Google Cloud launches super-secure Confidential VMs
Keeping your business data safe in the cloud is set to get even more secure thanks to Google Cloud.
The company has unveiled Confidential VMs, a new Google Cloud platform which it says offers a breakthrough in encryption technology, keeping your business data secure in the cloud.
Confidential VMs is the first launch from Google’s new Confidential Computing portfolio, which the online giant says offers “game-changing technology” in securing data online.
Confidential VMs
Google says it believes the future of cloud computing will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services that, “give users confidence that they are always in control over the confidentiality of their data.”
The launch of Confidential VMs was influenced by the discovery that many firms still choose to keep sensitive data on-premise over concerns surrounding both security and data processing as a whole.
Confidential VMs provides memory encryption to keep workloads isolated, and combines Google’s software with AMD hardware to offer an entirely new VM format. The company says the technology can allow new levels of collaboration between organisations without either side worrying about compromising the confidentiality of data sets, opening up new horizons that could be transformative in fields such as medicine and engineering.
“At Google, we believe the future of cloud computing will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services that give users confidence that they are always in control over the confidentiality of their data,” Google said in a blog post announcing the news.
“Confidential Computing can help you transform the way your organization processes data in the cloud while preserving confidentiality and privacy.”
Confidential VMs will run N2D series VMs powered by 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors. These were chosen to benefit from hardware-based security via Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV), which keeps data encrypted while it is used, and also keeps VM memory encrypted with a dedicated per-VM instance key generated at the hardware level.
Confidential VMs is currently in beta, with Google Cloud hoping to offer a wider release later this year.
Alongside Confidential VMs, Google also unveiled Assured Workloads for Government, which allows organisations to make sure their workloads are configured in a way that meets strict compliance requirements, including those from the FBI and DoD.
