Tata Communications launches its IZO Cloud Storage platform

Tata Communications recently launched IZO Cloud Storage, the storage service portfolio that adds to its IZO cloud enablement platform. IZO Cloud Storage is designed to address enterprises’ complex storage demands, as volume of unstructured data such as videos, social media posts, images, emails and customer details pile up in the enterprise, says the company. CR Srinivasan, Global Head, Data Centre Services and CDN Business, Tata Communications speaks to Tech2 about the cloud computing landscape and what the company aims to achieve with its IZO ecosystem. Talking about the companies embarking on their cloud journey, Srinivasan says that typically, CIOs starting the cloud data journey think of security. The second one is business agility, how can they show real value to business. Having said that, most enterprises do have cloud at the top of their strategy. And most enterprises have moved to cloud in some way - for instance HR information system or email. Other issues that CIOs tend to mull over are connectivity and end user performance. “Keeping that aside, most of the CIOs are very familiar with the cloud journey, unlike the past five years, where they were not sure of the difference between public cloud and private cloud,” explains Srinivasan. Another issue that Srinivasan highlights is that of showing real business value of cloud initiatives. “At Tata Communications, we work very closely with the CIO and we undertake cloud workshops with them to understand their business requirements, the benefits are measured and the agility that it can provide. Our basic process starts with a cloud workshop to understand what their requirements are.” He explains that in cases where a company is transitioning from one infrastructure to another, then the value of cloud is clearly attainable because they are in investing in infrastructure that is new, might as well invest in cloud, because that is the technology of future. “And, it gives agility, it gives the ability to look like a service provider within the organisation,” adds Srinivasan. And the expectations don’t stop at convincing the top management of the value of cloud. Srinivasan cites the example of an instant messenger to explain expectations from the end user. “If you use the instant messenger, you can sign up for anyone and you will immediately get access, and one wants the same thing in the corporate world as well,” he says. He adds that Tata Communication aims to address this by demonstrating how to provide value to the end users and how to completely align with the business requirements of the enterprise. “So we have workshops of different levels, business workshops with senior leadership explaining them the value that can be derived out of the same and at a technical level we work with them to architect the cloud using our concepts, our platform, our solutions; all these three things put together effectively to provide a cloud solution that makes real meaningful sense from a business value perspective,” explains Srinivasan. Srinivasan points out that the quality of the Internet connection in homes or offices, even for the small businesses has significantly improved. “Businesses in India are now thinking of using the Internet for mission critical purposes because they are more reliable,” he says. Coming back to the IZO portfolio, Srinivasan says Tata Communications is working on multiple facets of the enterprise CIO’s problems with respect to the cloud. He shares they already have the solutions for connectivity and security. With IZO Cloud Storage, the company aims to provide a platform to address diverse range of storage demands - be it high volume, high performance, archiving or storage for unstructured data.