Cloud computing : Cloud's Silver Lining

Cloud computing has been characterized as a style of computing where

massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are provided 'as a service' to

multiple customers. Unlike previous IT licensing models, these 'services' are

typically billed on a consumption basis.

This technology brings a new level of efficiency and economy for delivering

IT resources-on demand and it opens up new business models and market

opportunities in the process.

Benefits



The most important benefit of cloud computing is said to be the conversion

of capital expenditures into operational expenditures. The companies can invest

in its core business processes and in the software that supports them, rather

than in building out an expensive workforce and portfolio of non-differentiating

infrastructural components.

Additionally, it delivers higher efficiency, massive scalability, and faster,

easier software development. It is about new programming models, new IT

infrastructure, and the enabling of new business models.

The other critical advantages that make cloud computing the best option in

times like these are easy access to applications that are available from any

computer or any device at anytime from anywhere, painless upgrades and updates

for multi-tenant cloud applications, where there is no necessary for the

customers to download the patches or install them.

“With increasing globalization and mobility, as well as escalating

competitive forces and corporate productivity requirements, corporations of all

sizes have started to re-think how they should operate. At the same time, a

combination of rapidly changing customer expectations and radically different

technological advancements is driving a new generation of on-demand services

which are transforming the way organizations operate and innovate,” said B

Raghavendran, VP-Channel Operations and Commercial Strategy, Cisco India and

SAARC.

The Adoption



Cloud computing is often stated to be a hype and its transformation into

reality has always been a question mark for the industry people. However, the

vendors in this space sound confident about the growth and high potential of the

technology.

“Research firms like Gartner, TripleTree, and IDC have all pointed out that

cloud is the next big thing and once the company sees and understands its

benefits they will never think of investing in a massive data center again.

Cloud computing is less risky as there are no huge up-front capital expenditures

in hardware or software and no hidden costs or armies of consultants required to

get started,” said Andrew Knott, VP-Marketing, APAC, Salesforce.com.

Moorthy Uppaluri, General Manager-DPE, Microsoft India believes that the

adoption of cloud services has been low in India due to varied reasons including

lack of awareness, accessibility, affordability and security. “However, we are

receiving encouraging response from our partner community and customers who are

increasingly considering or deploying hosted and online services to reduce total

cost of ownership or do away with maintenance in absence of right skills and

resources to maintain IT in-house. According to IDC, spending on 'cloud

services' is expected to grow over five times that of traditional on-premises

IT,” he informed. Microsoft sees SMBs as the early adopters of this technology

and amongst the SMBs the enterprises with the desire to move up rapidly will be

the first movers.

On the other hand, Satyen H Parikh, MD-India and SAARC, F5 Networks said that

cloud computing as it stands today is not all hype and neither is it a

completely accepted concept. He further added that SMBs would be the segment

that would be driving the growth of cloud computing.

Opportunities for SPs



Suresh Ramani, CEO, Tech Gyan said that the solution providers (SPs) can

offer cloud computing either by tying up with a SP offering services over the

cloud or through a vendor, who offers an application or solution through cloud.

“The SPs can offer their services through partnerships with companies that are

providing hosting services and those who have their own data center. On the

other hand, there are vendors like Amazon, Salesforce.com and Microsoft, who

offer their platforms on service basis. The SPs can offer consulting services

for those companies who are using the platform or services from these vendors.”

Ramani claimed that as the number of cloud users go up, there would be more

opportunities in terms of the consultations to those companies and the SPs would

fit into the role perfectly.

Raghavendran added that the SPs definitely have a role to play in cloud

computing as Cisco's go-to-market is completely through the channels. “Cisco's

go-to-market is entirely through its channel partner network, and these

solutions too will be offered through our partners. Depending on the level of

engagement, our partners will be able to offer solutions to customers as simple

resellers, or even as strategic partners through managed services. There is a

significant shift among enterprises to a hybrid model, a mix of physical

infrastructure, and from-the-cloud-and could create some complexities for

partners when rolling out solutions. However, under the hybrid approach,

businesses can choose which services are pushed through what route, depending on

regulation and other governing factors,” he said.

Clouds ahead



The key challenge for vendors offering cloud is to convince big enterprises

to transform the existing IT infrastructure of the organization on the cloud,

said Uppaluri. “Companies today are still resistant to moving infrastructure to

the cloud. If there's an opportunity to run the infrastructure pieces in the

cloud, customers should know which ones they're willing to try first. The

partners need to align their IT infrastructure on the Software Oriented

Architecture (SOA) model,” he added

Cloud computing is not a product and this makes it difficult to implement. It

necessarily requires coordination not just across a variety of data center

infrastructure but disparate teams, as well. Parikh feels that it is not just an

exercise in implementing an architectural model. “It requires coordination and

collaboration between people, which may in fact be the more difficult hurdle for

organizations to overcome. Your organization must be ready and willing to change

its thinking about applications and how they are deployed, as well as how they

are budgeted and assigned resources. Project managers will need to change how

they assign costs to projects as virtualization and a cloud model necessarily

requires a focus on compute resources rather than physical hardware and

software,” Parikh informed.

Having said that, the technology is booming and the adoption is increasing on

a day-to-day basis, the opportunities for SPs are more in this space. If an SP

is willing to set up their own data center and build their network for providing

solutions through cloud, the opportunities are galore. On the other hand, those

partners who are not in a position to set up their own infrastructure can be a

part of the vendors' offerings, where they can play a role of the technology

partner, who provides applications and host in the cloud environment of the

vendor or can do integration work and consulting services for the organizations

taking solutions from cloud.

NR Sethuraman



sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in