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Increasingly, businesses are looking to the cloud to derive more value out of their business data. At Google Cloud, we’re committed to providing customers choice across technology, solutions, and partnerships.Our work with HCL Technologies is an example of this. HCL, which launched its Google Cloud Business Unit in 2019, is helping organizations across industries accelerate their migrations to Google Cloud, and has named Google Cloud its preferred cloud provider for several key verticals. As part of this work, last month HCL announced that its Actian Avalanche hybrid cloud data warehousing service will be available on Google Cloud.Actian Avalanche is a high-performance hybrid cloud data warehouse designed to power an enterprise’s most demanding operational analytics workloads. Together with BigQuery, Google Cloud's enterprise data warehouse, customers now have choice and flexibility to modernize their data warehouses in the cloud for business agility.Actian Avalanche enables a seamless path to migrate legacy data warehouses, including IBM Netezza and Oracle Exadata, to Google Cloud, through a hybrid-cloud offering leveraging Google Cloud’s Anthos application platform. By modernizing enterprise data analytics, customers can improve performance by up to 20 percent on Google Cloud vs other clouds per Actian’s tests, while building a foundation for future innovation and scale in the cloud.Actian Avalanche on Google Cloud utilizes underlying infrastructure technologies like Google Kubernetes Engine, Dataproc, and Cloud Storage. Actian is tightly integrated with Looker for data visualization and is actively engaged with Google Cloud engineering teams for integrations with Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Dataprep, and Kubeflow.Interested in learning more about Actian Avalanche on Google Cloud? We’re offering an interactive webinar: Future of Cloud Data Warehousing. The webinar will feature Manvinder Singh, Director, IaaS/PaaS Partnerships at Google Cloud and Raghu Chakravarthi, Actian’s Chief Product Officer, on October 21 at 11am PT (2pm ET). To join us, sign up here.We’re excited to continue to expand our strategic relationship with HCL, a trusted IT and business transformation partner to businesses around the globe.
Analysis Summary
# Industry News: Google Cloud Accelerates Data Modernization with HCL Partnership and Actian Avalanche Integration
## Summary
Google Cloud is deepening its commitment to enterprise data value by expanding its strategic alliance with HCL Technologies, which has named Google Cloud its preferred provider in key verticals. A major enhancement to this partnership is the availability of Actian Avalanche, a high-performance hybrid cloud data warehouse, on Google Cloud, providing customers with a streamlined migration path from legacy systems like Netezza and Exadata. This move enhances customer choice alongside Google Cloud’s native BigQuery, aiming to significantly boost operational analytics performance and support broader data modernization goals.
## Key Details
- Date: Announced prior to October 14, 2020 (Actian Avalanche availability, HCL partnership ongoing since 2019)
- Companies Involved: Google Cloud, HCL Technologies, Actian
- Category: Partnership Expansion and Product Integration/Launch
## The Story
Google Cloud is aggressively courting enterprises seeking cloud-based data value by solidifying relationships with key system integrators and technology partners. HCL Technologies, having established a dedicated Google Cloud Business Unit in 2019, is now officially prioritizing Google Cloud, accelerating customer cloud migrations. The core announcement is the integration of Actian Avalanche—a hybrid cloud data warehousing solution known for demanding operational analytics—onto the Google Cloud platform. This allows enterprises to leverage Anthos for a hybrid approach, enabling smooth migration from competitors' legacy data warehouses (IBM Netezza, Oracle Exadata) directly onto Google Cloud infrastructure (GKE, Dataproc, Cloud Storage). This creates a viable alternative or complement to Google Cloud’s BigQuery, offering increased flexibility and performance gains advertised up to 20% better than on other clouds for certain workloads.
## Business Impact
### For the Companies Involved
- **Google Cloud:** Deepens its footprint in the lucrative enterprise data warehousing and modernization market by offering specialized high-performance third-party solutions alongside its native BigQuery. Leveraging HCL provides significant channel acceleration and specialized go-to-market reach, particularly in verticals where HCL is preferred.
- **HCL Technologies:** Solidifies its role as a crucial transformation partner by offering customers heterogeneous tools (like Actian Avalanche) that ease the transition to Google Cloud, lowering adoption risk for complex legacy migrations. This strengthens its strategic partnership revenue streams with Google Cloud.
