CIO HandBook 2011 "No Longer Cloudy"

Cloud computing is a phenomenon. Enterprise cloud computing is evolving and without doubt cloud is altering the very fabric of IT and its delivery driven by its inherent poweragility, cost economics, and scalability. These deliverables of cloud are changing the traditional methods of IT delivery.

The potential of cloud can be well seen as we look at some of the predictions from leading market researches. Gartner has projected that enterprise spending on software as a service (SaaS) will be reaching $16 bn by 2013. Meanwhile Frank Gens, chief analyst at IDC says, IT infrastructure and services delivered over the cloud will be ubiquitous within 5 years from now.

Given the clear measurable tangible benefits of the cloud, a number of customers are already realizing some of the benefits by moving to cloud based computing models. But what does it take to get a CIO to consider cloud computing? Experts say that the potential for 20% to 30% IT cost reductions. However CIOs still have security concerns on moving to the cloud and that needs to be effectively countered by the vendors.

CIO Priorities

Experts say that CIOs must have a cloud strategy. This strategy must expand on the answers of what, why, when, and where questions. What applications are candidates to be migrated/built, whythe RoI analysis, whenidentify the time that is right from a transition perspective, and wherelike private-cloud, public-IaaS, public-PaaS, public-SaaS etc. The CIO must start small with a POC to understand the various dynamics like security, privacy, compliance, customizability, ease of maintenance etc and allow the experience gained in implementing their cloud strategy.

Given that industries are facing the greatest budget and margin pressures and hence cloud computing remains high on the corporate agenda of organizations. Before businesses feel comfortable transitioning to cloud based services, they first need to be convinced that the business benefits of the cloud outweigh the security risks; and that goes for both service providers and the cloud infrastructure itself.

In the current scenario, when the market is passing through wide scale curtailment of capex and focusing on deriving benefits through the opex route, this model is making its presence felt as organizations can derive benefits without the need to worry about maintenance and upkeep of the hardware and software.

Gartner believes that it will take a few more years for the country to become efficient enough, in terms of power supply, to support large data centers which can host large-scale cloud services from within the country. It will also take time for the broadband infrastructure to improve enough for cloud services to be adopted extensively. It will only be after 3 to 5 years that India will see large-scale cloud service adoptions.

The last 2 years have played an important role in demystifying the perceptions around cloud computing, registering awareness of its benefits, and seeing an upswing in adoption of cloud services offerings amongst enterprises and SMBs in India. According to Springboards recent executive brief titled India IT Market Predictions 2010 enterprises have realized the benefits of cost-efficient business models and are focused to streamlining costs and improving internal efficiencies. While it is difficult to predict when this technology will be completely adopted by enterprises worldwide, analyst reports indicate that India has the largest growing software services industry in the APAC segment. According to IDC, spending on cloud services is expected to grow over 5 times to that of traditional on-premises IT.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in