Building its own 'Qloud'

Cloud computing is an emerging approachto shared infrastructure in which largepools of systems are linked together toprovide IT services. The need for suchenvironments is fulled by dramatic growth inconnected devices, real-time data streams, andthe adoption of service-oriented architecturesand Web 2.0 applications. Continuing advancesin the performance of digital components hasresulted in a massive increase in the scale ofIT environments, driving the need to managethem as a unified cloud.

Taking a step in the same direction and toaddress the industry concerns, QuantM NetTechnologies, one of the leading systemintegrators and foremost providers ofconsulting, technology and outsourcingservices, has announced the launch ofits own cloud computing offering,called 'Qloud Computing' and alsounveiled its new datacenter, 'TheCitadel' in association with IBM.

The company has extended its ITinfrastructure offerings and servicesportfolio with Qloud Computing andby introducing India's first carrierneutral datacenter by a tier-2 SI. Itsnew datacenter, which focuses oncloud computing, will help its clientstake full advantage of integrating cloudcomputing into their IT and businessstrategy. QuantM plans to leverage thefast developing cloud computing market that has the potential to createsignificant value for customers in termsof scale, flexibility, reducing time tomarket, environmental efficiency andgiven the economic climate, perhapsthe most important feature of reducedcapital expenditure.

According to QuantM, worldwide revenuefrom public IT cloud services exceeded $16billion in 2009 and is forecast to reach $55.5billion in 2014, representing a compound annualgrowth rate (CAGR) of 27.4 percent. This rapidgrowth rate is over five times the projectedrate of growth for traditional IT products (fivepercent). These figures further illustrates thatpublic IT cloud services are crossing the chasmwith modest revenue, but very fast growth.

For QuantM, cloud computing is criticallyimportant for two key reasons-market growthand leadership disruption. The cloud modelwill propel IT market growth and help theindustry to more rapidly penetrate small andmedium-sized businesses. According to PawanKhurana, CEO of QuantM Net Technologies,the company wants every business tounderstand the benefits of cloud computingand the mature services that it delivers so thatthey can save money without giving up speed,reliability, flexibility, and performance and tobe able to get up and running with the servicesquickly and easily. The benefits of the QuantMcloud capability will be particularly relevant intoday's economic climate and the companywants its clients to be able to take advantageof QuantM Qloud offerings.

“Here, we would like to mention that it is amajor achievement for a tier-2 SI to have itsown datacenter with respect to its offerings, asit provides more depth and reliability on theirown IT infrastructure. It also helps capturingthe business need of high-volume high marginsegments,” Khurana said. Moreover, with its owndatacenter, a SI leverages the liberty of designingthe offerings, create various flavors incollaboration with different applications andsoftware, build the cloud in offering mode,deploy the applications, build the fulfillmentmodels, prepare the menu card, and nurturethe infrastructure. Besides, the SI can packagethe offering, build the reseller, and target theindustry vertical rather than depending on anyother partner's competency.

“It is very important to understand the roleof an SI in Qloud play. Cloud is eventuallynothing else but a delivery model. The coretechnology and feature/functionality is goingto regain its position as the top most decisionmaking criteria for any application or solution.This will bring to forefront the skills of an SIwho can collaborate with multiple technologyvendors established as well as emerging playersand create a bouquet of offerings for itscustomers. This bouquet will consist of threeparts-finished services being offered by theSI as a reseller, SI's own set of offerings createdusing cloud as delivery platform, and ISVofferings hosted on SI's cloud,” opined Khurana.

QuantM today is moving in the direction ofbeing that Qloud player. With a rich heritage ofproviding enterprise class IT infrastructuresolutions for last 16 years to its customer,QuantM is well positioned to be a strong playerin this emerging business oppor-tunity. The company's primary focusis on the SMB segment. It is currentlycollaborating on Qloud computinginitiatives with select mix industryverticals from manufacturing,telecom ISV, universities, Internet-based enterprises retail, includingglobal organizations preferring tooutsource/setting up IT infrastructurein India.

“With respect to the SMBsegment, which we intend to cater,this sector has serious concernsabout the maturity of cloud compu-ting offerings, specifically aroundsecurity, availability, cost monitoring/management, integration, andstandards. QuantM intends toaddress these concerns through awell planned and architected set ofsolutions using a secure and testeddelivery framework which customerscan trust,” Khurana asserted.Meanwhile, the company's first objective is tolaunch and take these solutions to the marketsand establish itself. It is also open to formingstrategic marketing/delivery alliances with otherplayers if it adds value to its business and helpsthe company deliver more comprehensivebouquet of solutions to its customers.

In addition, QuantM will keep launchingmore services and offerings as the marketmatures and customer base grows. Some of theother offerings envisaged are joint initiativeswith some ISVs to roll out their applications onQloud, along with some other basic productivityapplications such as office productivity tools,secure messaging platforms and many more.

NIVEDAN PRAKASH(nivedanp@cybermedia.co.in)