Cloud a top choice for AI developers. Zilliz Cloud mainly serves cloud-based AI applications, providing them with unstructured data storage and retrieval services. Naturally, Google Cloud has become the ideal infrastructure platform for Zilliz Cloud.
Since the initial stages, Zilliz Cloud has fully adopted a cloud native architecture, leveraging open source technologies, such as Kubernetes and Nginx. It is designed and built based on a microservices architecture and container technology.
Given that Google itself is the initiator and major contributor of many open source technologies, the open source technologies and components used in Zilliz Cloud can easily find corresponding alternatives on Google Cloud, such as GKE, Cloud Load Balancing, Serverless, and more.
Zilliz Cloud rapidly developed and tested 50-60 microservices on Google Cloud in just a few months, enabling the quick launch of their enterprise-grade platform. This meets the needs of numerous AI applications and developers in a timely manner, helping these users quickly launch applications and services based on the latest generative AI technologies.
Google Cloud simplifies the operation and maintenance of Zilliz Cloud
After Zilliz Cloud was launched, what impressed the operation and maintenance team the most was the stability of Google Cloud. Google Cloud's reliability enabled Zilliz Cloud to offer users a 99.95% SLA, ensuring stable operation of their AI applications.
Between 2023 and 2024, with the AI boom triggered by breakthroughs in generative AI technology, industries across the board were exploring how to leverage generative AI technology for technical innovation, break through existing business bottlenecks, and provide users with more intelligent services. Along with this upsurge, Zilliz Cloud witnessed a peak in business growth. During the peak period, it needed to add up to hundreds of clusters per day. This would be an impossible endeavor in an offline environment. Zilliz Cloud successfully achieved this business goal on Google Cloud by taking advantage of the elastic resources of the cloud and the high scalability of GKE.
Google Cloud provides a high-performance operating platform for our Zilliz Cloud. Its stability and reliability have helped us provide high-quality vector database services to users. It is a platform that we can rely on and trust.
James Luan
Zilliz Partner, VP of Engineering
Today, thousands of clusters run on Zilliz Cloud, with only three employees managing operations and maintenance. This high productivity is attributed mainly to the stable and reliable Google Cloud, the efficient system architecture of Zilliz Cloud, and the comprehensive operation and maintenance management functions provided by Google Cloud. To ensure the security and reliability of user data, the operation and maintenance team also conducts regular disaster recovery drills, which are very simple and quick on Google Cloud.
Google Cloud provides comprehensive security protection mechanisms
Zilliz Cloud provides data services to users in the cloud, so the security of user data needs to be considered from the beginning. With the help of the comprehensive security protection mechanisms on Google Cloud, Zilliz Cloud has easily achieved this goal.
Zilliz Cloud fully uses the various security mechanisms provided by Google Cloud to enhance data security. For example, Cloud Armor is adopted to achieve network security protection. This solution has successfully passed various security tests, reducing security risks. User data is encrypted by managing keys through Cloud Key Management. The user authentication mechanism on Google Cloud is used to implement role-based access control (RBAC).
Made available on Google Cloud Marketplace
Zilliz Cloud service is now available on Google Cloud Marketplace. Users can subscribe to the Zilliz Cloud service through a simplified purchasing and unified billing process. Google Cloud Marketplace not only reduces the payment complexity for users but also drives traffic to Zilliz Cloud, becoming a new sales channel. Zilliz has found that users who purchase through the Cloud Marketplace are more accustomed to various products and services on Google Cloud, resulting in a higher user retention rate for Zilliz Cloud.
Our goal is to provide high-performance unstructured data services to global users. Currently, we are actively exploring the North American market. Google Cloud is the best partner to help us expand our business overseas.
James Luan
Zilliz Partner, VP of Engineering
Cost-effective data storage and access with Zilliz Cloud
Zilliz's goal is to provide users with high-performance vector database services. Cost is also an important factor for users when choosing vector database services. Relying on Google Cloud, Zilliz Cloud enables users with affordable data storage and access. Zilliz uses the preemptible virtual machines (Spot VM) on Google Cloud to reduce data import costs while providing users with insightful data. Zilliz will continue to deeply cultivate this market and provide high-quality vector database services to more users.
Zilliz is a leading provider of open-source and commercial vector database technologies. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has raised $112M in funding from prominent investors, including Aramco's Prosperity7 Ventures, Temasek's Pavilion Capital, and Hillhouse Capital.
Milvus, Zilliz's open-source project, is the world's most widely adopted vector database, boasting over 33,000 GitHub stars, trusted by 10,000+ enterprises, and exceeding 100 million downloads and deployments. Zilliz also offers Zilliz Cloud, a fully managed, hassle-free, and multi-cloud vector database service powered by Milvus, supporting major cloud platforms including AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, and available across 20+ countries and regions.
Driven by a vision to empower organizations to transform unstructured data into AI-driven insights and innovation, Zilliz enables global enterprises — including Nvidia, PayPal, AT&T, Walmart, Salesforce, Sanofi, and IBM — to develop cutting-edge AI applications. These span diverse use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), LLM training, image retrieval, video intelligence, recommendation systems, targeted advertising, customized search, autonomous driving, fraud detection, cybersecurity, drug discovery, and more.
Industry: Technology
Location: United States
Products: GKE, Cloud Load Balancing, Serverless, Cloud Armor, Cloud Key Management, Google Cloud Marketplace
