Google wants you to run your Windows server apps on its cloud

Google has made a series of announcements aimed at helping Microsoft customers run Windows workloads on Google’s cloud. Microsoft License Mobility is now available for Google Cloud Platform, Google said Monday in a blog post. This allows customers using SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange on-site to migrate those applications to Google’s cloud without paying Microsoft additional licensing fees. This feature also applies to customers who hold a perpetual license, Google said. Using Microsoft products on Google’s cloud is subject to additional conditions, so users should review Google Cloud Compute’s service terms, the company said.

Despite what you may hear from the Linux-and-Mac crowds, a good chunk of today’s enterprise workloads run on Windows Server, which is why Google really wants them to also run on the Google Cloud Platform. And now they can. Because Google is now party to the Microsoft License Mobility program, existing SQL Server databases, SharePoint document repositories and Exchange Server mail can run on the Google Cloud Platform without having to cough up additional licensing fees to do so. At least that’s the case if they now run on Windows Server 2008 R2, support for which Google announced in March. But Google is also working on analogous support for the newer Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 releases, about which it will talk “soon,” according to this Google Cloud Platform blog post. As for why a Windows shop would opt for Google’s cloud as opposed to, say, Microsoft Azure, Google director of product management Greg DeMichillie didn’t hesitate to play the anti-lock-in card. “Almost every enterprise intentionally wants to be multi-cloud,” DeMichillie noted. “Let’s face it, some of them got locked into on-prem licenses fees from vendors that were much bigger than they expected. Most companies will qualify two or three different cloud vendors.”