Cloud: On the Upswing

Cloud computing is fast gaining popularity as a key part of information technology. Nearly every enterprise is at some stage of evaluating or deploying cloud solutions. Even as enterprises turn to the cloud to reduce costs, streamline staff, and increase efficiencies, some IT managers and CIOs remain wary about the security of their applications and data. While software-as-a-service (SaaS) has gained popularity among security solutions, many firms express concern over handing over responsibility of their application security to some unknown entity. In this article, IT Next brings to you some key findings of the 'Cloud Computing Survey 2012'.

Attractive Benefits
Sanjay Manchanda, Director and Group Head, Microsoft Corp India says, Enterprises understand the benefits cloud offers and are beginning to host some applications on it. However, security and privacy remain the main challenges for them.

The survey finds that 100 per cent of the respondents (mostly CIOs and IT managers across verticals) have said that cloud computing concept is in a very nascent stage but the software housed in the cloud can be very beneficial and easily accessed anywhere, anytime, thereby providing an opportunity for the firm to grow rapidly.

All the survey participants are keen on moving certain non-confidential applications like--CRM, brand websites, financial applications and HR to the cloud or plan to do so this year. However, they are sceptical of moving confidential data on the public cloud.

About 33.3 per cent of the participants point lowered capex; better RoI on IT investments and better utilisation of resources using cloud model.

The IT Next survey indicated that 3.3 per cent of the respondents have been trying out hybrid or private and public cloud models while 66.7 per cent have revealed their plans to implement private cloud computing in 2012. About 77.7 per cent said they would roll out their cloud plans over the next six to 12 months.

Complying with the survey results, Pawan Bakshi, Manager-IT, Amway India Enterprises Pvt Ltd said, We have gone in for private cloud and will roll out their cloud plan over six to 12 months.
However, initially we will move applications including CRM, Financial applications and HR to the cloud by 2012,says Bakshi.

Santanu Ghose, Country Head, Converged Infrastructure Solutions, HP India finds customers have a positive attitude towards cloud. With the cost of retaining manpower rising, technology moving fast and business challenges escalating combined with the pressure on capex and opex affecting the IT heads, cloud is being seriously considered across most enterprises.

Ghose clearly sees the trend of cloud mapping being done across large enterprises to create the business differentiators. Most large enterprises, for instance banks, are extensively depending upon cloud models. The shorter-term projects and campaigns are increasingly leveraging cloud model which is outsourced to the cloud service providers as they turn out to be efficient and cost-effective, points Ghose.

Major Challenges on the Cloud
The IT Next survey revealed that 66.7 per cent of the IT managers found that virtual and physical management tools are required to encompass entire environment and also that it is complex vendor landscape while 33.3 per cent said that high costs and the too many point products have been the challenge.

Most agreed that business groups expectations from the cloud have been around increasing RoI on infrastructure and IT as a whole and lower IT spending, besides better utilisation of resources, ease of management and lower capex.

One of the biggest challenges, according to Bakshi, on the cloud management tools has been the complex vendor landscape and too many point products.

As a leading cloud provider, Sundara Raman, VP-RODE, Product Development, Ramco Systems, says their customers are using the public cloud computing model. He feels his customers fear the risk of lock-in and customisation as the biggest challenge on the cloud.

Cloud vendors have architected cloud applications with the bottom up approach to ensure better availability of applications as compared to the traditional applications, which are housed on-site. According to Raman, most of the cloud computing suppliers commit 99.5 per cent uptime and offer data security, which is compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which is too costly to achieve if a firm is to have its on-site application certified.

Besides, reports indicate that the level of availability and security, backup and disaster recovery offered by a SaaS supplier greatly exceeds the level which a company can provide if the application is housed on-site. Any e-commerce, CRM, or ERP application may run on a global or local scale in fewer months as compared to the time it will take to prepare software and servers on-site.

Taking Disadvantages in Stride
The flip side of using cloud, as per the IT Next survey, and the IT managers concerns have been the problem with system upgrades, uptime, scalability, maintenance, and security. These are often left to the cloud computing vendor and have kept several IT managers at bay.

Some other common disadvantages of cloud computing include restrictions in the applications, operating systems, and infrastructure options. The most irking factor for the IT managers is that the cloud service providers do not add any value as they can only offer what already exists. Also, a customer doesnt really know where the data is because everything is in the cloud.

But as a best practice, the IT managers expectations have been around opting for PCI Compliance; Private VLANs, network-layer firewalls and DDoS and Virtual Private Network among the best security practices. Among the others, 34 per cent of the respondents opted for lower capex, more streamlined business process; better ROI on IT investments and data centre efficiency as the business benefits they would like to observe using cloud.

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