Windows Server on Google Compute Engine Now Generally Available

Google has announced that their Windows Server on Google Compute Engine is now general available, adding to their growing list of operating systems they support and making it an ideal platform to run production Windows Server workloads. Google has also announced several enhancements for Windows Server users to complement updates made back in January of this year and their collaboration with Avere, the latter which enables its customers to easily move their compute intensive workloads and storage to Google Cloud Platform. 

Google has announced that their Windows Server on Google Compute Engine is now general available, adding to their growing list of operating systems they support and making it an ideal platform to run production Windows Server workloads. Google has also announced several enhancements for Windows Server users to complement updates made back in January of this year and their collaboration with Avere, the latter which enables its customers to easily move their compute intensive workloads and storage to Google Cloud Platform. 

Compute Engine offers Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 users the benefits of rapid deployments, increased uptime due to transparent maintenance, inexpensive and predictable block storage, and the Google Cloud Storage Nearline backup pedigree. Additionally, Sharepoint, SQL and Exchange Server, and other Microsoft applications are available to Compute Engine customers through the Microsoft License Mobility program.

Google has made several Windows-specific improvements to the Compute Engine virtualization stack since their Windows Server on Compute Engine beta announcement, offering the full benefits of Google network to Windows Server users. With its multi queue (MQ) and generic receive offload (GRO) support, Windows Servers running on Compute Engine now can reach upwards of 7.5Gbps of throughput. As a result, this decreases the number of Windows Server instances needed to serve web based application. Google also indicates that it aids their customers to more effectively contain their infrastructure and operational costs.

With its general availability, Windows Server instances are now covered by the Compute Engine SLA and Windows Server, which allows its users to easily deploy a server running Active Directory or ASP.NET using the Cloud Launcher. Users can also securely extend their existing infrastructure into Google Cloud Platform using VPN. Additionally, customers who purchase Google Cloud Platform support packages can get architectural and operational support for their Windows Server deployments on Compute Engine.

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