Cloud: IT's Silver Lining

"The sky knows the reason and patterns behind all clouds, and you will know
too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons" -Richard Bach

This is what IT companies of all hues and sizes are doingexpanding their
horizons and reaching for the clouds. The old adagesky is the limithas infected
the tech space. Cloud computing is a good thing because it comes at a time when
the economy is showing signs of recovery from one of the worst recessions that
has altered the egos of even some of the biggest organizations of the world. In
some ways, the very recession is acting as a catalyst for the enormous interest
on cloud, which promises to deliver IT as services in most cost effective
manner. Reflecting on this disruptive development, Paul Roehrig, Director,
Cognizant says, "We are at the beginning of a profound and disruptive shift in
enterprise technology. Although cloud enabled services are certainly not simple
solutions for every technology challenge, they are maturing rapidly and present
game changing business opportunities, when properly deployed and woven together
with traditional application, infrastructure, and business process delivery
modes."

The Solutions Landscape

Experts say that cloud computing, by blurring the lines between an
infrastructure and consulting services provider, poses a very interesting
questionDo you want to be an asset owning or a non-asset owning service
provider? Providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Google, etc, provide
options for public cloud computing, by owning the data centre and the
infrastructure required to run a public cloud. Putting this thought in
perspective Raghavan Subramanian, AVP-SETLabs, Infosys Technologies says,
"Providers in the asset space must have data centre management expertise,
ability to handle scale and the ability to innovate at a rapid pace. Providers
should also resist temptations to create deliberate exit barriers with the
intent of locking customers. Providers that are averse to owning assets can play
in the enabling technology space by providing technologies to set-up a private
cloud infrastructure or in the consulting space by helping customers with their
cloud strategy, roadmap, and migration of existing and creation of new
applications, maintenance and management of applications on cloud".

So, the bigger opportunity for service providers lies in consulting. Clearly
cloud providers in the consulting space must have alliances with different
infrastructure providers as well as technology providers to be able to provide
the right solutions framework for their clients. The cloud computing model can
be looked at from two perspectives. The first is from the vendor side which
comprises the service offerings or what they are delivering to their customers
using the cloud. The second is, how the organizations are internally using it.
Says Satish Joshi, EVP and Global Head- Technology and Innovation, Patni, "If we
look at the entire ecosystem, there are different product and solution vendors.
They can be broadly categorized into three areasone, vendors of product,
specific software tools that are used to either build a cloud or use the cloud
to run applications. Two, the enterprises that build their own cloud and end
users, run their applications in it and three, applicators or integrators which
are enterprises that take the products from the first category of vendors and
cloud services from second category of vendors."

However, experts caution that it is important for enterprises to keep in mind
that cloud services will not simply replace traditional delivery modes
overnight. Providers do not see that happening at the enterprise level. What
Cloud is ushering in, is the potential for leveraging services in different ways
when it comes to IT infrastructure configurationsin premise, off site or a
hybrid model cloud back bone with each having its unique deliverables. The
solutions landscape right now is spread across three broad areas Saas, PaaS and
IaaS and every vendor is trying to differentiate themselves in one or more areas
and pitch their expertise.

Cloud computing works only with an ecosystem in place and the solutions and
services depend on whole lot of constituents that make up the cloud delivery.
The biggest challenge is in creating this ecosystem that is best aligned with
enterprise requirements. Since cloud computing works in a highly connected
environment, it is by and large a network driven activity. So, any provider or a
user must have a good network backbone to reap the benefits of the cloud. "In
essence, cloud computing is a network driven approach to managing IT, because it
relies on the network to deliver IT services, functionality and value," says
Prem Nithin, Principal Consultant, Cisco India and SAARC.

Shrikanth G

Source: DQ