- **Actian:** Gains immediate access to Google Cloud’s infrastructure, ecosystem, and customer base, particularly important for selling its hybrid offerings to large enterprises committed to complex on-premises environments still needing cloud connectivity.
### For Competitors
- **AWS/Azure:** Faces increased competitive pressure on hybrid data modernization, especially for customers locked into specific legacy systems (Netezza/Exadata). Google Cloud’s ecosystem is becoming more comprehensive in servicing complex, multi-stage migration scenarios, challenging the "move-it-all-at-once" narrative often pushed by hyperscalers.
### For Customers
- **Enhanced Choice and Reduced Migration Risk:** Customers gain superior options for modernizing existing data warehouses without being forced solely onto BigQuery, easing the pain points associated with legacy system retirement. The hybrid capability via Anthos allows for phased transitions.
- **Performance Optimization:** The claim of up to 20% better performance versus other clouds for complex workloads provides a quantifiable ROI metric for those considering shifting their analytical foundation.
### For the Market
- **Validation of Hybrid Cloud Strategies:** The integration underscores that for large-scale data transformation, hybrid/multi-cloud flexibility, enabled by platforms like Anthos, remains a critical requirement, directly countering pure-play cloud migration arguments.
- **Ecosystem Maturity:** It signals the continued maturity of the Google Cloud partner ecosystem in offering specialized, best-of-breed solutions tailored for specific, high-value enterprise pain points (like legacy data warehouse modernization).
## Technical Implications
Actian Avalanche on Google Cloud leverages several core Google Cloud components: **Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)** for container orchestration, **Dataproc** for managed Spark/Hadoop workloads, and **Cloud Storage**. Crucially, the hybrid/migration capability is underpinned by **Google Anthos**. Furthermore, tight integration with **Looker** (Google Cloud's visualization tool) and planned integrations with Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Dataprep, and Kubeflow ensure that the Actian layer fits seamlessly into the broader Google Cloud data pipeline architecture.
## Strategic Analysis
- **Market Positioning:** Google Cloud positions itself as the cloud provider that offers the *most flexibility* when modernization is complex, balancing its powerful native offering (BigQuery) with specialized third-party performance leaders (Actian Avalanche). HCL elevates Google Cloud's standing as a preferred transformation platform rather than just infrastructure.
- **Competitive Advantage:** The ability to specifically market an easy migration path from IBM Netezza and Oracle Exadata via Anthos is a potent differentiator for attracting risk-averse large enterprises.
- **Challenges:** The performance differential (20% improvement) hinges on Actian's specific benchmarking, which will require rigorous validation by enterprises undergoing real-world migration. Managing the complexity of a hybrid relationship involving three major vendors (Google, HCL, Actian) requires robust governance.
## Industry Reactions
**(Note: Specific analyst commentary is not present in the article, but implications can be inferred.)**
- **Analyst Opinions:** Analysts likely view this as a positive signal for Google Cloud’s enterprise strategy, emphasizing that securing major SI commitments like HCL’s is as important as raw infrastructure capacity. Cloud platform maturity is increasingly judged by the breadth and depth of its enterprise application support.
- **Market Response:** The announcement supports the narrative of increased choice and capability within the cloud data warehousing sector, intensifying competition among the major providers to secure key ISV partnerships that address niche but high-value migration challenges.
## Future Outlook
- **Predictions and Expectations:** Expect Google Cloud to highlight further deep integrations with HCL’s consulting services and showcase successful migration case studies. The success of Avalanche adoption will determine if other specialized data platform vendors follow suit with similar GKE/Anthos-based hybrid offerings.
- **What to watch for:** Monitor subsequent announcements regarding integration depth with tools like Dataflow and Pub/Sub, which will dictate how truly "native" the Avalanche experience feels within the Google Cloud ecosystem.
## For Security Professionals
This development emphasizes the importance of securing hybrid data environments. Security teams must now ensure that data governance, access controls, and compliance policies are uniformly applied across the on-premises components, the Actian Avalanche layer, and the underlying Google Cloud infrastructure (GKE, Anthos). Integration points with data ingestion services (Pub/Sub, Dataflow) introduce new API security surface areas that require careful configuration under a unified cloud security posture.