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Cloud adoption in India Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Trends and perceptions in the Indian market

Cloud Computing Adoption in India

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Cloud adoption in IndiaInfrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Trends and perceptions in the Indian market

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2 Cloud adoption in India

The cloud computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market is at a nascent stage both

globally and in India. Across industry segments, the Indian market has shown signicant

interest in the potential of IaaS services. Virtualization, often seen as the rst step in a

cloud strategy, has begun to be more widely implemented across Indian data centers.

Related markets such as Software as a Service (SaaS) is experiencing increased

adoption and this can be expected to contribute to a more rapid implementation of the

IaaS concept. However, there are signicant barriers to adoption, including the absence of

an IaaS ecosystem and the lack of awareness of available services on the part of

potential buyers.

This report is an attempt to reach out to chief information ofcers (CIOs) and analyze

their expectations from, and perceptions of, the Indian IaaS market and draw relevant

inferences for the entire IaaS ecosystem. It intends to dene areas that will benet

1. Executive summary 04

2. The Indian IaaS market 06

2.1 Drivers for cloud IaaS services in the Indian market 06

2.2 Barriers to adoption in the Indian market 07

2.2 Familiarity with cloud-computing concepts 08

2.3 Perception of cloud computing 09

2.4 Timeframe for adoption 10

3. Perceived benets of implementing cloud IaaS services 11

3.1 Perceived operational and business benets 11

3.2 Moving to an OPEX model 13

2

Appendix A: models of cloud computing 25

Appendix B: the global cloud market 26

Appendix C: IaaS and the enterprise 29Appendix D: addressing security concerns 32

Appendix E: customizing the cloud 34

Contents

Foreword

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3Cloud adoption in India 33

4. Perceived challenges to cloud IaaS services adoption 15

4.1 Perceived technical, business and environment challenges 15

5. Expectation from vendors 19

5.1 Preferred pricing models 19

5.2 Preferred channel for cloud services 20

5.3 Enterprise expectation of security and controls framework 20

5.4 Vendor assessment criteria 21

6. Recommendations 22

6.1 Recommendations for service providers 22

6.2 Recommendations for enterprises 23

most from a conversation between emerging cloud IaaS service providers and interested

enterprises in the Indian market. The primary data for this report was collected through an

Ernst & Young administered survey among leading enterprises and interviews conducted

with IaaS ecosystem players.

I hope the ndings of this research provide you with valuable insights and I encourage you

to share with us your comments, questions and suggestions. I look forward to continuing

our discussions on this constantly evolving and exciting space.

Milan Sheth

August 2010

Appendix F: benets of implementing cloud IaaS services 38

Appendix G: challenges in shifting to a cloud IaaS model 40

Appendix H: cloud enabling technologies: virtualization 41Appendix I: About the study 42

Sources: 43

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4 Cloud adoption in India

1. Executive summary

Cloud computing IaaS brings utility computing closer to reality. It has the potential to

change the way IT hardware is purchased, designed and used. With its promise of innite

scalability and a pay-as-you-go pricing model, the primary benet that cloud IaaS services

extends to the large enterprise is greater business effectiveness at lower IT costs. For the

small and medium business (SMB) segment, cloud IaaS services lower barriers to market

growth by lowering technology costs and upfront investments.

What are the primary drivers of cloud adoption in India likely to be?

On the demand side, improving high-speed connectivity, an emerging SMB segment

investing in IT infrastructure and increasing enterprise data center expenditure are

drivers that are expected to contribute to a growing cloud IaaS market. From the supply

perspective, a maturing traditional IT market and an extremely competitive third-party

data center market are likely to be primary drivers of cloud IaaS services.

Our survey targeted CIOs of enterprises belonging to both the SMB and large enterprises

segments. On the buyer side, despite the low visibility of IaaS vendor services in the

market, most CIOs surveyed are aware of, and have expressed interest in, the concept and

the potential benets of moving at least part of their applications to servers and storage

on the cloud. The following are among the key ndings from the survey:

Positive perceptions, awareness levels and expected timelines for adoption are•

indicative of a market that is ready to experiment with cloud IaaS services.

Effective communication from service providers at this stage should dispel some of the•

concerns that enterprises have around ecosystem maturity.

