Archive article - published on June 15 2021
As organizations work to advance their understanding of their data, they increasingly need intelligent data warehouses to process, manage, and analyze at scale. The correct data strategy can generate unmatched value, drive competitive advantage, and accelerate digital transformation. They also need to be secure and protect data through intelligent user access control, correct categorization of data, highly secure encryption methods and securing all moving data.
The expansive use of cloud computing services has pushed more data into the Cloud. In general, this data is unstructured, making it challenging to secure. Earlier this year, despite the data landscape, Google Cloud was named a leader in the Forrester Wave: Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021 report.
Forrester’s Criteria for Data Warehouse Providers
In reviewing more than a dozen cloud data warehouse (CDW) providers, Forrester considered each across three major categories; current offerings, strategy, and market presence. Each of those buckets was broken down into various point components weighted within their respective categories. For instance, performance, scalability, and administration automation were weighted most heavily in the current offering category. Roadmap and vision held the most weight in the strategy section. While market presence did not factor into Forrester’s final score for the providers, each was evaluated on revenue, customers, market awareness, partnerships, and global presence.
To be included in the study, a provider needed to have a comprehensive cloud data warehouse offering. That meant the offering needed to leverage the public cloud and work as a standalone data warehouse. It also required that included capabilities such as secure data, elastic scale, high availability, and disaster recovery were present in the offering.
Forrester also checked that providers could demonstrate their capabilities in practical settings. Identification of actual use cases in areas like IoT analytics, customer 360, advanced analytics, real-time analytics helped to bear this out. The research and advisory company also checked that each provider had a referenceable install base of at least 25 CDW customers and additional interest from new customers.
Google CDW Stands Out As A Security Leader
Forrester plotted each of the evaluated providers into quartiles based on current offering and strategy. There wasn’t any real surprise within each of the four tiers (challengers, contenders, strong performers, leaders). Along with Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft were present in the “Leaders” category. So too were Teradata, Oracle, and Snowflake.
Where Google excelled and what placed it at the top of the leader category was its consistent top performance among all evaluation criteria. Google scored a 5 out 5 in sixteen out 25 criteria—significantly more top scores than any other provider.
Google’s commitment to security did not go unnoticed in Forrester’s evaluation. The provider’s CDW, which focuses on protecting unstructured data, has been hardened with Google’s own environment. To that end, the report highlights, “Google productizes capabilities originally developed to secure its own business and brings a disciplined approach to product enhancements for enterprise requirements. It serves a wide range of enterprise and mid-market, with a focus on emphasizing data protection needs by industry.”
Notably, the report goes on to single Google out for its Zero Trust approach with third-party integrations among its BeyondCorp Alliance partners. This is just one more way that Google helps organizations confidently move their sensitive data to the Cloud. The company’s ultimate goal is to deliver the industry’s most trusted cloud.
Be A Security Leader In Your Organization
From data to device, keeping your organization secure and compliant is always a priority. How can you ensure your data is the least exposed to the public internet and its inherent risks? As a Google Cloud partner, WALT Labs specializes in helping companies just like yours take advantage of Google Cloud’s built-in security and control. Contact us today to schedule a no-obligation of your cloud and security environment.
Let’s just have a chat and see where this goes.
