Tata reviews: More businesses to adopt a "cloud-only" policy
By Carol Ko 29-Dec-2010
Mathew Leonard, senior product manager, IaaS, Tata Communications
Tata Communications, one of India's largest players in the data center business, has 42 facilities worldwide with 18 in Asia. In 2010, the introductions of InstaCompute (provision of computing and storage resources on-demand) and InstaOffice (global Web-based collaboration and office tools powered by Google Apps) marked the official launch of Tata's cloud computing and cloud services.
To date, Tata Communications has more than 175 business customers across Asia, from countries including India, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
| "[In the next few years,] more businesses will adopt a 'cloud only' policy for low to medium sensitive applications or projects." -- Mathew Leonard, senior product manager, IaaS, Tata Communications |
This year, Tata Communications invested about 15% of managed hosting services revenue on cloud development, according to Mathew Leonard (picture), senior product manager, IaaS, Tata Communications. Moving onto 2011, the company plans to continue its strong investment in the cloud while leveraging the technology base it built this year. To expand its existing one million sq ft global data center footprint, Tata plans to build a new data center in India in 2011, with Chennai (Ambattur) being a potential location.
Below is the excerpt of an interview between Mathew Leonard and Asia Cloud Forum. It outlines Tata's major achievements in 2010, its marketing strategies for 2011 and its predictions on cloud computing development for the next three years.
Asia Cloud Forum: What percentage of budget does your company put into the R&D of cloud products last year? How will it change in 2011?
Mathew Leonard: Tata Communications has invested approximately 15% of managed hosting services revenue on cloud development this year. We plan to continue strong investment in cloud over the next year while leveraging the strong technology base we have built this year.
What were your company's biggest cloud solution deployments in Asia in 2010?
Leonard: Our largest cloud deployment is in Hyderabad India with ability to support thousands of customers and growing with additional capacity. We have all the customers on that deployment (we are currently in the process of going live with deployment in Singapore) including system integrators, gaming companies, independent software development houses and large enterprises.
Which industry vertical and country in Asia will your company target your marketing activities for cloud in 2011?
Leonard: For our cloud computing we focus on medium and large enterprise departments/ projects with requirements in India/ Asia or global -- who need dynamic and variable computing resources and cost savings. Large system integrators and business process outsourcing companies with needs in India/Asia or global, typically who require immediate, Web-based computing resources for time constrained collaborative engagements, such as collaboration with internal/external clients or partners. Global businesses, too, who use the Web at scale with large audiences in India/Asia, also form our target audience.
What is the current state of cloud computing adoption in Asia?
Leonard: Cloud adoption has accelerated in all countries in the APAC region. The precursor to cloud, i.e., virtualization, had a good uptake in India and cloud is the obvious next choice for rapidly growing medium and small businesses in India. Cloud is accepted well because of the pay-as-you-grow model for customers looking for flexibility while optimizing cost.
Apart from India, the government of Singapore has promoted cloud services in a big way -- as part of green computing. Owing to our success in India, we are ready to deploy our cloud services in Singapore early next year.
What have been your customers' three biggest concerns about cloud computing/ cloud services in 2010? How have you addressed their challenges?
Leonard: Enterprises remain most concerned about security, performance and control of data when considering cloud adoption. Tata Communications' InstaCompute, which provides secure and scalable, on-demand computing and storage resources to Global businesses and InstaOffice, a Google apps-powered solution that brings global Internet-based collaboration and office tools to Indian companies, are able to address these three concerns .
In the emerging markets, cloud adoption is also held back by a lack of understanding of the technology among enterprises. Tata Communications is helping alleviate this problem by educating our customers and prospects on cloud, and sharing with them other customer deployment examples.
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