The SMB segment is more attuned to the benets and challenges of the cloud.•

Furthermore, the maturity of the ecosystem is less of a deterrent to the SMB segment.

This makes the SMB segment ideal to approach as an initial adopter of cloud IaaS

services.

Enterprises perceive data security and privacy as the biggest barrier to adoption.•

Third-party data service providers and traditional IT service providers are being viewed•

as the primary channels for enterprises to buy cloud services from. Such providersshould play a pivotal role in bringing the ecosystem together.

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5Cloud adoption in India

Both enterprises and service providers are likely to benet from a consultative approach

and in-depth discussions with cloud IaaS service providers in the following areas:

The differentiating benets of cloud IaaS services•

Pricing structures, nancial models and return on investment (ROI) that a cloud•

adopter can expect from moving to the cloud

Guidelines and benchmarks to help enterprises select applications that are most•

suitable for adopting either the private or the public cloud models

Addressing security and data privacy issues satisfactorily•

Extending customer support to adopters of the technology•

For the purpose of this report, IaaS includes both computing/processing capacity and the

storage capacity available through remote virtual server infrastructure.

The cloud services ecosystem is evolving rapidly. Active participation from both service

providers and enterprises at this juncture will help create a more robust ecosystem and

shorter time to adoption. In this report, we evaluate the opportunities, advantages and

challenges for cloud computing infrastructure as a service adoption in India.

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6 Cloud adoption in India

2. The Indian IaaS market

At present, the Indian market does not have a mature ecosystem that supports cloud

IaaS services. As such, the cloud IaaS market in India is yet to take off. A few players from

the service provider segment such as Tata Communications, Wipro and NetMagic have

announced services that are likely to evolve into more stable cloud offerings.

Tata Communications, for example, offers its customers an advanced virtualized

environment with exible arrangements to enhance capacity. On the consumer side, Airtel

is offering Net PCs, low-cost online computers with processing capability accessible over

the net. Infrastructure providers of the cloud such as VMWare, NetApp and IBM havecrystallized offerings for the private cloud, and have taken proactive steps in educating

the consumer on the benets of cloud IaaS services. Some of the challenges the market

currently faces include:

Ecosystem maturity•

Customer awareness of services•

Connectivity•

The market is seeing a concerted effort in the related Software as a Service (SaaS) space.

The SaaS market is increasingly gaining acceptance in the SMB segment, indicating a shift

in the thought process of CIOs and IT decision makers. A recent NASSCOM EmergeOut

session, held in August 2009, focused on SaaS and the cloud market. The IaaS market is

also likely to benet from the increasing maturity of these related markets.

2.1 Drivers for cloud IaaS services in the Indian market

While the market is currently at an embryonic stage, the presence of several positive

drivers lends to the promise of cloud IaaS services evolving into a fast-growth segment.

SMB segment: The size of the Indian SMB market exceeds that of any other country in

the Asia-Pacic region. India is also forecasted to achieve the highest SMB IT expenditure

growth rates, with more than 50% of the expenditure expected to be dedicated to

hardware. Even at its current stage of maturity, cloud IaaS is a viable proposition for most

enterprises in the SMB segment. Cloud IaaS services give SMBs access to technologies

they would otherwise not be able to afford. The low lead time of cloud IaaS to deploymentand scalability also negates technology barriers to growth. For vendors offering IaaS, the

Indian SMB market provides a unique opportunity to enter and grow this segment.

Low protability of third-party data center service providers: Third-party data centers

currently operate at extremely thin margins. This can be largely attributed to the product

mix, which leans toward basic co-location services rather than value-added, high-margin

services such as managed hosting. Cloud IaaS services offer service providers the

opportunity to leverage their existing IT investments to create a new line of value-added

services with more protable revenues.

ISP telecom operators: Moreover, in the Indian context, internet service providers

(ISPs) own and operate many of the larger data centers. Telecom ISPs have investedsubstantially in bandwidth creation, and currently, the market has excess bandwidth

capacity. Introducing cloud IaaS services to their current portfolio will help ISPs increase

bandwidth usage and increase customers’ switching costs.

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7Cloud adoption in India

Enterprise data center expenditure: With signicant power and electricity overheads,

enterprise data centers are a major drain on enterprise IT budgets in India.

