Chronicle, an Alphabet moonshot, says it's 'a completely separate company' from Google - but it runs on Google's 'core infrastructure'

Chronicle

Chronicle Chief Security Officer Mike Wiacek

• Chronicle, the cybersecurity company owned by Google parent Alphabet, runs on the "core Google infrastructure," rather than the commercially-available Google Cloud, a spokesperson told Business Insider.
• Sources familiar with Chronicle's operations tell us that this is because using Google's own infrastructure has many perks - including lower costs and the reassurance of being backed by Google's sophisticated cybersecurity measures. 
• The arrangement raises questions about Chronicle's claims of total independence from Google, while also highlighting a competitive advantage held by the Alphabet companies that's tough for others to match. 

When the Alphabet-owned cybersecurity company Chronicle - described as a "moonshot" - announced its first commercial product at a press conference earlier this month, its CEO Stephen Gillett was asked about the company's ties to Google, also an Alphabet subsidiary. 

"Google people can't even badge into our buildings," Gillett said, touting Chronicle's independence from the tech giant. "We're a completely separate company from them."

However, Chronicle doesn't function entirely independently from Google: A spokesperson confirmed with Business Insider that Chronicle relies on "core Google infrastructure" to host its apps and services, rather than commercially-available cloud services like Google Cloud or the market-leading Amazon Web Services. 

A person familiar with Chronicle's operations told us that this is because using in-house technology has a number of upsides, including lower costs and the reassurance that comes from using Google's highly-secure infrastructure. 

The arrangement highlights how hard it is for Alphabet companies to totally break their dependence on Google, which is easily the largest part of the company by several orders of magnitude - while also demonstrating the benefits of having such a close relationship with the search giant. 

Why Chronicle runs on Google, not Google Cloud 

Pricing was the main factor in Chronicle's decision to use Google's core storage options, according to the person. Google Cloud was offering the team "friendly" rates, the person said, but prices for Google's in-house services were "significantly lower." 

The main selling point for Backstory, the company's first commercial product, is that it keeps prices flat by not charging customers for the amount of data storage they use, but rather by the number of people in their company. 

"There is some magic in the business side," Dr. Anton Chuvakin, distinguished VP analyst with Gartner, told Business Insider regarding Backstory. "There's magic in the fact that their costs for cloud compute and storage are much lower than many others." 

However, that business model makes keeping the costs of cloud storage down a priority for Chronicle, the person said. 

Beyond pricing, the person said that the decision to use Google infrastructure had at least a little bit to do with the perceived security of Google Cloud. This person says that the concerns were largely "psychological," and that while Google Cloud is based on Google's own systems, there's a certain reassurance to using infrastructure backed by the company's own cybersecurity apparatus. 

A spokesperson for Chronicle tells Business Insider that security was not a consideration in its decision to build on Google's infrastructure.

A former Google engineer also tells us separately that it's entirely possible to build a secure cloud infrastructure using the commercial Google Cloud, even without benefitting from the sophistication of Google's internal systems. 

Read more: Microsoft says 'no one's even close to what we're offering' in a cloud market that Amazon and Google are only just starting to enter

In the end, Chronicle's decision to build on Google's in-house platform could have also been a function of what its founding team was familiar with.

Chronicle CTO Will Robinson and CSO Mike Wiacek had previously both worked at Google for over 12 years before moving to the cybersecurity spinoff, and so it's understandable that they may have been more comfortable building on the tech giant's internal systems, rather than moving to the relatively unfamiliar Google Cloud.

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