Google has made a new Distributed Cloud configuration intended for tactical edge environments generally available.
Customers in challenging locations, like disaster areas and remote research stations, can stay connected to Google Cloud apps and AI solutions while lowering the risk of an outage thanks to the new Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance.
The Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance provides complete isolation, functioning without connectivity to Google Cloud or the public internet, in order to preserve connectivity.
Google Distributed Cloud Expansion
The Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance satisfies strict regulatory and compliance requirements, because it is built to function independently of the public internet.
A variety of security features, such as firewalls, data isolation, encryption, and secure boot, are also anticipated by users to protect their data.
In addition to highlighting the appliance’s Department of Defence Impact Level 5 accreditation, Google also states in its announcement that it is built to meet Impact Level 6 and higher accreditations. It is relatively portable, weighing about 100 lbs (45 kg), and can be carried in a sturdy case or installed in a rack.
The appliance can be used for a number of purposes, such as disaster relief, logistics and transportation, industrial automation, and limited workloads for the federal and military. Data transfer and analytics from Google Cloud are combined with computing, networking, and storage capabilities of infrastructure-as-a-service.
“By delivering a secure and compliant edge compute platform, the RSO can leverage already developed Google-based technologies in both connected cloud and disconnected edge to bring digital innovation to the Service Members wherever they operate,” Michael Roquemore, Director of the the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office’s Rapid, Agile, Integrated Capabilities Team, and an early air-gapped appliance customer, commented, as reported by the TechRadar.
The Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance is currently available for general purchase; a dedicated webpage has the product specifications.
Google Going Big On AI Front
Google is expanding an effort to allow its cloud customers to ground their enterprise AI chatbots in real-world facts, including a new partnership with Moody’s to use its financial data. In April 2024, Google announced an effort to ground Vertex AI results in web search as well as a plan to allow companies to ground AI systems in their own internal data.
Now, the tech giant is offering an additional option: using third-party data to help ground AI results. Initial partners in this effort include Moody’s, media outlet Thomson Reuters and data company ZoomInfo. The moves come as major generative AI providers seek to prove that their systems are safe and reliable enough for business use.
“Google is also offering more ways to make its systems more reliable and predictable. One is a new “confidence score,” in which the AI model offers a numeric indicator of how sure it is of the answer,” reported Axios in June 2024, while adding, “Another new feature allows customers to tell the model to focus on finding answers in the documents or other information included in a prompt, rather than from its broad training data.”
“You can actually trust the model to do a task on your behalf because you have a basis for trusting it. We’ve taught the model how to guarantee that when it responds, it takes what’s in the input prompt as the primary information it needs to pay attention to. It avoids being distracted by all other training data,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian told the media outlet.