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| The silver lining in the Cloud |
| Drew Kelton / Mumbai Sep 26, 2011, 00:57 IST |
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Cloud has the potential to transform the way IT services are delivered.
 Cloud computing — is it beneficial? How to make it just more than efficient? Can it lead to business transformation? How easy and wise is it to walk the road where you have to follow the new fashion and be in vogue?
In the last few years there has been an intense debate about ‘cloud’, and if we look at the outcomes, one thing is clear — this technology has moved deeper into the enterprise; more IT departments are considering cloud to reduce costs and lift the return on capital employed. There are several multinational and Indian companies competing in the cloud space, developing/introducing solutions relevant for Indian customers. A recent study by Zinnov Management Consulting predicts that the total cloud spends as a percentage of the total IT spend will rise from 1.4 per cent in 2010 to 8.2 per cent in 2015.
Like the internet, cloud is a disruptive technology. The internet has revolutionised the publishing business and similarly, cloud has the potential to transform the way IT services (software, infrastructure and platform) are delivered. Today, established newspapers compete with bloggers and other online platforms for mind-share. With the internet being a significant contributor to current revenues and future growth plans, established media firms have been pushed to leveraging technology for their advantage. Similarly, the convergence of business and internet has changed the lifestyle of people. Can you imagine life without a search engine that delivers information at the click of a button? Social networking, virtual communities like Facebook and Twitter, have enabled millions to connect, share and leverage technology to enhance their life experiences. These platforms are different shapes of the cloud which enable rapid communication, development and scale.
Cloud computing is as easy as hiring a taxi. You don’t have the burden of buying, owning and maintaining the cab but you are driven to the place where you want to go. Similarly, with slashed IT budgets, companies can leave the task of running IT infrastructure to the cloud service provider with significantly reduced upfront costs, and instantly scale up to meet the demands of a growing business.
The adoption of cloud computing allows the organisations to be more nimble and flexible, and stay with the technology development curve rather than being stuck behind it. The infrastructure can be quickly and easily scaled up and down according to demand. Rather than buying and installing expensive software/hardware, the organisation can subscribe to it, thus allowing them to pay as per their usage. The IT resources and software applications are maintained and managed by the service providers. These advantages allow organisations to save significantly on equipment, energy costs and staff salaries by outsourcing their IT systems to a firm specialising in virtualisation technology. It also enables organisations to build virtual and open business processes, facilitating its various stakeholders including customers, business partners, and suppliers etc to connect and do business more seamlessly.
Cloud computing is also an environmentally friendly technology because it allows centralised management of IT resources for a number of companies simultaneously and reduces energy waste overall. A recent report published by the Carbon Discloser Project on cloud computing and carbon emissions, “Cloud Computing: The IT Solution for the 21st Century”, highlights that by 2020, large US companies that use cloud computing can achieve annual energy savings of $12.3 billion and annual carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil — enough to power 5.7 million cars for one year.
Governments across the world have embraced cloud by rolling out plans to use the cloud for e-governance. The United Kingdom government has considered the creation of the “G-Cloud” — a government-wide cloud computing network, and has made it a strategic priority. After a lot of evaluations, government departments in India too have started adopting cloud due to inbuilt features like scalability, better asset utilisation, meeting demand and supply, cost optimisation, better control on assets, pay per use, better disaster management services, on-demand access to software, storage, network and other platform services. Considering the many advantages, the Department of Information Technology is also planning to release India’s first ‘G-cloud’ policy by 2012.
One of the big questions is, which model of cloud has seen more adoption — public, private or hybrid? Cloud is certainly not a one size fits all proposition. Depending on the organisation’s needs and priorities, the model can be adopted across businesses. Evidence on the ground indicates that small and medium enterprises are embracing public cloud because of its flexibility on architectural options, ability to scale as the demand increases and low CAPEX (capital expenditure) requirements. Large enterprises prefer to take the journey to private cloud through virtualisation as it meets data security and compliance needs. According to Zinnov Management Consulting, on an average, private cloud deployments can result in potential savings of up to 50 per cent on the IT investments in comparison to the legacy IT model. Gartner predicted that enterprises will also implement hybrid cloud.
The acceptance of cloud technology by enterprises and governments shows that the cloud is fast gaining acceptance today. With the customer numbers growing day by day, the technology will be a vital part of the computer infrastructure well into the future.
The clouds are finally soaring high in the Indian skies!
The author is president, B2B business, Bharti Airtel
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