INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Google Cloud today announced the launch of a new bare metal service, dubbed the Bare Metal Solution
We aren&t talking about bare metal servers offered directly by Google Cloud here, though
Instead, we&re talking about a solution that enterprises can use to run their specialized workloads on certified hardware that co-located in
the Google Cloud data centers and directly connect them to Google Cloud suite of other services
The main workload that makes sense for this kind of setup is databases, Google notes, and specifically Oracle Database.
Bare Metal Solution
is, as the name implies, a fully integrated and fully managed solution for setting up this kind of infrastructure
It involves a completely managed hardware infrastructure that includes servers and the rest of the data center facilities like power and
cooling; support contracts with Google Cloud and billing are handled through Google systems, as well as an SLA
The software that deployed on those machines is managed by the customer — not Google.
The overall idea, though, is clearly to make it
easier for enterprises with specialized workloads that can&t easily be migrated to the cloud to still benefit from the cloud-based services
that need access to the data from these systems
Machine learning is an obvious example, but Google also notes that this provides these companies with a bridge to slowly modernize their
tech infrastructure in general (where &modernize& tends to mean &move to the cloud&).
&These specialized workloads often require certified
hardware and complicated licensing and support agreements,& Google writes
&This solution provides a path to modernize your application infrastructure landscape, while maintaining your existing investments and
With Bare Metal Solution, you can bring your specialized workloads to Google Cloud, allowing you access and integration with GCP services
with minimal latency.&
Because this service is co-located with Google Cloud, there are no separate ingress and egress charges for data
that moves between Bare Metal Solution and Google Cloud in the same region.
The servers for this solution, which are certified to run a wide
range of applications (including Oracle Database) range from dual-socket 16-core systems with 384 GB of RAM to quad-socket servers with 112
Pricing is on a monthly basis, with a preferred term length of 36 months.
Obviously, this isn&t the kind of solution that you
self-provision, so the only way to get started — and get pricing information — is to talk to Google sales team
But this is clearly the kind of service that we should expect from Google Cloud, which is heavily focused on providing as many
enterprise-ready services as possible.