Ernst & Young’s survey indicates that more than 80% of the enterprises surveyed are

considering initiatives to reduce the overall footprint of their data centers. The average size

of an enterprise data center in the Indian market is in the range of 1,000–1,500 sq. ft. The

cost structure of an average data center is illustrated below. As a result of under-utilization,

the overhead cost of under-utilized infrastructure tends to be a signicant cost driver.

Maturing traditional IT market: The growth projection for the domestic IT market is

between 2008 and 2013 is expected to be 15.8%, as against the average annual growth

of 25% recorded during between 2003 and 2008 (IDC estimates). With slower growth

and increasing competition in the traditional IT outsourcing services market, vendors are

seeking new business models to increase their revenue streams.

Equipmentcosts

12%

Facilitycosts

10%

Man

powercosts

7%

Bandwidthcosts

12%

Power costs38% Maintenance costs21%

Data center cost composition

2.2 Barriers to adoption in the Indian market

Ecosystem maturity: While the cloud IaaS space has elicited interest from a number of

larger players across both system integrators (SI) and telecom ISP providers, there are

very few ‘true’ cloud offerings at present. This is a major deterrent for a potential cloud

IaaS customer.

Customer awareness: Most potential customers are knowledgeable about IaaS services.

However, they not aware of its overall impact and the return on investment (ROI) that

adopting such technologies can yield. They are also not aware of the specic services that

vendors in this space offer.

NetMagic is the rst vendor

to offer cloud infrastructure

services in India. As part

of its cloud-computing

portfolio, NetMagic offers

the following services:Cloud Serve is targeted at the•

SMB segment and provides

disposable servers thatare congured on demand

depending on business needs.

Cloud Net is a service model•

that provides the customer

with the capability to create

complete IT infrastructure,

including servers, rewalls,

load balancers and switches.

This service specically

addresses the opportunities

of hosting portals, disaster

recovery and the testing of

mid-sized internet companies

and traditional enterprises.

PrivateCloud is a dedicated•

hosted cloud infrastructure

service catering to large

individual enterprise

requirements.

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8 Cloud adoption in India

Connectivity: Poor connectivity may prove to be a signicant barrier to adoption. Low

internet and PC penetration (less than1% in urban areas, 31 PCs per 1,000, according

to NASSCOM’s report, Perspective 2020) are discouraging. However, given the recent

regulatory progress in third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) technologies, the

expansion of private players, government initiatives and the declining cost of PCs, India is

likely to see considerable progress in broadband and internet connectivity over the next

two to four years.

While exact price structures are yet to evolve, vendors are looking to reduce prices by

at least 20–25%. Existing players can expect to see other international and local players

enter this space. As compared to the global market, India is yet to see the entry of cloud-

related, value-added software solutions related to billing, provisioning and management.

This could be a potential challenge for Indian service providers.

81%

67%

41%

IaaS

SaaS

PaaS

IaaSSaaS

Key:

PaaS: Platform as a Service

SaaS: Software as a Service

IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service

PaaS

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

“Which of the following concepts of cloud computing are you highly familiar with?”

Familiarity with cloud-computing concepts

Gauging from the awareness indicated by 81% of the survey respondents, IaaS awareness

is certainly not expected to hinder cloud IaaS service adoption. A related question on

areas of adoption indicates that people are equally open to adopting cloud in storage and

processing capability.

Further, the survey indicates that awareness levels on SaaS are currently lower than that

of IaaS. The SaaS market in India has only just begun to enter a phase of realization. SaaS

vendors are pushing aggressively in the market for the adoption of their services. As this

market grows, a benecial spillover effect on the IaaS market can be expected.

The main drivers of growth

in the Indian cloud market

are the SMB segment, the

current low protability of

Indian data service providers

and the enterprise’s need to

reduce data center-related

costs. Ecosystem maturity

and customer awareness

of available services and

connectivity are the current

barriers to cloud adoption.

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9Cloud adoption in India

2.3 Perception of cloud computing

The positive perception of IaaS indicates a signicant mainstream market that vendors

can target. Of the total respondents surveyed, 68% have a positive mindset toward cloud

computing, with 24% regarding it as a driver of the next wave of IT innovation and 44%

believing that it will mature in a few years.

