Default service accounts in Google Cloud have been an area of interest for threat actors. Cloud administrators can sometimes grant unintentionally broad permissions through this mechanism to their workloads, such as virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters. In this talk, we will discuss the role of default service accounts in Google Cloud Compute Engine (GCE) and Google Cloud Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and best practices for managing and securing them.

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
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Production-ready apps, including GenAI apps, demand robust telemetry. Explore the full lifecycle: from data generation to consumption. See how OpenTelemetry, scaled by BindPlane, delivers enterprise-grade observability within Google Cloud. Learn to centralize data, cut costs, and achieve proven customer success!

Developers love Cloud Run. In this demo-driven talk, you’ll discover why Cloud Run offers simplicity alongside flexibility for running your code. We’ll begin with a couple of basic getting-started concepts. Then we’ll go into “How do I” scenarios that cover every feature from Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) access to startup probes. Too much info? We’ll have codelabs for you to do at your own pace.

Modern analytics and AI workloads demand a unified storage layer for structured and unstructured data. Learn how Cloud Storage simplifies building data lakes based on Apache Iceberg. We’ll discuss storage best practices and new capabilities that enable high performance and cost efficiency. We’ll also guide you through real-world examples, including Iceberg data lakes with BigQuery or third-party solutions, data preparation for AI pipelines with Dataproc and Apache Spark, and how customers have built unified analytics and AI solutions on Cloud Storage.

Spanner Graph provides graph database capabilities at virtually unlimited scale and allows you to seamlessly interoperate between relational and graph data models. Join this session to learn about the latest capabilities in Spanner Graph and how you can build intelligent applications with it.

In this hands-on lab, you'll explore the power of Kubernetes and learn how to orchestrate cloud applications with ease. Using Google Kubernetes Engine, you’ll provision a fully managed Kubernetes cluster and deploy Docker containers using kubectl. Break down a monolithic application into microservices using Kubernetes Deployments and Services, and gain insights into the latest innovations in resource efficiency, developer productivity, and automated operations. By the end, you'll be ready to streamline application management in any environment.

If you register for a Learning Center lab, please ensure that you sign up for a Google Cloud Skills Boost account for both your work domain and personal email address. You will need to authenticate your account as well (be sure to check your spam folder!). This will ensure you can arrive and access your labs quickly onsite. You can follow this link to sign up!

Leverage the best of Ray and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to build your next-generation machine learning (ML) platform. Google and Anyscale are making Ray and Kubernetes the distributing operating system for AI/ML. Discover how on GKE, Ray enables you to deliver a unified platform to scale your workloads from development to large-scale production. Learn about GKE’s latest advancements for fast data access, intelligent scheduling, and optimized utilization of hardware accelerators, and how Ray and Anyscale RayTurbo are enhancing that with best-in-class performance, efficiency, and developer productivity. Leave this session equipped to build a scalable AI/ML platform to empower your researchers and engineers.

Join us to learn how to design and deploy mission-critical applications on Google Cloud, with a focus on reliability. We’ll cover common deployment architectures for traditional enterprise and AI and machine learning apps, Google Cloud product capabilities to improve reliability, and best practices for high availability and disaster recovery. And a Google Cloud customer will share their journey of running mission-critical applications on Google Cloud, including key lessons learned and how those connect back to Google Cloud architectural guidance and best practices.

Platform engineering is revolutionizing software delivery. Discover how leading organizations leverage it to accelerate time to market and reduce operational overhead. This panel of experts will share real-world implementation strategies, lessons learned from common challenges, and insights into the future of this rapidly evolving field. Together, we’ll also explore new research findings on best practices and the key pillars for successful platform engineering adoption. Join the session to gain actionable strategies to enhance the developer experience, foster collaboration, and attract top talent to your team.

Master modern enterprise storage on Google Cloud. Optimize cloud-based file storage for diverse workloads with Filestore and Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, fully managed Network File System [NFS) and Server Message Block (SMB) solutions balancing performance, availability, and cost. Explore new features for modern workloads and discover how NetApp Volumes handles Windows and petabyte-scale enterprise demands. This session is a must for IT leaders seeking to future-proof their storage strategy. Learn from BlackLine’s success.

Discover how Nokia tackled the challenge of industrializing at scale and modernizing its infrastructure services with AI/GenAI. For decision-makers seeking bold AI adoption, this is a firsthand look at reshaping an organization with AI that delivers ROI. Learn how GenAI-infused runbooks enhance and optimize operations, increase business continuity, and unlock new revenue streams. This session outlines the journey, strategic choices, and a path that leads to breakthroughs that turn AI into real business impact.

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
Visit your registration profile at g.co/cloudnext to opt out of sharing your contact information with the sponsor hosting this session.

In this hands-on lab, you'll learn how to create a cross-region HTTP(S) load balancer that intelligently distributes traffic to instances in multiple regions. By setting up four Compute Engine instances across two regions, you'll configure the load balancer to ensure seamless traffic routing to the right instance. This lab will help you optimize application performance, improve availability, and enhance fault tolerance across geographically distributed systems.

If you register for a Learning Center lab, please ensure that you sign up for a Google Cloud Skills Boost account for both your work domain and personal email address. You will need to authenticate your account as well (be sure to check your spam folder!). This will ensure you can arrive and access your labs quickly onsite. You can follow this link to sign up!

