Right Choice Of Cloud Model Is Critical To Successful Deployment

As a CIO, it can be quite overwhelming to be faced with the volley of questions that arise while making the leap to cloud computing. It would be ideal to have one cloud solution for all companies across all verticals, a wishful CIO might think. Instead, he is hounded by doubts on the security of cloud, acceptance of hybrid cloud, pricing model offered by different Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), which cloud model to choose from and what is the right time to move to the cloud.

I have seen lot of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) turning into CSPs. Merely having the bandwidth and datacentres does not mean this transformation is valid. Companies such as Amazon and Salesforce.com which offer Cloud-as-a-Service, function very differently.

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Before a decision to move on to cloud is taken, we should understand if our applications are ready to move onto cloud. Enterprises can look at solutions from companies such as Oracle, Siebel, and SAP which work with ISPs to develop applications which can be used on cloud.

Services like SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and EaaS (Email-as-a-Service) are gaining popularity by the day. Some are even obliterating the need for conventional means. To quote an example, building an email platform isn’t necessary anymore. Instead, services of email service providers can be chosen. This is applicable to any vertical.

Making the right choice between private and public cloud is not easy. I think it’s the combination that will work. Well, definition of hybrid cloud changes with organisations. We see two different set of views amongst the CIO community. One set of CIOs think that cloud may not work for them even for the relatively smaller services like email. CIOs in the Government and PSU sectors are opening to cloud but there is a still a lot of resistance, despite widespread availability of security solutions.

I think a major advantage that can drive cloud adoption is that there is no upfront investment. This can be a selling point to management and since data can be controlled by companies, enterprises need to open up to the idea of cloud. The only deciding factor is the cloud model and pricing that fits your bill.

Our HRMS application is on a private cloud. We have developed it in-house and it is hosted from Bangalore, for access across our delivery centres. This is developed as an intranet portal and manages the complete employee life cycle such as employee on boarding, attendance, leave applications, inputs to payroll, etc. We have built an elaborate security system to detect and prevent vulnerabilities. Access control rights are controlled based on the profile of the users. From a business stand point, we are constantly identifying opportunities to migrate to the cloud and the timings of investment will be based on various parameters including current residual value of the infrastructure, support systems available with the OEM, necessity in the business and so on. Adoption to cloud model has worked well for our business. I think the right approach is to take a hard look at the infrastructure and identifying the right cloud model that best suits the organisation needs.