Google Cloud named leader in Forrester Research IaaS Platform Native Security Wave

Forrester Research has again named Google Cloud as one of just two leaders in The Forrester Wave Infrastructure-as-a-Service Platform Native Security (IPNS), Q4 2020 report and rated Google Cloud highest among providers evaluated in the current offering category.

The report evaluates the native security capabilities and features of cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform providers such as storage and data security, identity and access management, network security and hardware and hypervisor security. 

The report states that Google has been steadily investing in its offering and has added many new security features, including Anthos (a service to manage non-Google public and private clouds) and Security Command Center Premium and notes that the Google Cloud features of data leak prevention (DLP) capabilities, integration support for external hardware security modules (HSMs), and third-party threat intelligence source integration are also nice.

The report also emphasizes the increasing importance of extending consistent security capabilities across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments, stating vendors that can provide comprehensive IPNS, not only for their own platforms but also for competing public and private cloud and on-premises workloads and platforms, position themselves to successfully evolve into their customers’ security central nervous systems and notes in Google’s vendor profile that Anthos is ahead of the competition when it comes to managing non-Google, third-party clouds.

In this Wave, Forrester evaluated seven cloud platforms against 29 criteria, looking at current offerings, strategy and market presence. Of the seven vendors, Google Cloud scored highest overall in the current offering category and received the highest score possible in its plans for security posture management, hypervisor security, guest OS and container protection and network security criteria.

Further, Google Cloud’s had the highest possible score in the execution roadmap criterion. Google Cloud continues to redefine what’s possible in the cloud with unique security capabilities like External Key Manager, Key Access Justifications, Assured Workloads, Confidential VMs, Binary Authorization, IAM Recommender and enabling a zero-trust architecture for customers with BeyondCorp. 

Google Cloud also received the highest possible score for the partner ecosystem strategy criterion. 

Download the full The Forrester Wave IaaS Platform Native Security (IPNS), Q4 2020 report here.