We are becoming a data center and cloud nation

During the Dataquest Leadership Conclave held at New Delhi’s Hyatt Regency on June 8, there was a panel discussion on “Achieve smarter governance with effective cloud strategy”. The participants were Neeta Varma, Former Director General, National Informatics Centre, and Ashok Gopinath, MD, Technology, Accenture in India.

Ibrahim Ahmad, Consulting Editor, CyberMedia, was the moderator. He said that the cloud strategy has propelled quite a bit in the last couple of years.

Neeta Varma said that the NIC provides digital infrastructure for the government. Cloud was managed by the government, and adoption was phenomenal. It also took away the effort of the government for preparing files, etc. With cloud, you have ready-to-use infrastructure. Post 2015, we had the Swachh Bharat Mission, housing for all, etc. We managed the supply chain of fertilizers. All of these concepts were cloud-ready.

With the cloud, we brought the concept of one nation, one platform. With GST, things improved. We also developed open-source software that was generally free. For services, we came up with ServicePlus. Haryana, Karnataka, etc., have leveraged this. Products have also won awards.

Ashok Gopinath, Accenture in India, added that India has achieved a lot in the last few years. CoWIN app has shaped up with the underlying cloud infrastructure. As has GST, etc.! Lives have become much better. Industry played a role in cloud adoption. The government took note of all this. Industry has been a user, especially in GST, income tax, etc.

What are the areas that have not yet picked up? Ashok Gopinath, Accenture in India, added that we need to have wider flavours available. We also need unified security policy, and need the industry and the government to work together.

Neeta Varma, NIC, said the industry has been a supporter for cloud. We can have capacity in MeghRaj. With MeiTY, we have done certifications. People have also tried to use the public cloud. They got stuck in some cases. Hybrid is the way to go ahead. We need to come up with a framework. We need to take care of data requirements. Even the procurement model has to move forward. Every department has to understand the information they are having. They can also come up with a cloud framework. We can fast track the services being given.

Ashok Gopinath, Accenture in India, added that we are having three constraints. These are power, capital, and skilled capabilities, that are available for the data centers in India. There are a lot of players that are setting up data centers.

Neeta Varma, NIC, said that we are moving toward a DC and cloud nation. The physical infrastructure is also coming up. The infrastructure policy is also coming up. DCs also have a carbon footprint. We are seeing investments in alternative forms of energy. We also have to make the country's workforce ready.

Gopinath said AI can lead to more growth for DCs. For the government, we have data collected via CoWIN. There can be scientific assessment of diseases with analytics and AI.

The theme of the conclave was Let’s Transform at Scale with NeXtGen Tech and featured the 29th ICT Business Awards show.