Google Cloud has been contracted by the Defence Innovation Unit (DIU), a part of the Department of Defence (DoD), for its secure cloud management (SCM) solution.

The DIU plans to implement Google’s cloud management across all systems, with Google anticipating the opportunities to be adopted amongst defence agencies worldwide.

SCM is a container-based solution developed in partnership with Palo Alto Networks for secure application access and monitoring built on Google Cloud’s ‘access anywhere’ offering.

It uses zero trust principles and sticks to the idea that implicit trust at any point in the system can create risks to maintain the highest security standards.

Lynn Martin, Google Cloud’s VP for the North America public sector, said: “In today’s new cybersecurity paradigm, it’s critical that government agencies see the benefits of adopting a zero trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud native solutions that meet their unique needs.”

The awarding of the contract follows a year-long prototype with Google that aimed to provide DIU with fast and secure access to software as a service (SaaS) applications.