Google to support cloud implementation in Indonesia

• Currently working with partners on sub-marine fibre cable system, Indigo
• Continues to invest in local infrastructure, talents, and cloud ecosystem

AFTER holding Google’s Cloud Summit in Sydney, followed by Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and two cities in India – Bangalore and Mumbai in September, Google hosted its final cloud summit of the year in Jakarta, Indonesia recently.

Google’s Cloud Summit is the first of its kind organised by the Mountain View, California-based search giant, focusing on four countries in Asia.

The first Google’s Cloud Summit in Indonesia brought together more than 1,800 executives, customers, partners, developers, IT decision makers, and Google engineers.

“We are bringing the power of Google Cloud to Indonesian businesses of all sizes and helping them provide specialised solutions through different platforms and devices,” said Google Cloud Asia Pacific managing director Rick Harshman.

Harshman says that Google has built a data centre in Singapore to enable its GCP for Indonesian customers who were previously only connected to its data centre in Taiwan.

He says Google did not build a data centre in Indonesia as he sees customers starting out with a hybrid cloud solution.

“Our customers are able to use a multi-cloud hybrid solution which allows them to use either our local infrastructure here or in Singapore. However, we are not done, we will continue to evaluate from customer feedback.”

To enable better internet connectivity across the region, Google, alongside AARNet, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners and TelkomTelstra, is building a new international subsea cable system in SEA, called the Indigo Project.

The 9,000-kilometre new cable system will serve Google traffic between Australia and Asia, connecting Perth, Sydney and Singapore, with a branch to Jakarta.

Alcatel Submarine Networks will construct the cable, which is expected to be completed by mid 2019.

Harshman did not specify the exact investment Google has put into this project, but he says that Google spent approximately US$30 billion (RM121.7 billion) in capital expenditure on the infrastructure.

Other than the Indigo Project, Harshman says that Google will invest in local infrastructure, talent, and on the cloud ecosystem.

“Our Indigo Project is part of infrastructure investment. Meanwhile, for talent, we are planning to add local sales and technician talent so they will bring us closer to customers.

“As for the ecosystem itself, we need to work with more local companies and focus on how to enable their digital transformation through Google Cloud.”

Local cloud adoption

He sees Indonesia as the fastest-growing market in Southeast Asia in terms of cloud adoption.

When asked about key metrics to show a company’s success in cloud adoption, Harshman tells Digital News Asia (DNA) that achieving greater scale, higher revenue, and cost efficiency are the answers.

“I talked to a few ‘leaders’ at this event and I asked them about this. To me, before adopting cloud, you need to figure out what business outcome you want and your company also needs to be clean internally.”

As an example, if cloud can help to simplify processes in the supply chain business, then it will help to create better business outcomes.

Through this event, local companies such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM), Tokopedia, and regional company, Carousell shared how the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) had helped them on their cloud journey.

Creative Media Networks chief executive officer Matthew Talbot says, “During our proof of concept (POC), we found that GCP outperformed most vendors on ke metrics such as disk I/O and network performance on like-for-like bench mark.”

“We are excited to be able to deploy into the GCP Singapore region as it will allow us to offer our services closer to BBM’s key markets.

Indonesian e-commerce player Tokopedia who uses Google’s cloud computing Gsuite, to help talent on-boarding process.

“With more than 100 new hires every month, all on-boarding processes are done quickly and easily to ensure that the employee has best experience with Gsuite,” said Tokopedia chief operating officer Leontinus Alpha Edison.

Carousell engineering vice president Jordan Dea-Mattson concludes, “GCP is enabling us to meet the requirements of millions of users who have posted more than 65 million listings since we were established.

“These listings include about 500 million images, while we have supported more than one billion chats and 20 billion individual chat messages.”

Related stories:

Google bolsters its cloud commitment to Southeast Asia

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Analysis: Google drives the case for cloud adoption

Google’s enterprise cloud play seems rather … cloudy

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