CIOIN

If you’re still skeptical about that cloud SLA lying on your table, you risk being left behind. That’s a message your fortune cookie is most likely to read in 2012.

It’s a fact that more companies are choosing Internet-based services like the cloud over internally managed servers. And more organizations are moving to hybrid clouds than they ever did. This isn’t just based on gut.  According to CIO’s Cloud Computing Survey 2011, the number of enterprises that didn’t have cloud implementations as a part of their technology roadmap has shrunk considerably since 2009. While 19.7 percent of companies were disinterested in the technology in November 2009, the same number reduced to 13.2 percent at the start of 2011 and degenerated to the statistically insignificant 1.3 percent by November 2011.

That’s a clear indication of the fact that more CIOs are recognizing that the cloud has come of age.  “The cloud has definitely moved beyond just virtualization and has now matured to encompass all major setups in the horizontal plane—be it virtualized or not,” says Dharmesh Rathod, project lead-cloud implementation, AEGIS-IT Infrastructure Project Group, Essar India.

And that’s increasing the number of cloud implementations in enterprises. According to CIO’s cloud survey, in 2009 only 4.2 percent of Indian CIOs had cloud projects running in their organizations. But that number jumped to 29.2 percent in January 2011—and to 63.6 percent last month, according to CIO research. 

Rush Hour 

There’s more than one reason why CIOs are quickly queuing up to get their enterprises on some form of the cloud: private, public or hybrid—and why they are keen now. 

The fluctuating economy has put IT departments under pressure to deliver new products and IT services throughout the year, rapidly, and at short notice.  That’s why CIOs are turning to the cloud to provide businesses with that edge.

Then there’s the regular churn at the mid-tier level that leaves a gap in terms of competency  within IT departments. Moving to the cloud could help organizations make these problems more irrelevant. 

Also, as more and more companies opt to focus on their core business, they will turn to outsourcing and managed services. And this, in turn, will encourage the public cloud. “Advertising, marketing, media and campaign management, for example, are global favorites to be introduced to public hosting,” says Biswajeet Mahapatra, research director at Gartner.

Suiting Up for the Cloud

There are as many—and more—benefits of moving to the cloud as there are causes. About 75 percent of Indian CIOs cited scalability- on-demand, cost, and flexibility to the business as the primary reason for moving to the cloud.  “Frequent upgrades to existing infrastructure is the new norm today. So, the lifecycle of an IT product plays a crucial role. The cloud, hence, is a better option as it saves costs and time,” says R. D. Malav, VP-IT at Jindal Polyfilms. Malav also falls in the bracket of CIOs that are running mission-critical applications on the cloud. The company’s ERP and CRM run on a private cloud, while its mail management system sits on a public cloud. This hybrid model will soon become the norm. According to CIO’s survey a little over 70 percent of respondents favor the hybrid model, with just 37 percent preferring private clouds.

That’s because a standalone private cloud can only do so much. Its limitations, says Anil Khopkar, VP (MIS) at Bajaj Auto, come to light when organizations are in dire need of capacity and are restricted by costs. “The needs of various customers are shared efficiently through a public cloud in the very nick of time. The key here is capacity-on-demand,” says Khopkar. He has migrated the company’s CRM to a private cloud and has moved his mail system to the public cloud. 

Another proponent of the hybrid model is Essar India. With its VDI running on a private cloud, the company is running four of its business apps on the public cloud. It’s also in the process of moving more apps to the public space.

“We learnt several lessons from our pilot implementations and that made us prepare better for our upcoming public cloud ventures,” says Rathod. At Essar, a dedicated team has been  set up to analyze how, when and what application can move to the public cloud. “This year we’ll be raring for public cloud experiences with a larger magnitude,” he says.

There’s no doubt that cloud computing has managed to change its impression on Indian CIOs but business still needs convincing. One way to do that, says Rathod, is to clearly spell out the existing stage of any application that is chosen to be migrated. This means effective design and planning with meticulous checkpoints to tap cost benefits. 

“I convinced business with a tap-the-quick-gain approach: Tell them that the cloud will achieve ROI in no time. Capex reduction with indicative figures and opex control is what business considers.  But we still have a long way to go with respect to data flow,” says Rathod. And as far as security is concerned, Rathod’s advice is to not depend solely on the cloud service provider. “We bank on in-house security implantations as well,” he says.

With Indian enterprises fearlessly willing to adopt the hybrid model to reap better benefits, the cloud is far from narrowing itself down. 

As enterprises deal with global economic tremors, tight budgets, and a volatile market this year, the cloud will rain business in India.