Google opens third availability zone in Singapore

Google has opened a third availability zone in Singapore in recent moves to expand its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) footprint in the Asia-Pacific region.

The search behemoth said the expansion of GCP in Southeast Asia will make it easier for local and regional customers to build highly available services that meet the needs of their business. To allay security concerns, Google has also secured Singapore’s Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) certification for GCP.

“We build every region with the intention of providing at least three zones because we understand the importance of high availability. Customers can distribute their apps and storage across multiple zones to protect against service disruptions,” Google said in a blog post.

Google made its belated foray into Southeast Asia in June 2017 with a core set of GCP services including analytics and machine learning that it claimed would win over enterprise customers and startups alike. These include Malaysia-based low-cost carrier AirAsia and Indonesia’s Creative Media Works, the company that runs the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service.

Mohan Krishnan, chief technology officer of Creative Media Works, said: “A year ago, we selected Google Cloud as our provider for BBM. A year later, we’ve migrated BBM to Google's cloud platform and will leverage the third zone in Singapore to bring Google’s innovation closer to our user base in Indonesia.”

Google’s new Singapore availability zone is its 46th globally, and follows recent efforts by rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft to extend their lead in the region, with an eye on the Australian public sector.

Later this year, Microsoft is expected to open two new Azure regions in Australia that will handle government data, while AWS has recently completed a cloud service certification programme by the Australian government.

Not to be outdone in the rush to clinch Australian public sector deals, Google said it has completed the same certification programme by an accredited auditor and its submission is under review by the Australian Signals Directorate.

Google said the assessment covers the operations and security of GCP services, including those offered from the Sydney region.

Although GCP has not yet received formal certification, Google said the official assessor’s report and corresponding letter may be used to assess the security of GCP for government use in Australia.

According to IDC, spending on public cloud services and infrastructure in Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, is slated to reach $15.1bn in 2018, an increase of 35.7% from 2017.

Liew Siew Choon, senior market analyst at IDC Asia-Pacific, said although digital transformation is driving demand for cloud services, the rapid expansion of datacentres by global suppliers in the region has spurred “enterprises to migrate more workloads to the public cloud as that addresses concerns over data sovereignty and latency”.