Cloud Computing: No ‘vapour’ ware this…
Loading ...With the NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Conclave just around the corner, Cloud computing as a theme is on everyone’s mind. It is also the subject of a keenly debated topic on the EMERGE Community thread. So, in this issue of Bang for the Buck we thought it would be timely to synthesize viewpoints on how Small and Medium IT Businesses in India could leverage cloud computing, as well as offer some of our own thoughts.
Cloud building up
The one thing on which everyone is agreed is that, from an interest and utilization perspective, cloud computing is high on the agenda. A Forrester Enterprise and SMB Software Study for North America and Europe, conducted in Q4, 2008 showed that while over 20% of the companies surveyed were very interested in using SaaS models, around 10% were already piloting SaaS projects within their companies. Enterprise interest in cloud services is clearly growing – a key pointer for firms that tap these two big markets.
Cloud-based models
Before looking at how companies could and already are leveraging cloud computing, it would be relevant to pause and study the service segments that are evolving within cloud services offered by companies.
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): Offered here is infrastructure on which customers can deploy cloud applications. Other flavours include virtualized hosting, utility storage, etc
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): This is a hosted platform that can be used to create, run and operate applications.
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Most well known, this involves hosting of an entire application that can be customized by the customer and delivered over the Internet
Of the three, SaaS remains the most well known, and it is here we have begun to see plays among emerging and large companies alike (Zoho is one name that comes to mind). Lesser known but with equal potential are IaaS plays, as this offering is a logical extension to clients who are already outsourcing infrastructure maintenance services. India is yet to see a large scale IaaS play along the lines of Amazon EC3 or 3tera.
PaaS is also virgin territory – it travels up the value chain from PaaS to offer a virtual environment where users can create mash-ups and applications as required by business logic. Bangalore-based Wolf Frameworks is one of the early players in this field and has already helped several start-ups build-out their applications much faster than the traditional buy-install-build method.
The market traction for cloud services is borne put by some hard data put out by Gartner. The form predicts that in 2009, worldwide cloud-services revenue is expected to cross $56.3 billion, a 21.3 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $46.4 billion. At that rate, it is likely to reach $150.1 billion in 2013. The largest segment of this revenue will come from business processes being delivered as cloud services. This already accounted for 83 percent of the overall cloud market in 2008.
Advantage SMB
What’s interesting about the cloud services strategy is that it opens up new revenue possibilities and removes scaling disadvantages especially for SMB IT players. Take for example the example of Hexaware which recently announced that it would integrate Soasta’s CloudTest On-Demand service into its existing offering. This moves helps Hexaware provide its customers with a turnkey cloud testing service to achieve and maintain web sites and applications. Importantly Hexaware is now able to accomplish this without having to invest in setting up hardware and software testing infrastructure, saving in both time and opportunity costs.
Similarly companies could leverage cloud based infrastructures for porting applications to different environments and for one-off performance tests. Currently most companies need to turn to specialist labs or hardware loans from the likes of IBM, HP etc. While this is a workable option, it can be time-consuming (agreements need to be signed, schedules need to be matched etc). By taking advantage of cloud based infrastructure, smaller companies can scale development environments up and down, based on need.
The other way that SMBs can leverage the cloud model is to use cloud-based service for business utilities – office applications, internal systems for CRM and Human Resource management to name a few. A discussion thread on the EMERGE community listed useful (and free) hosted resources for everything from conferencing to email to web demo software. Here the issues confronting SMBs are pretty much the same as those for larger companies – and these hinge predominantly around data security. But unlike larger layers who can afford to run dedicated applications in-house, the cloud offers emerging companies the best shot at functioning according to globally benchmarked practices for key activities such as sales lead management and CRM.
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It’s nice to see Wolf Frameworks getting a mention. I have been spending quite some time in Wolf and really enjoying the interface and design tools.
We see Wolf and PaaS fitting well for the SMB’s as well as corporate workgroups. In addition it’s a great opportunity for non-technical entrepreneurs to move into the SaaS market by creating industry vertical solutions.