Cloud computing is purely a new way of looking at and talking about virtual servers. It has evolved over the years. Earlier Cloud Computing used to be a vulnerable technology with lots of scope to exploit and misuse organization data, as the prime focus was on providing users with a place to Store data from the internet and saving users from spending on storage or physical servers. Over the years the focus has shifted to securing cloud computing and providing a positive environment so that the Data is obtainable in High Availability Mode.
The cloud is the No. 1 topic among CIOs from around the world. Cloud Computing is helping organizations drive business agility, reduce costs, and address the issues of elasticity of demand. Going beyond the realm of virtualization, which helped organizations ensure optimum utilization of infrastructure, cloud is providing enterprises with the flexibility to size and pay for normal workloads using the infrastructure that they already have. This way, they are now able to resolve the peak spikes seamlessly using a pay-per-use model without the pain of paying for unused capacity. With the flexibility of adopting a private, public or hybrid cloud model, enterprises now have the choice of balancing their fixed and variable costs on account of infrastructure befitting their business model. A lot of software we use today at the enterprise level is hosted in the cloud and consumed by users under the SaaS model, and more and more, IaaS and PaaS providers are taking over traditional on-premises deployments of IT applications and infrastructure.
Today, cloud computing has emerged as a new era in IT and is at the top of the agenda for every CIO.As per the industry reports, the market in India is estimated at around $400 million and is expected reach $4.5 billion by 2015. Given its transformational and innovative potential, Cloud is mostly seen as a tool for operation efficiency. Today, many organizations are evaluating which cloud environment is appropriate for their businesses.
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Rajesh Awasthi,
Director – Telecom and Cloud Service Provide,
NetApp India
With CIOs embracing new technologies and service models that deliver IT faster, cheaper, and smarter, enterprises have become more responsive towards the concept of cloud computing. Public cloud computing is at the forefront of this dramatic shift in IT. Offering predictable costs, faster provisioning, and infinite scale, more organizations are incorporating these cloud resources into their IT mix. Throwing some more light on this, Rajesh Awasthi, Director – Telecom and Cloud Service Provide, NetApp India comments, “As per NetApp Cloud Computing is IT delivered as a Service. We understand how external cloud services play an increasing role in the IT plans of most enterprises. To facilitate this evolution to the cloud, we’ve developed a global network of world-class service provider partners that deliver a comprehensive portfolio of cloud services built on NetApp technology. Today many companies are already achieving the enhanced flexibility and efficiency of cloud computing by working with our service-provider partners.” In Cloud environment, which is shared infrastructure to deliver operational efficiency, NetApp provides secure multi-tenant infrastructure and management. This technology is certified by independent 3rd party industry bodies like PCI, FISMA and HIPAA etc.
Data Protection in the Cloud Era
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Prof. Ramola Kumar,Dean,
The Delhi School of Communication
Security is a key concern for all enterprises. But the business drivers for adopting the cloud-based model far outweigh the threats that surround it. IT teams will be forced to adopt cloud technologies by business teams if they are not proactive enough to embrace it and work through the security challenges that emerge. As a security measure against Data Breaches & Cloud Security threats, one needs to identify all sensitive data handled, its curators and its storage locations. Conducting an inventory of your company’s sensitive data is an essential step in safeguarding the information. “The usual limitations of the Internet always apply to cloud computing. This limitation can lead to delays caused by malevolent attack. We should implement strong Authentication techniques with multi-level Authentication Parameters to safeguard the data. Also strong Encryption Standards should be implemented to Encrypt data traversing over the internet”, Prof. Ramola Kumar, Dean, The Delhi School of Communication comments.
Besides the above mentioned techniques, there are also some techniques that could be implemented to ensure organization reduce the risk exposure like secure connections between your resources on the cloud and non-cloud. Also, use cloud only for handling peak load needs rather than mainstream application solution, etc. moreover, the application design needs to take care of data flow, storage and retrieval policies and controls in the application. If the solution takes advantage of computing on the cloud, it is important to understand what confidential data is flowing between the systems in the cloud and how they are kept secure.
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Vijeth H.S., Sr. Solutions
Manager - IT Product Line
Huawei Enterprise Business Group
Following this, organizations, both big and small must take into account whether their vendors are a good fit in terms of scale and in terms of expertise. If the vendor has an understanding about the environment, about technicalities etc. he/she will be better disposed to offer assistance and can work with you to minimize risks. The most obvious precaution to bear in mind is to be explicit in service level agreements and to ensure compliance from both parties. “The most crucial way to protect their data and business is to themselves understand the functioning of the cloud, where information will be stored, how much access a third party will have to the IT architecture, specifically sensitive information etc. Gaining this knowledge is the key to effective use of cloud solutions, and of course helps in better disaster preparedness in the event of a breach or unexpected breakdown of services”, comments Vijeth H.S., Sr. Solutions Manager - IT Product Line, Huawei Enterprise Business Group.
