Google LLC today detailed that GDC Hosted, its private cloud platform, is now authorized to run a broader range of sensitive public sector workloads.  

GDC Hosted launched into general availability last March. It enables organizations to deploy a miniature version of Google Cloud in their private data centers. According to the company, a GDC Hosted environment can operate without a connection to the Google Cloud data center network or the public web.

“GDC Hosted is an air-gapped cloud solution built specifically for stringent security requirements, allowing U.S. intelligence and DOD agencies to host, control and manage their infrastructure and services in a highly secure environment, while leveraging the power of advanced cloud capabilities,” Leigh Palmer, vice president of Google Public Sector, wrote in a blog post. 

The search giant says that GDC Hosted is now authorized to host Secret and Top Secret workloads for the U.S. intelligence community. Additionally, the platform has been certified to power Top Secret workloads for the U.S. Defense Department. According to Google, that means CGD Hosted can now host data such as government personnel records, translated text, maps and information about pending cyber threats.

The platform secures customer data using technology from the CNSA 2.0 software suite. This is a collection of publicly available encryption algorithms that the NSA has found to be suitable for protecting sensitive government data. The algorithms can block not only standard cyberattacks, but also decryption attempts launched by a theoretical large-scale computer quantum that might be built in the future.

By itself, a reliable cryptography algorithm is not enough to fend off hackers. The software must be applied in a way that minimizes the risk of malfunctions and tempering.

Companies often accomplish that goal with the help of cryptography modules, hardware devices optimized for performing encryption tasks. Those devices take a variety of forms ranging from dedicated appliances to a set of circuits within a server’s processor. Google says that GDC Hosted is complaint with FIPS 140-2/3, a set of cybersecurity requirements for cybersecurity modules used in the public sector.

Beyond its breach prevention features, the platform offers access to many of the services available in Google Cloud. It provides block and object storage, as well as a choice of deploying workloads in virtual machines or containers. Customers that opt for the latter route can use Google Kubernetes Engine to manage their container clusters.

GDC Hosted also provides application building blocks for software development teams. There’s a version of Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s suite of artificial intelligence services, complete with pretrained neural networks and a tool for deploying custom models. Customer-developed applications can keep their information in PostgreSQL and Oracle databases.

Image: Google