Google continues to go all-in on its Anthos hybrid-cloud platform with a handful of updates to entice adoption and a new application modernization program to help enterprises accelerate their digital migration. That focus is warranted as the cloud provider continues to languish behind its larger rivals.

The most relevant update is that Google’ Migrate for Anthos feature now includes support for Anthos deployed in an on-premises environment that can now convert virtual machines (VMs) in those environments to Anthos while keeping them on premises. It also added beta support for Windows containers alongside its ongoing support for Linux-based containers.

Additionally, management of the migration tool is now integrated into the Google Cloud Console web user interface. It can also support the migration of workloads running in a Cloud Foundry environment that allows those workloads to run in the Anthos environment but maintain the same “Cloud Foundry-like interface.”

Google launched the Migrate for Anthos platform last year to encourage the migration of workloads into its Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). It allows users to take a VM from on-premises or Google Compute Engine (GCE) and move it directly into containers running in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Those VMs can also be migrated directly from Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 and Microsoft Azure into containers running in GKE.

Anthos also gained the ability for users to attach clusters so they can manage any Kubernetes cluster with the Anthos control plane. This includes centralized management for configuration and service mesh.

It also witnessed the beta launch of Anthos for bare metal. The offering lets Anthos run on-premises or at edge locations without a hypervisor for a smaller footprint and less resource consumption.

During a presentation as part of Google's ongoing Cloud Next event, Chen Goldberg, engineering director for Google Cloud, said that Google was already using this feature internally to run containers for its production systems.

Additionally, Google integrated its Cloud Code Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plugins with its Cloud Run for Anthos service to allow for the direct build of serverless applications into the platform. That system uses an embedded Cloud Code-Cloud Run emulator to immediately validate and de-bug changes on a local machine before pushing it to a remote development environment.

This builds on the serverless focus of Cloud Run for Anthos. It’s built on the Kubernetes-based Knative runtime environment and allow users to more easily run stateless workloads on a fully managed Anthos environment. It basically allows users to run their application in a cloud environment without having to manage those cloud resources.

As for helping organizations move into the cloud, Google launched its Cloud App Modernization Program (CAMP) that uses a data-driven assessment of an organization’s current infrastructure footprint to map out a modernization path. It then conveniently offers Google’s portfolio of cloud products to help execute a migration path.

Google earlier this year expanded the reach of Anthos into those competing clouds with an initial multi-cloud push into Amazon Web Services (AWS). Goldberg said the company remained on track to add support for Microsoft Azure later this year.

Google continues to trail its larger rivals Amazon and Microsoft in the burgeoning cloud market. Google’s cloud business did manage to post a 43% year-over-year increase in revenues for its most recent second quarter, but remained at just half the market share of No. 2 Microsoft and less than one-third the scale of Amazon. That is still a big number as overall Q2 spend on cloud infrastructure services passed the $30 billion milestone, an increase of $7.5 billion from the second quarter of 2019.

“As far as cloud market numbers go, it’s almost as if there were no COVID-19 pandemic raging around the world,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, in a statement on the Q2 spend report. “As enterprises struggle to adapt to new norms, the advantages of public cloud are amplified. The percentage growth rate is coming down, as it must when a market reaches enormous scale, but the incremental growth in absolute dollar terms remains truly impressive. The market remains on track to grow by well over 30% in 2020.”