Datacenters Everywhere

As the market this year prepares to take off, Cisco offers an insight into
the datacenter and cloud computing opportunities

With the economic gradually picking up the momentum, the scenario does seem
bright for the IT manufacturing space.

Sharing his views over the market scenario Sameer Mishra, Regional
Manager-Advanced Technology Channels, Cisco India and SAARC said, "Cloud
computing is a part of the global transformation that has changed the way
businesses and consumers want to access networking, IT, entertainment, and
application services. According to IDC's recently released report titled 'Data
Center Delivered Services: The Service Provider Opportunity', the market
opportunity for services delivered from cloud-based infrastructures will reach
nearly $40 billion in 2009 and grow to $73 billion by 2015. While this
projection encompasses a range of applications, it reflects existing service
segments in which delivery is currently migrating to cloud/datacenter-delivered
models."

Market Trends

According to him, the next-generation datacenters have started playing a
vital and enabling role in the essential process of services being delivered and
can now accelerate service providers' efforts to make themselves key
participants in the emerging world of virtualized cloud services. The sheer size
and growth of the cloud/datacenter-delivered services opportunity have started
attracting a variety of players from adjacent markets. Hence, the
datacenter-centric cloud computing model provides a new paradigm for rapid and
flexible service creation and provisioning.

The Impact

Cloud computing is a network-driven approach to manage IT, because it relies
on the network to deliver IT services, functionality and value.

Mishra said that Cisco is bringing its deep understanding of networks and its
ecosystem of partners to develop a trusted approach to cloud computing,
including much-needed advancements in cloud security, reliability and
interoperability. Also Cisco offers a Unified Service Delivery approach, which
is a comprehensive end-to-end solution that unifies networking, compute, and
storage elements across the service provider's network into an integrated
platform for the secure, efficient, reliable delivery of services.

It delivers benefits inside the four walls of the datacenter, between the
datacenters, and to the end user experience, and acts a pathway to the eventual
delivery of cloud services by the provider. "At Cisco we believe the future of
computing must encompass diverse technologies and business models, with
contributions from a rich ecosystem of players. Our network platform enables the
rapid, safe, and flexible deployment of Cloud capabilities. We provide choice
along multiple dimensions, from the type of service you want to consume to the
deployment model that is most appropriate for your applications. We allow a
pragmatic evolution within the revolution and our technologies safeguard your
investments. With our ecosystem of partners, Cisco stands ready to help you
capture the Cloud opportunity," added Mishra.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is an infrastructure architecture that combines
virtualization, orchestration, multi-tenancy; and unified, scalable pools of
hardware, software, and network resources to enable dynamic,

on-demand delivery of IT and application functionality. For service providers,
the datacenter-centric cloud computing model provides a new paradigm for rapid
and flexible service creation and provisioning. This framework can yield
benefits similar to those that came with the migration to consolidated IP-based
networking, namely, the creation of a common integrated platform for multiple
service provider offerings and customer use cases.

"Cisco believes that the network platform is a foundational component of
cloud. The network is critical to provide intelligent connectivity within and
beyond the datacenter. It also enables distinctive functionality in a secure,
trusted, and ubiquitous platform. For example, the unified computing and unified
fabric in our datacenter platform enables high workload consolidation while
offering segmented service level guarantees and security policies over a
stateless hardware infrastructure. Our datacenter architecture supports bare
metal deployments, virtualization, and private, hybrid, and public clouds all on
top of the same technology foundation," said Mishra.

Datacenter-based cloud services has gained significant traction with
enterprises undergoing a change in the way they expect delivery of cloud
services.

Elucidating on the topic whether the verticals are opting for their own
datacenters or hiring them Mishra said, "When the topic of cloud comes up, the
conversation often centers on the newest technologies and the latest service
provider offerings. However, we believe every conversation needs to begin with
an understanding of the expected business outcomes. Cisco comes across as a
market leader in security, which offers spanning firewalls, virtual private
networks, router security, and more. The requirements of the business customers
look for vendors who have deep experience in video, datacenter, content
distribution networks, and cloud. On the other hand, citizen services opt for
community cloud architectures that would provide access to a wide range of
services from a single community portal at any time of the day."

Minakshi Shetty

minakshis@cybermedia.co.in