This article is based on reporting originally published by Forbes, covering announcements made at Google Cloud Next London (2019).
Google Anthos Migrate Reaches General Availability
At the Cloud Next event held in London in late 2019, Google announced that Anthos Migrate — its tool for converting VM-based workloads into containers — was moving out of beta and becoming generally available. The announcement was part of a broader set of product updates that also included the general availability of Cloud Code and Apigee Hybrid.
For DevOps and platform engineering teams managing legacy infrastructure, this is a significant milestone. Anthos Migrate lowers the barrier to Kubernetes adoption by allowing teams to lift existing VMs into containers without requiring a full application rewrite.
What Is Anthos and Why Does It Matter?
Anthos is Google Cloud’s application modernization platform. It is built around Kubernetes and enables organizations to:
- Build new cloud-native applications
- Modernize existing VM-based workloads by converting them to containers
- Manage and deploy workloads consistently across on-premises data centers, Google Cloud, and other public clouds
The platform’s core value proposition is operational consistency. Regardless of where a workload runs — on AWS, Azure, Google Compute Engine, or an on-premises data center — Anthos provides a unified control plane through Anthos GKE, Google’s managed Kubernetes service integrated into the platform.
How Anthos Migrate Works
Anthos Migrate automates the process of moving virtual machine workloads into containers that run on GKE. Applications running on AWS, Azure, or Google Compute Engine can be migrated and run inside the Anthos GKE environment. The key benefit is that teams do not need to refactor or rewrite application code before migrating — the VM is containerized as-is, giving teams immediate access to Kubernetes operational tooling.
Jennifer Lin, Google’s VP of Product Management, explained the strategic value for enterprises:
“That really helps customers think about a leapfrog strategy, where they can maintain the existing VMs but benefit from the operational model of Kubernetes. So even though you may not get all of the benefits of a cloud-native container day one, what you do get is consistency in the operational paradigm.”
— Jennifer Lin, VP of Product Management, Google Cloud
This phased approach is particularly useful for large enterprises that cannot afford to halt operations for a full re-architecture. Teams can containerize first, then progressively modernize workloads over time.
The Role of Kubernetes in Data-Driven Applications
Lin also highlighted why Kubernetes has become the platform of choice for modern data-driven applications:
“A lot of the need to do data-driven applications — that’s where Kubernetes has really hit that sweet spot because now you have a number of distributed datasets and you need to put a web or mobile front end on them. You can’t do it as a monolithic app; you really do need to tap into a number of datasets, do real-time analytics, and then present it through a web or mobile front end.”
— Jennifer Lin, VP of Product Management, Google Cloud
This reflects a broader industry trend: as applications increasingly rely on distributed data sources and real-time processing, Kubernetes provides the orchestration layer needed to manage the underlying microservices and infrastructure reliably.
Other Key Announcements at Cloud Next London
Cloud Code Goes GA
Cloud Code is Google’s set of IDE extensions (for editors such as VS Code and JetBrains IDEs) designed to help developers build, debug, and deploy cloud-native applications more efficiently. Its general availability means developers get stable, production-ready tooling baked directly into their existing workflows, reducing friction in the inner development loop for Kubernetes-based applications.
Apigee Hybrid Goes GA
Apigee Hybrid brings Google’s API management platform to hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With general availability, enterprises can manage APIs across their own data centers and multiple cloud providers, and deploy API proxies back into Anthos. This addresses a long-standing pain point for organizations that need centralized API governance without being locked into a single cloud provider.
Enterprise Adoption and Customer Examples
Google cited growing enterprise interest as the primary reason for moving Anthos out of beta. Among the customers highlighted at the event were Turkey’s Denizbank and Germany’s Kaeser Kompressoren, representing adoption across financial services and industrial manufacturing sectors. These examples illustrate that Anthos is gaining traction beyond pure technology companies, reaching industries with complex legacy infrastructure requirements.
What This Means for DevOps Teams
The general availability of Anthos Migrate, Cloud Code, and Apigee Hybrid together represent a maturing ecosystem around Google’s hybrid cloud strategy. For DevOps engineers, the practical implications are:
- Faster migration paths: Anthos Migrate removes the need for a full rewrite before gaining Kubernetes operational benefits.
- Consistent operations: A single control plane across on-premises and multi-cloud environments reduces operational complexity.
- Better developer tooling: Cloud Code GA means tighter IDE integration for building and debugging Kubernetes workloads locally.
- Unified API management: Apigee Hybrid enables API governance across hybrid environments without architectural compromise.
For organizations still running significant VM-based workloads, Anthos Migrate provides a concrete, lower-risk starting point for a Kubernetes adoption strategy — without forcing an all-or-nothing modernization decision.
Original reporting by Forbes. Announcements were made at Google Cloud Next London, 2019.