Tata Communications builds up infrastructure for cloud business

Eyeing 40 per cent annual growth in cloud operations, Tata Communications is planning to set up necessary storage infrastructure in countries of operations to win over local business by addressing its concerns on overseas data storage.

“Data sovereignty is going to be more critical and the governments will look to introduce more stringent regulations around this element of storage in cloud,” Srinivasan C R, senior vice-president, global product management and data centre services, Tata Communications, told PTI.

He flagged government concerns about accuracy of data being stored, going forward. “Building your datafarms in one location limits your ability to work with enterprise customers. Data residency is a big concern,” Srinivasan said.

Various governments, including India, have been pushing companies to set up their servers locally so that most of the data transmitted through e-mail or messaging services and stored online do not go out of the country.

Most e-mail services, internet browsers and softwares for various online services have been developed by foreign companies, specially those based in the US.

There have been apprehensions that data stored overseas may be intercepted or hacked in an unauthorised manner. "Our focus is to expand to more than 13 countries and a lot more granular locations... Our data centres are present in 43 locations. We are partnering with data centre companies to provide service locally. Year-on-year, we will be adding new geographies," Srinivasan said.

He said the company is looking at expanding cloud services in Europe and the Asean region.

Tata Communications data centres are located in various countries, including Australia, Singapore, Japan, Spain, Austria, the US, Canada, South Africa and India.

According to Srinivasan, the company is investing in new technologies to help its customers digitise their business.

"There is no choice. Digitisation is at door. The number of applications on smartphones has increased significantly compared to a few years ago. We want to grow more than 40 per cent. Global IT market is USD 1.5 trillion. Cloud is very small part of it. Global market size is huge," he said.

Tata Communications expects its new services business like mobility, unified communications, video streaming and the like will significantly push data services and cloud business.

"We have a target to double our business in 5-10 years. We grew 34 per cent last year. Our target is to grow more than 34 per cent," said Anthony Bartolo, President of Mobility and Collaborations Services at Tata Communications.