Cloud Computing: The Future and the Indian context

If you tell a child that you would be able to use Harry’s toys sitting at your house, surely he will be more than glad. This is what the positive of a cloud is. But, the same child fears that Tom may access his toys as well. That’s where the concerns for the cloud lie.
Cloud computing for sure in near future will be journey that knits consumers, technology, and business together. It’s a technology which lets you access things without the cost of ownership.
Wikipedia defines it as:
“Cloud computing is computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services just like electricity.”
Cloud computing is no longer just a “buzz” word limited to technology enthusiasts, but is a force to reckon with in modern business. The issue here is to see the contextual relevance of cloud services for the business – implementation remains the key to its success. Many a slip between the cup and the lip they say, so is the cloud. Allegations and issues with respect to security and authenticity remain, but the advantages are huge for both private and public sector.
The first major advantage is the flexibility and the facilities cloud offers - the amount of scalability various companies can aim for without having to pay a heavy price out of their pockets. What better time for it to grow especially after the recession where “cost cutting” was defined as a performance measure.
The second forte of cloud computing is the ease of use. It makes Information technology look like a common household service which is paid as per delivered. A unit price model enhancing the agility and reducing the cost and improved user adaptability seems a lot of feathers in the cap of cloud computing.
Are India and the enterprises in India ready for cloud computing? This remains a million dollar question.
Some indicators in the private sector are Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, JavaEE 6 on the cloud, Cloud Security & Privacy, Google App Engine, Cloud Data Migration, SaaS, Private Clouds, Open Source Cloud Platforms, and jClouds.
Strategic partnership between Microsoft and HP. TCS, WIPRO, Cognizant all the Indian biggies have started their cloud computing arms and extensive research is going on to develop a standard approach. It is akin to preparation for a war in near future in the technology domain wherein everyone wants to stay under the cloud. The major sectors where cloud can play an important role are:
• Banking
• Telecommunication
• Education
• Healthcare
Another important sector where there is a huge untapped potential especially in India is of E-governance, especially with the Aadhar project being launched successfully. A lot of things can work in parallel to get the governance on cloud. Reduced govt procedures more importantly reduce corruption at every level from the clerk to the manager in any government office. Further impact is felt in the reduction of overall costs and the precious as diamond “time”. Looking forward, India has a huge untapped SME as well as unorganized sectors which can be consolidated under the cloud thus having a huge revenue potential.
End of the day cloud is about digitizing the information and having a common server base. How does that help? Primarily in three ways:
• Documents, information in various departments exists in islands, thus cloud helps create a sea of information
• Secondly the data can flow in form of rivers as well to the various departments wherever required thus enhancing interdepartmental information flow.
• Thirdly “Server consolidation” leads to maximum utilization of servers and minimum costs inclusive of indirect costs of server cooling. As an environmentalist, it is a massive energy saving drive.
There are concerns regarding technology, piracy, security. There are issues concerning jurisdiction, administration, legal as well as policy. A committee needs to look into these issues. A list of standards needs to be carefully thought of by the Govt of India and strict monitoring should be implemented on the same. Since the technology is rapidly changing, so must the policy. There needs to be a continuous improvement process as far as the policy making in the cloud is concerned. India at the moment has no dedicated privacy laws, data protection laws and data security laws.
For example, the telecom players lobby would never allow regulation of telemarketing calls and messages in India. Neither the ministry of communication and information technology nor the telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) has seriously looked into such an affair.

With a lot of data including biometric data held by unique identification authority of India (UIDAI), of Indians would pass into the hands of such commercial players and can easily be misused.
Factually looking at the potential in the Indian market, India has 1.4 million developers, over 11,000 system integrators and more than 1,300 independent software vendors. In the next 5 years India could see the creation of 300,000 jobs in the cloud computing sector. Furthermore, the global cloud computing market is expected to touch a global turnover of $70 billion by 2015.

All in all cloud values your idea. It’s something where the corporate will say “The ideas matter” and ironically “the size does not matter anymore.”