Discover how to combine generative AI with knowledge graphs to create AI systems that understand causation and drive actionable insights. Through live demos, DoiT will explore how Spanner Graph enables long-term reasoning capabilities, moving beyond descriptive analytics to prescriptive AI that generates and adapts action plans. Discover patterns and strategies to build AI systems that go beyond “What happened?” to guide organizations toward their goals. Join DoiT for an inspirational talk to create better and more trustworthy AI recommendations.

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
Visit your registration profile at g.co/cloudnext to opt out of sharing your contact information with the sponsor hosting this session.

Successful AI transformation requires more than technology. Discover how 66degrees’ Enterprise AI Blueprint has empowered organizations across industries to achieve measurable business outcomes with AI on Google Cloud. We’ll share effective strategies and methods for building a strong technical foundation, democratizing data and AI access through data supply chains, and deploying AI and agentic AI solutions across your business that drive return on investment (ROI) by focusing on revenue-enhancing customer experiences and operational cost savings.

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
Visit your registration profile at g.co/cloudnext to opt out of sharing your contact information with the sponsor hosting this session.

Discover the latest breakthroughs in Cloud Storage. This executive session provides a high-level overview of the latest object, block, file storage, and backup and recovery solutions. Gain insights into our cutting-edge storage technologies and learn how they can optimize your infrastructure, reduce costs, and enhance your data management strategy. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn directly from Google executives about the future of storage. This session is a must for IT decision-makers seeking a competitive edge.

Explore the journey behind building the McKinsey Value Intelligence Assistant, bringing AI powered curation and insights to key business leaders by integrating dozens of datasets, filings and earnings call transcripts from 50K global companies. Gain insights into overcoming challenges in system architecture, data security, and real-time analytics to create a robust, cloud-native data intelligence platform with a small team in a short period time and the resulting business impact!

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
Visit your registration profile at g.co/cloudnext to opt out of sharing your contact information with the sponsor hosting this session.

Gain unprecedented visibility into AI applications and threats with Palo Alto Networks AI-Runtime, now easily deployed with Google Packet Mirroring/Intercept. This session reveals how this powerful combination analyzes network traffic to discover both legitimate and malicious uses of AI, enabling proactive threat detection and rapid response. Learn how to simplify deployment, improve security posture, and stay ahead of the evolving AI threat landscape.

This Session is hosted by a Google Cloud Next Sponsor.
Visit your registration profile at g.co/cloudnext to opt out of sharing your contact information with the sponsor hosting this session.

Introducing Google’s next-generation global network that powers Google Cloud and our multibillion user apps like Search, YouTube, Google Maps, and more. Learn about the groundbreaking technologies and the design principles of "exponential scalability,” “beyond-NINEs reliability,” “fine-grained programmability”, and “from automation to autonomy” that have guided our next-generation architecture. Discover how you can leverage these innovations to transform your enterprise connectivity and respond to the dramatic demands of AI–powered services.

Scaling Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) effectively can be complex. This session dives into the challenges and solutions for managing GKE at scale, from cost optimization and security to AI workloads. Learn how enterprises like Dun & Bradstreet leverage GKE as a secure and scalable platform for their generative AI initiatives.

This session will examine the evolution of computing infrastructure, from its transformation for internet service delivery to the modern-day revolution driven by genAI. Google Fellow and VP of Engineering Amin Vahdat explores the design principles behind scale-out architectures and the shift towards specialized hardware, high-bandwidth networks, liquid cooling and advanced memory technologies necessitated by genAI. Taken together, these shifts promise to render next-generation unrecognizable relative to today’s conventional wisdom with orders of magnitude improvement in compute capacity, scalability, and power efficiency

In this session learn about performance optimizations for PyTorch on Google Cloud accelerators using OpenXLA. These models are powerful but can be disrupted by resource failures. This talk also explores strategies for achieving greater resiliency when running PyTorch on GPUs, focusing on fault tolerance, checkpointing, and distributed training. Learn how to leverage open source tools to minimize downtime and ensure your deep learning workloads run smoothly.

Leveraging years of experience building internal platforms at Google, this session offers actionable insights for Google Cloud customers on creating effective development ecosystems. Learn how to prioritize safety, efficiency, and reliability through the interplay of platform engineering, feature development, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). Whether you’re a seasoned Google Cloud user or new to platform engineering, this talk can help you optimize software delivery, operations, and achieve your business goals.

Join experts from Dun & Bradstreet, Home Depot, and Snap Inc. for a discussion on the future of observability and platform engineering. This session explores the current state of the industry and dives deep into the top five predictions for the years to come. Gain valuable insights into emerging trends and prepare your organization for the next evolution of observability.

Ready to take your Day 2 operations to the next level? This session is your one-stop shop for mastering Day 2 ops in 2025. We’ll cover everything you need to know, such as leveraging observability and AI agents for DevOps use cases, building application-centric observability, and optimizing for cost and utilization on Google Cloud. This roundup session explores a variety of products and updates in the Day 2 space, giving you the tools and knowledge to supercharge your operational efficiency and drive innovation.

This hands-on lab equips you with the essential skills to manage and automate your infrastructure using Terraform. Learn to define and provision infrastructure resources across various providers using HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL). Explore core concepts like resource dependencies and understand how to safely build, change, and destroy infrastructure using Terraform's declarative approach. This hands-on experience will empower you to streamline deployments, enhance consistency, and improve overall infrastructure management efficiency.

If you register for a Learning Center lab, please ensure that you sign up for a Google Cloud Skills Boost account for both your work domain and personal email address. You will need to authenticate your account as well (be sure to check your spam folder!). This will ensure you can arrive and access your labs quickly onsite. You can follow this link to sign up!