The cloud-native edge is the future, but how do you actually make it work? Rakuten Cloud and Google Cloud are proving it's possible, delivering game-changing results across diverse sectors.
At Google Cloud Next 2025, we got exclusive access to the minds behind this innovation. Rakuten Cloud’s Raj Narayanan led a fascinating discussion with Google's Vijay Tewari and Rakuten Cloud's Oni Chakravartti, revealing the keys to their success.
Ready to master the edge? Watch the full interview of “Taming the stateful edge: Live from Google Cloud Next ’25” now on Zero Touch Live, Rakuten Symphony’s LinkedIn newsletter. Join 60,000+ subscribers and unlock the future of edge cloud!
Over the past five years, Google Cloud and Rakuten Cloud have collaborated closely to ensure the seamless integration of their respective technologies into a complete edge cloud solution. This collaboration has delivered a cloud-native platform that includes software-defined storage from Rakuten Cloud that is essential for supporting stateful applications.
This partnership is not merely strategic—it is highly technical and hands-on.
The integration of Rakuten Cloud-Native Storage with Google Distributed Cloud involves extensive testing across countless scenarios, all conducted behind the scenes long before reaching customers. As a result, the solution is both scalable and thoroughly validated and debugged, ensuring it is fully operational and robust when deployed in customer networks.
This isn't a siloed effort. Rakuten Cloud and Google teams share feedback, jointly validating releases, and overcoming integration hurdles as one.
“Our engineers are constantly collaborating with each other. We're looking at what's coming next from their platform, they're looking at what's coming from our platform. So, it's a harmonious and collaborative effort, and that’s how we are developing and, ultimately, delivering something of value to the customer,” says Vijay Tewari, Head Of Product Management, Business Continuity, Google.
The result? A tightly integrated solution that delivers real utility. This unified approach offers customers a seamless and innovative experience.
Edge cloud is in use across multiple industries. Early adopters in manufacturing, retail, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare are leveraging edge computing for low latency, real-time analysis, and localized decision-making.
In manufacturing, edge infrastructure is essential for command, control, and real-time analytics. In retail, McDonald's is using Google Distributed Cloud to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience with AI.
The fast-moving consumer goods sector is also embracing edge deployments to enable just-in-time actions across distributed locations. The bottom line: edge cloud is driving productivity and responsiveness.
Edge computing in retail has come a long way. From basic point-of-sale systems to AI-powered personalized experiences, the evolution has been driven by the desire to better serve the customer.
“What's happening now is that AI technologies are making their way into the edge, and retailers are seeing a tremendous opportunity to change the buying experience for customers, either by giving them on-demand coupons, or by targeting a sales campaign, or by maintaining inventory management in the store. There are a whole host of applications that can now be developed because there is edge cloud infrastructure that's powerful enough for new AI technologies,” says Anirban (Oni) Chakravartti, SVP, Global Head of Sales for Enterprise, Rakuten Cloud.
However, deploying and managing thousands of distributed environments presents a major challenge. It's not just about the infrastructure; it's about the logistical and administrative nightmare of managing a vast fleet of edge platforms. For example, a retailer with thousands of stores must manage an equally large fleet of edge platforms.
Google recognized this pain point and built Google Distributed Cloud to address it. By offering a homogeneous infrastructure and leveraging sophisticated management tools honed on Google’s own massive systems, the platform abstracts much of the operational burden from the customer.
This allows businesses to focus on delivering value rather than wrestling with the intricacies of distributed system management.
Want to learn more? Watch the Zero Touch Live "Taming the Stateful Edge" video on LinkedIn.
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