Around 20% of the respondents were not aware of cloud-computing services in great

detail. This section represents a sizeable percentage that is likely to benet from customer

outreach programs, industry events and demonstrations educating them about the

concepts as well as the benets of cloud computing. A minority of 12% believes that cloud

IaaS services will not suit their business needs.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

 

44%

12%

24%

20%

Cloud computing is an evolving concept and will mature in some years

Cloud computing offerings will not suit my business

Cloud computing will drive the next wave of IT innovation

Not aware of these services in great detail

“Which of the following appropriately describes your view on ‘cloud computing

Infrastructure as a Service’?”

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10 Cloud adoption in India

2.4 Timeframe for adoption

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

 

0-1 year 1-2 year 2-3 year 3-5 year 5+ year

8%

20%

44%

16%

12%

“When do you plan to adopt ‘Cloud Computing - Infrastructure as a Service’?”

The survey response indicates that more than 70% of the respondents are looking

to adopt the technology in the next three years. The implied pattern of adoption is

also indicative of an innovation diffusion curve, with a signicant mainstream market

developing in the next three to ve years.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

 

Innovators

Early

adopters

Early majority

Late majority

Laggards

8%

20%

44%16%

12%

Mainstream market

Innovation diffusion curve: IaaS, Indian market

High awareness levels and

the positive perception of

cloud indicate a market that

will see robust growth rates

once the service is available

and once enterprises begin

adopting the technology.

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11Cloud adoption in India

3. Perceived benets of implementing

cloud IaaS services

The potential benets of a well-designed and well-executed cloud-computing

infrastructure services strategy can be signicant. The relative importance of each benet

varies considerably with the size of the enterprise. Key benets include lower costs, an

on-demand self-service model, low entry barriers and the elasticity and scalability of

resources. This section summarizes the benets as perceived by potential adopters of the

cloud IaaS services in the Indian market.

3.1 Perceived operational and business benets

We asked respondents to grade a list of operational and business benets on a four-point

scale of extremely signicant to not signicant.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

4%

17%

17%

4%

4%

4%

50%

33%

25%

17%

21%

14%

21%

21%

27%

42%

33%

38%

25%

29%

29%

38%

42%

42%

Faster deployment

Improved datacenter

efficiency

Improved hardware

utilization

Reduced risk of

technology obsolence

High uptime

Scalibility

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

Operational benefits

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12 Cloud adoption in India

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Scalability High uptime Reduced risk

of technology

obsolence

Improved

hardware

utilization

data center

efficiency

Faster speed

of deployment

SMB Large enterprsies

Perception of operational benefits — SMB and large enterprises

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

17%

13%

8%

8%

4%

42%

33%

25%

29%

29%

33%

42%

42%

33%

38%

8%

13%

25%

29%

29%

Ability to innovate

Intangible benefits

No capital investment

Usage-basedpayment

Ability to focus oncore activities

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

Business benefits

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13Cloud adoption in India

There is a distinct difference in the perceived benets of cloud by the SMB and enterprise

segments. The SMB segment considers cloud IaaS services for “true” cloud benets, while

the large enterprise perceives benets on the operational side that are generally derived

from an outsourcing model.

The SMB segment has cited high uptime as the top operational benet, while large•

enterprises regard lower risk of technology obsolescence as the most important

operational benet.

The SMB segment regards usage-based payments and low capital investments as•

extremely signicant business benets, while the large enterprise perceives the ability

to focus on core activities as the top business benet.

Cost does not seem to be a factor in driving the decision to adopt cloud IaaS services.Surprisingly, both the SMB and large enterprise segments have given lower priority to

other typical cloud benets such as the ability to innovate and faster deployment. This

may be indicative of an awareness gap of the differentiated benets that cloud IaaS

services are capable of delivering.

3.2 Moving to an OPEX model

At 58%, the majority of the respondents favor a model that facilitates the shift of

expenditures from a capex to an OPEX model.

