DIU selects Google Cloud for cloud management contract
The Defense Innovation Unit selected Google Cloud to provide secure cloud management services, the company announced Wednesday.
Google Cloud says their offering adheres to zero trust principles and use advanced machine learning-based firewalls to ensure the security of cloud and application access by DIU. The production contract could lead to broader adoption of the tools and services by the Department of Defense. DIU previously ran pilots with Google Cloud, Zscaler and McAfee Public Sector for multi-cloud management services, with Google Cloud coming out on top.
“In today’s new cybersecurity paradigm, it’s critical that government agencies see the benefits of adopting a zero trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud native solutions that meet their unique needs,” Lynn Martin, vice president of North America public sector at Google Cloud, said in a statement.
The secure cloud management service is a container-based offering for application access and monitoring built on Google Cloud’s “Secure Application Access Anywhere” offering and uses its Anthos platform. It’s a new “standards-based solution” that Google Cloud says will serve as a scalable alternative to DOD’s network boundary points. The idea is to enable management of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud applications via Kubernetes, an automated container orchestration tech.
The contract award reinserts Google Cloud into the DOD’s cloud ecosystem after Google had previously stood down from several major defense technology projects in recent years. It had backed out on ethical grounds of the the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract, which has since been cancelled. Google also walked away from a major artificial intelligence contract, Project Maven, after employees protested the project.
