Cloud is no longer a mythical change

What are your views on the recent market report that in India there is a preference for the private cloud while in the Asia Pacific region there is a preference for the hybrid cloud?

Over the last 1 year, our business has been split into 2. We have been focussing on building private clouds for clients both on premise and off premise, offered managed services, etc. In other words, we have played an instrumental role in taking our clients a step towards virtualization. A year ago, the buzz was around different ways of doing virtualization but this year the clients are reaping the rewards of their decisions. Pertaining to public clouds, there have been a lot of announcements being made by the national service providers, tier I and II service providers to offer such cloud services but are still concerned about how to proceed. We have been using our integration skills with the aid of service providers to make public cloud offerings. About 80% of the businesses have moved to the private cloud while the remaining figure is on the public cloud. But in future, it is all going to culminate into some form of hybrid cloud. But currently our concentration is to help enterprises move to the private cloud.

What do you foresee as the road ahead for One Cloud?

We joined hands with BSNL after tasting success in one of our projects in New Zealand, namely One.Govt solution. Datacraft has formed a strategic alliance with BSNL to launch One Cloud, hosted cloud services to build and manage 6 BSNL data centers across India, namely Jaipur, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad. This project would cover a vast data center area of 66,000 sq ft and the data centers would be operational from June 2011 onwards. We have entered into a multi-year contract with BSNL to build and operate the 6 data centers. This deal will help us in migrating our clients from the existing technology to an off-premise model. Secondly, it will also help us in aiding our clients in moving to a virtual architecture. Thirdly, operate it as an off-premise private cloud.

Taking into consideration the demand for such data centers in the nation, we plan to add more data center footprints not only in India but across the world. We shall offer these services to the market on a utility based pricing model. If you consider our foray, then we have been receiving compliments for having made the right move at the right time.

How would you rate the adoption of cloud computing services in the market?

A year ago we were talking about the potential of cloud but today the movement is real. It is no longer a mythical change and virtualization is driving this change. We have entered into a relationship with VMWare, Citrix, and Microsoft to help clients in their path of virtulization. This is the biggest transformation that has been witnessed in my career span both from a commercial and technological viewpoint. Public cloud is going to be driven by consumer demand. And as far the adoption by companies is concerned then it will take years of maturity. The major challenge faced in the adoption of the public cloud is that no one wants to jump on the bandwagon first and land up burning their fingers but would preferably wait for others to adopt.

As a company too, we have consolidated 3 data centers into 1 at Singapore and are in the process of consolidating 70 production servers into 1 V-Block, enabling savings on the front of power consumption, real estate, etc. This enables us to effectively communicate the benefits to our clients also. Next year, we intend to make a massive adoption of VDi across various functions. In the arena of cloud computing services, we have earmarked investments to the tune of $50 mn of which half the amount is expected to be utilized in the next 3-4 months. We intend to achieve the pole position in the cloud services model among the Indian players.

How has Datacraft put blocks together to be able to operate data centers at a PUE of 1.7?

We have built a substantial data center practice across the Asia Pacific region and with the recent acquisition by the NTT group with 30 data centers in more than 20 countries has helped us expand our footprint. We have submitted contracts to all suppliers of passive technology to fulfill the needs at the various datacenters and are also undergoing various certifications. Once all these procedures are completed, our first center will be operational. With NTT, we are focusing on reducing power consumption in data centers and should be able to achieve these reduced levels of operation in a few months.

Please highlight the road ahead for Datacraft.

We are undergoing a rebranding exercise from Datacraft to the Dimension Data brand. Recently, the Dimension Data brand was acquired by the NTT group, bringing with it a huge portfolio like the IPV6 network that finds its presence across 165 countries across the world. But our 3-year-plan remains the same of helping major companies move towards cloud computing and also focus quality service. We intend to continue imbibing the best practices of Dimension Data into Datacraft. Second, NTT Data, with its significant presence across India provides skills around the data center for SAP and BI related functions. We are chalking out effective go-to-market strategies with the combined strength of the sales forces. We intend to leverage on the procurement side as a single buyer of all products and services. Innovation around solutions is the key to offering cutting edge technologies to the market and NTT is a leader in the R&D space and also one of the leading investors in the telecommunication segment. The next few quarters are expected to witness cutting edge technology from the combined forces of NTT Group and Datacraft.

Shilpa Shanbhag
shilpas@cybermedia.co.in