1. Site Reliability Engineering: Creating reliable services is something Google strives for not only internally. The company also lets customers benefit from its very own approach called Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). One key topic in SRE is Observability, which may be hard to achieve, in particular for complex, distributed applications. Cloud Operations Sandbox, “an open-source tool that helps you learn SRE practices from Google and apply them on cloud services using Google Cloud’s operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)”, gets you started. 

 

 

2. GKE Autopilot: This new mode of operation for GKE simplifies the operation of your K8s-Clusters even further. Read how GKE Autopilot “automatically applies industry best practices and can eliminate all node management operations, maximizing your cluster efficiency and helping to provide a stronger security posture.”

 

 

3. Security: Google is very serious about security. That’s why the article series called “CISO Insights” provides great information on security in general. Here’s the first post. I have been sharing this every month, as it’s one of the best information sources on security topics I know.

 

 

4. Machine Learning / AI: Aiming to streamline ML operations, Google announced a new, fully managed Machine Learning Platform called VertexAI at Google I/O. Check out this article and highlighted links for details.

 

 

5. Kubernetes: Great insights for everyone interested in Kubernetes and how to build a platform with the Kubernetes Resource Model. There are already four parts in the series, every part is worth reading: : Part 1 ( What’s in a platform),  Part 2 (How KRM works), Part 3 (Simplifying Kubernetes app development) and Part 4 (Administering a multi-cluster environment). Part 5 wasn’t available, when I first mentioned it –  so here it is: Part 5 (Manage hosted resources from Kubernetes).

 

 

6. DR with Actifio GO: After acquiring Actifio in December 2020, the solution is now finally available via Google Cloud Marketplace for an easy deployment and with a consumption-based pricing model. Find out more here.

 

 

7. Automatic Data Loss Prevention: In case you use BigQuery and host personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive data, this one’s for you: Automatic Data Loss Prevention in BiqQuery, now  available in Preview.

 

 

8. CloudRun: The fully managed serverless platform for containerized applications now supports traditional workloads such as applications written in Java Spring Boot, ASP.NET, and Django without building a container first. A new second-generation execution environment provides enhanced network and CPU performance, while discounts and CPU allocation controls enable you to save up to 25% on your compute bill. The Cloud Run/Binary Authorization integration, now GA, helps enforce policy-based deployment of CloudRun services. Knative, the open source project behind CloudRun hits the 1.0 release. That’s an important milestone for the project that can count on the support from more than 600 active developers.

 

 

9. Predictive Analytics: Are you interested in building a prediction market like an innovation champion? In this article you will learn how to leverage Google Cloud solutions to predict future outcomes more accurately, plan for unknown events, and discover product and customer opportunities.

 

 

10. Risk and Compliance as Code: If you take security seriously, this is a must-read for you. Check out the Risk and Compliance as Code solution from Google’s Cybersecurity Action Team http://gcat.google.com/.

 

 

 

 

1. BigQuery: Google Cloud just recently announced “a public preview for the BigQuery native JSON data type, a capability which brings support for storing and analyzing semi-structured data in BigQuery. “

 

 

2. Cloud Security 1: Here is  another proof that Google Cloud is very serious about security: “Google Acquires Siemplify, a leading security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) provider.” 

 

 

3. Cloud Security 2: The monthly must-read when it comes to cloud- and cyber security – “Cloud CISO Perspectives: December 2021” by Phil Venables, CISO of Google Cloud.

 

 

4. Cloud Security 3: As there is so much great content on this topic, here’s another must-read from Phil Venables: “Megatrends drive cloud adoption—and improve security for all”.

 

 

5. Graph-based ML: “Many critical business problems use data that can be expressed as graphs. Graphs are data structures that describe the relationships between data points as much as the data themselves.” Read this article to learn more about how to use the popular GraphDB Neo4j with Google Cloud’s AI / ML platform Vertex AI including example code.

 

 

 

 

Jörn