India is uniquely positioned to benefit from Cloud-based solutions for three reasons. First, there are more than 200 million connected mobile users — with 100 million on social media — in the country; this is an essential building block for a shift to Cloud.
Shailender Kumar, Managing Director, Oracle India notified that , India has the largest IT service businesses in the world across SIs (systems integrator) and they are now looking at adjacent revenue streams like the Cloud to take cost out. He further added that the government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative can only be successful if Cloud plays a key role.
Cloud computing accounted for about 33 percent of the total IT expenditure in 2015 across the world. In India, the overall Cloud computing market reached $1.08 billion by the end of last year and IT/ITeS, telecom, manufacturing and government sectors accounted for a bulk of this.
Among one of the first MNCs to invest in the country nearly 25 years back, Oracle is bullish on Cloud.
In April, Oracle CEO Safra Catz announced $400 million of investment in a technology hub Bengaluru, with the opening of the first “Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator” in India’s Silicon Valley.
Several more such centres are slated to be launched later in Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram and Vijayawada.
While there are a few regulated industries that require data centres in India, there are also customers who are more focused on choosing the right applications and platforms as opposed to where the data centre lies.
To alleviate data security fears, the company recently announced the “Oracle Cloud at Customer” solution.
Kumar pointed out that while there are concerns around data security in the country, a lot of the technologists in the country are quite skilled and are aware of what needs to be done. By following practices such as segregation of duties, on-disk encryption, data redaction and robust identity management, India can tackle security constraints
Kumar further adviced that sometimes, security is also used as a reason to avoid change because shifting to the Cloud involves change. Though worrying, companies that adopt the Cloud can emerge as winners .
By Baishakhi Dutta
