Google has partnered with retail large Schwarz Group to ship what the pair declare is actually safe and sovereign cloud-based collaboration for German and European regulated industries.
Through the partnership, Schwarz Group’s StackIT, the cloud supplier for the retailer, which operates as an impartial firm providing sovereign cloud capabilities, will present client-side encryption of shoppers’ Google Workspace knowledge.
StackIT mentioned clients’ knowledge will stay resident inside the European Union (EU), with full redundancy provided by backups hosted solely in its European datacentres to satisfy buyer calls for round knowledge safety, knowledge residency and knowledge resiliency.
“Germany and the EU have till now lacked enterprise-grade cloud collaboration options that totally tackle the sovereignty necessities of regulated industries, together with making certain all knowledge is secured and backed up on native soil with completely no alternative for entry by overseas nations or platform suppliers,” mentioned Rolf Schumann, co-CEO of Schwarz Digits, the IT and digital division of the Schwarz Group.
“Our partnership and new providing with Google Cloud will fill this hole with a wholly new enterprise mannequin.”
Client-side encryption means Google has no entry to clients’ knowledge. According to Schwarz and Google, this safeguards the sovereignty of not solely Schwarz Group, but additionally all clients who worth the independence of their operations, giving them full confidence that their knowledge is at all times of their management.
“This new partnership will allow the businesses of Schwarz Group to mix its management in digital transformation with Google Cloud’s strengths in productiveness, collaboration and safety, enabled by our cutting-edge AI,” mentioned Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “Together, we’re opening up a world of recent, sovereign alternatives for European organisations to innovate and construct on our joint options, accelerating a brand new period of innovation.”
Through the partnership, Google Cloud’s security can be built-in with these of XM Cyber, Schwarz Digits’ hybrid cloud safety firm. This built-in providing will then be distributed to clients through the Google Cloud Marketplace.
According to Google and Schwarz, this built-in safety will assist German and European organisations, significantly these in extremely regulated industries, increase the bar on their enterprise and multi-cloud safety. In addition, XM Cyber’s Continuous Exposure Management can be embedded into the sovereign Google Workspace workplace productiveness suite provided to European enterprises.
“This partnership adjustments the sport for regulated business gamers in Europe by eradicating the sovereignty and safety considerations that usually maintain again extra formidable adoption of the cloud for productiveness and collaboration,” mentioned Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Our alliance with firms of Schwarz Group will allow complete industries in Europe to ship digital innovation with safety and compliance at its core.”
Schwarz Group is Europe’s largest retailer, and the fourth-largest on the planet. The firm plans to transition its international workplace workforce to Google Workspace. The partnership with Google, in accordance with Schwarz Group, permits essential office knowledge to be protected towards third-party entry together with overseas authorities establishments, and likewise transferred to alternate service suppliers if wanted.
“Switching to Google Workspace is a vital step for us out of legacy and into progressive, environment friendly and future-proof cloud-based collaboration,” mentioned Christian Müller, Co-CEO of Schwarz Digits. “Google Workspace is essentially the most safe and dependable productiveness platform within the business as we speak, and we anticipate our organisation-wide migration to have vital flow-on advantages to all areas of operations from simplifying IT administration to rendering our point-of-sale workflows considerably extra environment friendly.”
