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Google has officially launched its cloud platform region in Melbourne, almost four years after first bringing a physical region to Australia.
The new region joins a host of new regions across the world, including Doha, Qatar; Milan and Turin in Italy; Paris, France; Santiago, Chile; and Madrid, Spain.
“In 2017 we launched our first cloud region in Sydney and, since then, we have continued to invest and expand across Australia in an effort to support the digital future of businesses,” Matt Zwolenski, Google Cloud director of cloud customer engineering for Australia and New Zealand, said in a blog post.
As part of the announcement, Zwolenski claimed that the company had injected $3.2 billion in annual gross benefits to business and consumers in Australia, including $686 million to customers and $698 million to partners.
Google Cloud now plans to invest in local and developer talent to boost Australia's digital transformation.
“Google and Google Cloud will also continue to support our customers with people and education programs,” the company said in a statement. “The global economy shifted in the wake of COVID-19 and developing new digital skills and talent is a key to innovation.
"As cloud adoption grows, traditional IT roles are also shifting to reflect a broader mandate that bridges technology and business strategy.”
Google Cloud also claimed its global ecosystem of partners has expanded by more than five times in the last two years.
The company first announced the upcoming cloud region for Melbourne in March 2020, saying at the time it would target healthcare, financial services and government agencies that are required to keep data onshore.
“The opening of the new Melbourne region strengthens our long-standing investment in Australia," Google Cloud Asia Pacific managing director Rick Harshman said at the time.
"Our services are designed for millions of users and the new region will bring lower latency to businesses and offer the infrastructure to support disaster recovery and regulatory needs."
The launch of the vendor's Melbourne region comes with a new point of presence that will deliver dedicated cloud interconnectivity for New Zealand customers.
Designed for high availability, the Melbourne region opens with three zones which enable Google to deliver two geographically separated cloud regions for Kiwi customers to meet IT and business requirements.
The dedicated cloud Interconnect to Auckland will provide direct physical connections between an organisation’s on-premises network and Google's global network, making it easier for customers to access a range of Google Cloud products and services.
As Google Cloud announces its new Melbourne region, it is also heralding new leadership in the local market, naming former VMware Asia Pacific and Japan networking and security vice president Alister Dias as its new vice president for Australia and New Zealand.
In his new role, Dias has been tasked with driving the company’s go-to-market strategy, deepening key customer and partner relationships and being responsible for operational execution across the A/NZ region.
Dias’ appointment comes roughly a month after former Google Cloud A/NZ and Asia Pacific industry verticals vice president Mark Innes left his role. Innes joined Google Cloud from Salesforce in November 2019.
