Google introduced Anthos on April 9, 2019, describing it as a software platform for managing applications across Google Cloud and existing data centers. The company said the hybrid functions were generally available with Google Kubernetes Engine in Google Cloud and GKE On-Prem in customers’ data centers. [anthos-2019-s1]

Google’s Next ’19 recap made the availability distinction explicit: Anthos was generally available on Google Kubernetes Engine and GKE On-Prem, while extension to AWS and Azure was still coming. Buyers should not read the broad cross-cloud ambition as evidence that those third-party deployments were available on launch day. [anthos-2019-s2]

Google presented Anthos as software that could run on existing hardware without a forced stack refresh, using open APIs and a managed version of Kubernetes. That pitch spoke to organizations trying to modernize without replacing their data-center equipment first. The announcement did not quantify implementation costs or show that operating across environments would be simple for every customer. [anthos-2019-s1]

The migration tool had a different status. Google said Anthos Migrate, which was intended to move virtual machines from on-premises systems or other clouds into containers on GKE, was not yet in beta and was slated for a future beta release. Teams could not treat it as a generally available migration service on launch day. [anthos-2019-s1]

Source documents

  1. Making hybrid- and multi-cloud computing a realityhttps://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/hybrid-cloud/new-platform-for-managing-applications-in-todays-multi-cloud-world
  2. What happened at Google Cloud Next '19: Day 1https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/next19-recap-day1