Google announced yesterday that they are going to strengthen Google Apps security by adding a Secure Data Connector (SDC) to its engine. SDC is built around having an agent inside the firewall, which connects to servers inside of Google. This gives Google servers policy-controlled access to data businesses have chosen to expose. Basically, SDC allows secure access to data behind firewall for use in cloud based apps hosted on App Engine.
And Google also says that SDC and Oracle’s Siebel customer care and CRM software will be connected to the engine, showing an example of using the SDC to build an app behind a firewall. Oracle also announced that its Oracle Gadget Wizard, which lets users construct simple gadgets easily, will have support for Google Apps and can be integrated into Oracle’s CRM.
SDC seems to be representative of Google’s intentions to be a serious player in the enterprise cloud computing space. With SDC and a partnership with Oracle, Google can now compete with Sun Microsystems, Salesforce and Microsoft, offering enterprises a cloud-based application that can combine the Apps engine with secure data behind a firewall.
Other smaller business intelligence apps are jumping on the now enterprise-ready Google Apps engine. PivotLink, whose PivotLink Gadget allows Google Apps users to configure collaborative reports and dashboards, uses the Google Apps’ developer tools as a platform. Another SaaS, Panorama Software, launched a new version of its analytics software for Google Apps, and with the help of SDC can support any type of information residing inside the firewall. Panorama’s software analyzes, reports and visualizes data from Excel spreadsheets and CSV files.
Google’s announcement about Java support may have been the most anticipated part of yesterday’s Campfire, but SDC will light a fire under enterprise players eager to pick side in the cloud war.