Google Cloud CEO hails partners' efforts at Next event in London

Platform security took centre stage at the vendor's Next event in London

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has hailed the efforts of partners in building out the vendor's presence in the enterprise space.

Speaking at the Google Cloud Next event in London, the chief exec (pictured), who joined from Oracle last year, claimed the work partners are doing with the Google Cloud Platform is creating a unique offering in the market.

"We deliver these solutions, not just ourselves, but in concert with partners," he said.

"Google recognises that platforms that succeed are not just platforms, which are differentiated by the cloud providers own solutions, but the solutions that partners build on that platform, and we are extraordinarily grateful for these partners."

Security was a key focus of the event, with both Kurian and Google Cloud security boss Suzanne Frey touting the vendor's credential.

Google Cloud's new security offerings give customers "robust handling" of their own data, Frey said.

Frey announced a number of new capabilities which she said will allow enterprise customers to control how their data and privacy is handled.

"Our fundamental mission is to be the most trusted cloud," she told the audience.

Now central to this mission is offering world-class technology to ensure your security and preserve your privacy.

"However, building real trust also requires that we provide full transparency into how we handle your information and that we give you robust controls on data handling in the cloud."

Among the new security tools announced by Frey was External Key Manager, which allows users to integrate their own third-party encryption key with the Google Cloud Key Management Service, meaning encryption keys can now be held externally from Google's infrastructure on-premise. It is soon to be launched in beta.

Key Access Justification will work in conjunction with External Key Manager and the vendor claimed it adds another layer of "transparency" to its cloud.

It provides a detailed justification each time a user's key is requested to decrypt data and enables the customer to approve or deny the request according to the policy they set.

"Using these two products together, you can deny us access for any reason and, as a result, you are the ultimate arbiter of access to your information. This is a level of control not available through any other cloud provider," proclaimed Frey.

Google's flagship collaboration toolset G Suite also came in for some updated security, as the vendor's Advanced Protection Programme aimed at users at-risk of targeted attacks, such as IT administrators and executives, is now available on the platform.

The exec finished by highlighting that the cloud provider has more than doubled its partner ecosystem and developed collaborative relationships with security providers.

"We can't and we aren't going to go this alone," stated Frey.

"We know that many of you have invested significantly and dedicated tools and strategic relationships with security vendors. We want to meet you where you are allowing you to preserve your investments as well as benefit from the functionality you can't get on the other clouds.

"That's why we more than doubled our ecosystem and security partners in the last year, and we continue to invest in deep engineering collaboration with security leaders to meet the needs of our joint customers.

"Our efforts to earn interest are reflected in our behaviour, our operations, and our systems every single day.

"We work tirelessly to augment the security capabilities in our cloud, on our cloud and beyond our cloud to protect your data and applications wherever they are."

Kurian added a commitment to European customer that all data - primary, secondary and backup - will be stored in one of the vendor's European zones, of which there are currently six, with another five being added.

"We're giving European customers a cloud that helps you control where your data sits, who accesses it and who operates it, and it's designed to meet the strictest regulatory requirements here in Europe," he declared during the same keynote speech."