What to Watch for at Google Cloud Next 2018

Google Cloud Next kicks off in San Francisco next week, and whether you are interested in learning more about Google Cloud Platform (GCP), machine learning and AI or collaboration, there is something for everyone on the schedule.

ITPro Today will be there. We've identified three areas worth watching next week -- and why.

(In addition, Google announced just three weeks before Google Cloud Next that Google Cloud COO Diane Bryant has left her post after less than a year. While it would be unusual for a role of its scope to be filled in this short of a timeframe, Google may talk about interim plans to address the vacancy.)

Is there anything you are looking forward to at Google Cloud Next? Let us know in the comments.

We'll Be Watching For Customer Cloud Case Studies

When you’re planning your own cloud migration, it is recommended that you watch and learn from organizations that are going through a similar journey. Next week, expect to see prominent Google Cloud Platform (GCP) customers on hand, including Shopify and Twitter, talking about why they chose GCP, the services they use, and how they handled cloud migrations. Shopify will be discussing how it took its on-premises data platform to GCP on Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. You can catch Twitter on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. talking about its shift from on-premises revenue analytics infrastructure to Google Cloud, using technologies like Bigtable, BigQuery and Dataflow.

Showing off customer use-cases is an important aspect of Google’s cloud marketing message as it looks to demonstrate the kinds of enterprise-level, mission-critical workloads it is capable of handling.

We Want to See How Google Handles Security

Security remains one of the top factors when selecting a cloud services provider, and there is no shortage of sessions addressing cloud security challenges at Google Cloud Next. On Tuesday, Google will share how it was able to address Spectre and Meltdown without any customer downtime, how customers can configure their systems to defend against the latest attacks, and how to prevent data exfiltration on GCP. On Wednesday, learn about security in healthcare, how Google protects your data at rest and in transit, and how to secure third-party applications. Be sure to check out the full schedule and filter by theme to see more Google Cloud Next sessions on security.

We'll Look For Machine Learning Use-Cases

Machine learning is a significant area of investment for Google. Between training machine learning algorithms to help doctors predict when patients will die, and working out how it will use AI in an ethical way after pushback to its involvement with a controversial Pentagon drone project, Google has a lot on the go in this area. It will be interesting to see how the company addresses these issues at Google Cloud Next, but expect most of the sessions to focus on the more granular details of machine learning on GCP. For example, on Tuesday you can learn to build a machine learning-enabled search chatbot on GCP and how to build an advanced predictive maintenance solution. On Wednesday, learn how industries including education and health care will be transformed through machine learning innovations.