After establishing a partnership with the tech giant, a quarter of a million US Army soldiers will be using Google Workspace.
Google Cloud made its announcement last week, after the service was granted Impact Level 4 authorization by the Department of Defense in July, which sanctioned its use for handling controlled unclassified information, such as those related to defense and intelligence.
In order to streamline their operations, the partnership comes off the back of the creation of Google Public Sector, a business that is responsible for providing its cloud-based services to local and federal public organizations in the United States.
Google Workspace in the public sector
Due to the challenging realities of military employment, hybrid work and collaboration are commonplace. Google Public Sector claims that their service ease of use is a fundamental reason for its suitability for use in the Army.
Google is also partnering with SADA, a cloud infrastructure company that is specialized in developing organizations with Google Cloud, to assist facilitate the transition for the Army''s personnel.
The rise in cybercrime in a military context has reportedly hampered the US Army in deciding to adopt a similar cloud computing initiative. That trust may come from Google''s zero trust policy, which is now considered to be the gold standard in cloud security.
Regardless of how long they live, anyone who has a computer has to be authenticated before receiving access.
The two-factor authentication (2FA) is used to require the user to have a particular device, most often a smartphone, from which to verify their identity and grant access to the service in question.
The US Army offer is a just one example of Google''s cloud offerings attracting attention from public sectors across the globe.
In 2020, the United Kingdom Government agreed to bring cloud computing to public services such as the National Health Service (NHS). While in 2022, New York announced that it would partner with Google Public Sector in order to add cloud computing to an air quality monitoring program.
In a world that has continued to shift to hybrid work, cloud computing has its benefits. Despite this, whether Google''s zero trust policies can continue to protect ordinary peoples data while relying on the cloud remains to be seen.