Cloud Computing: The Game Changer
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Muralidharan Ramachandran,
CIo,
Syntel
Syntel has deployed two private clouds within the organization—one based on the Microsoft System Center stack and the other using Open Stack. While their entire test and development environment is hosted on the private cloud platform, the company is also moving most of its already virtualized production workloads into stacks to deliver the business benefits mentioned above. Muralidharan Ramachandran, CIO, Syntel says that while challenges around technology limitations and capabilities are addressed through newer releases which address the features required, the biggest challenge is always around people and skills. Challenges around enhancing skills of resources from the traditional silos of network, computing and storage to having cloud administration and implementation skills were challenges that needed to be addressed.
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Dhanya Thakkar, MD,
India & SAARC
Trend Micro
Micro began its own journey to the cloud with the development of the Smart Protection Network infrastructure more than five years ago. By providing more complete threat intelligence, faster threat detection and blocking, and smaller pattern file updates, Smart Protection Network has proved the efficacy of cloud-based protection. While delivering security from the cloud, they've taken an active role in advancing security technologies for the cloud. As an early adopter of virtualization and cloud computing, Trend Micro gained a clear understanding of the challenges to extending threat protection into emerging cloud environments, resulting in product innovations that lead the industry and continue to evolve. Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, Trend Micro (India & SAARC) said, “We continue to expand the capabilities of Smart Protection Network by applying big data analytics to keep pace with the volume, variety, and velocity of today’s threats.”
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Mrinal Chatterjee,
Vice Presindent ,
ShopClues
ShopClues which is also a growing e-commerce destinations, is BIG believer of Cloud computing and SaaS solutions. Cloud computing is in the heart of ShopClues strategy. Cloud offers flexibility that they can on demand acquire more computing needs during peak load times without incurring a big fixed cost. Cloud facilitates collaboration, it facilitates quick deployment, and many more. Mrinal Chatterjee, Vice president, Engineering, ShopClues shares his views. He says, “It is really important for the enterprises to understand where and how they want to deploy cloud computing and pick the solution provider accordingly.”
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P K Mohankumar,
MD & CEO,
Roots Corporation Ltd.
Roots Corporation (RCL) which operates the Ginger chain of hotels have already implemented Cloud computing. Uptime was area of concern but we have built redundancy to ensure business continuity. Speaking about the challenges concerned with Cloud Computing implementation, P K Mohankumar, MD & CEO, Roots Corporation Ltd says, “Some common challenges faced by most companies are data location, technical issues, security, compliance requirements and disaster recovery.” At Nagarro, they have recently moved their mail, messaging, and collaboration solution to the cloud. There are 3 aspects to their cloud computing strategy: one, using cloud based platforms to run enterprise applications for their own use; two, use cloud based platforms as development tools; and three, use cloud based platforms to host solutions that we develop for their customers. Vaibhav Gadodia, VP, Technology, Nagarro said, “All 3 require us to have a very solid and continuously evolving understanding of what is available in the cloud computing space – since this space changes very rapidly.”
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Vaibhav Gadodia,
VP, Technology
Nagarro
Future ahead for Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has been called the way of the future. With the rapid development of cloud-computing technologies, technology and applications have become more accessible and more business applications and entire business functions have moved into the cloud. Given the numerous benefits of the cloud model including business scalability, cost flexibility and ecosystem connectivity, leading companies across sectors and verticals will adopt cloud-based strategies. Muralidharan Ramachandran, CIO, Syntel Inc opinies, “My personal belief is that private cloud models will be widely adopted for all critical applications, while public cloud will be deployed for non-critical applications giving a hybrid model. Organizations will also adopt the hybrid model using their in-house private cloud environment to ensure utilization of infrastructure that has already been procured and bursting into the public cloud for peak loads, thus eliminating the need for hardware upgrades to cater to peak demand.”
The cloud computing will continue to grow rapidly and will become global. In many ways, the cloud is already global as companies all over the world are using cloud-based tools every day. However, as cloud services continue to evolve, they will allow an ever-greater degree of communication and collaboration across organizations of all sizes. In practice, this will mean more systems will be able to operate seamlessly across multiple locations by providing local capabilities like multi-currency financial tools and multi-language interfaces, among many others.
Finally…
At the end, it is true to say that the Cloud industry will continue to see growth and will form the foundation block for driving business agility. As enterprises leverage the capabilities and potential of social media, big data and analytics, and the power of mobility to create disruptive business models, the cloud will act as a great technology lever and base to drive these business requirements.
For more details contact :
satinder@varindia.com
