How Google Cloud makes diving into the data lake simpler for the enterprise

When COVID-19 struck, companies were forced to take a step back and rethink the way they did business. That, in turn, led to innovation in the digitization of and access to data as companies adapted to the new normal.

A part of this process was learning how to better and more quickly access the vast amount of data that companies have at their disposal. Google LLC has been helping to lead the way in data management by offering simple solutions to data access in the wake of the pandemic, according to Bruno Aziza (pictured), head of data analytics at Google Cloud.

“Only 32% of companies are actually able to say that they get tangible, valuable insights out of their data,” he said. “So after all these years, we still have a lot of opportunity ahead of us, of course, with the democratization of access to data, but also the advent in machine learning and AI so that people can make better decisions faster than their competitors.”

Aziza spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation. They discussed Google’s efforts to give companies quicker, safer and easier access to the data they have on hand, as well as from other sources.

Building easier access to data in the cloud

Over the past 30 years or so, companies like Google have been looking for ways to give organizations better and faster access to the information they need to do business. The pandemic accelerated this process because companies couldn’t perform business as usual due to the new work-from-home “new normal.”

“I think now technology has evolved to a point where it’s a lot easier to provision a data cloud environment so you can get more data out to your constituents,” Aziza said. “So I think the connection of these three things, expectation of employees, expectation of customers to better customer experiences, and, of course, the global environment, has accelerated quite a bit.”

In the past, data was centralized, but more recently there have been calls for a more mixed data solution that gathers data from a variety of sources through the cloud. This multicloud approach includes a company’s on-premises information and data from other clouds.

Modern architecture calls for an open cloud approach, but managing this data and its governance is also critical as cybersecurity challenges abound, according to Aziza. Even more so, controlling data has become more complex as companies contend with different speeds and types of information.

“You want to be able to empower people to get access to the information without necessarily having to move this data so they can make quick decisions on the data,” Aziza said.

This is where the idea of a data fabric concept comes into play. The goal of a data fabric architecture is to make the integration of data across the cloud and on-premises easier by delivering consistent hybrid cloud data services while still allowing for data access, control and protection, Aziza explained.

This becomes even more important when it comes to data sharing, as it has become necessary for companies to be able to share information with other companies to help drive innovation. At the same time, data governance and security does remain important to chief data officers. While this is challenging, it also provides some great opportunities.

“Our mission [at Google] is to make data simple, and we use intelligence to take the sophistication and provide to you an answer that’s highly actionable, highly relevant, highly personalized for you so you can go on and do your job because, ultimately, the majority of people are not in the data business,” Aziza said. “So they need to get the information … as a business user that’s relevant, actionable, timely so they can go off and create value for their organization.”

Here’s the complete video interview, one of many CUBE Conversations from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE:

Photo: SiliconANGLE