Of the total respondents surveyed, 38% are neutral to the shift.•

Only 4% of the respondents do not see any benet in the shift.•

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

Ability to focus

on core activities

Usage based

payments

SMB segment Large enterprises

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

No capital

investment

Intangible

benefits

Ability to

innovate

Perception of extremely significant business benefits — SMB and large enterprises

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14 Cloud adoption in India

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

58%

38%

4%

Good: Helps IT be more adaptable to business needs in a cost effective way

Neutral

Not good: Not convinced that I can make the shift in a way that stays beneficial to me

“How do you view a shift to an OPEX model?”The SMB segment appears

to be more attuned to

the total impact of

differentiated benets that

can be derived from IaaS.

The gap in understanding

of the large enterprise

indicates an area to be

addressed during the initial

contact with a potential

buyer of this segment.

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15Cloud adoption in India

4. Perceived challenges to cloud IaaS

services adoption

Implementing cloud computing will not be without challenges. Ernst & Young’s market

survey indicates that an overwhelming 72% of the respondents cite potential data privacy

and security issues as extremely signicant concerns. The other area of concern is around

vendor maturity and the capability to provide cloud services. Among the challenges

generally associated with a shift to cloud IaaS services are:

Data security and privacy•

Legal and regulatory compliance•

Control and responsiveness•

Lack of benchmarking or leading practice experience•

Ambiguity over how best to quantify, track and communicate the benets of•

cloud computing

Threat of potential over reliance on a single-source IT provider•

Lack of interoperability•

Resistance from datacenter IT personnel•

The following section summarizes some of the key challenges the Indian market perceives.

4.1 Perceived technical, business and environment challenges

We requested our respondents to grade a list of technical, business and environmental

challenges on a four-point scale of extremely signicant to not signicant.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

8%

4%

29%

25%

17%

13%

54%

29%

29%

17%

8%

46%

50%

71%

Unsure of impact on

current IT

Resource uptime

Latency

Data privacy and

security

Perceived technical challenges

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16 Cloud adoption in India

Data security and privacy is a major concern for enterprises considering implementing

cloud IaaS services. Cloud IaaS is a distributed computing model with inherent ambiguity

around where the data resides. This distributed model leads to a perception of higher riskand security challenges. A cloud service provider can mitigate these risks by establishing

an effective security and controls framework (appendix D) in the following areas:

Identity and risk management•

Compliance and audit•

Application level security•

Data backup and recovery•

Legal•

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

38%

29%

13%

4%

17%

25%

29%

13%

33%

25%

29%

33%

8%

21%

29%

50%

Loss of control over

IT operations

Internal resistance

to process change

Not sure about the ROI to be

expected if I invested in

cloud computing

Vendor lock-in concerns

(inability to switch vendors easily or

bring operations back-in)

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

Perceived business challenges

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

Perception of technical challenges — SMB and large enterprises

Data security Latency Resource

% uptime

Unsure of impact

on current

IT architecture

SMB Large enterprises

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

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17Cloud adoption in India

Vendor lock-in is perceived as a signicant challenge to the adoption of cloud computing.

Vendors can currently mitigate this concern by making their services more transparent

so that customers can understand how their resources are being managed. In the long

term, as the ecosystem matures and the industry adopts open standards to facilitateinteroperability, this concern will likely be mitigated. Efforts need to be made to develop

forums such as the Open Cloud Alliance to enable the development of more transparent

and interoperable solutions.

Enterprises are also unsure of the cost savings that cloud computing can help them

achieve. Vendors need to develop comprehensive nancial models detailing the

comparison of in-house infrastructure with cloud IaaS to help rms estimate the ROI.

Usage-based pricing models with monthly or hourly billings can be used to compare costs

with the current datacenter costs and estimate the ROI.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

13%

42%

17%

21%

17%

38%

46%

54%

38%

21%

25%

25%

46%

Lack of ecosystem that supports

adoption of the service

Lack of guidance, leading

practice or experience of other

companies to draw from

No vendors available with

a consolidated value proposition

Lack of mature service providers

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

Perceived environment challenges

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Vendor lock-in

SMB Large enterprise

Not sure of ROI Internal resistance Loss of control

Perception of business challenges — SMB and large enterprises

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18 Cloud adoption in India

The shortage of mature service providers is the single overwhelming environment-related

challenge that enterprises perceive. Vendors need to develop go-to-market strategies to

develop customer relationships and retention strategies. Collaboration among all channel

partners is required to build a compelling case and visibility for cloud IaaS services.

Vendors need to create effective strategies on the value proposition and features (“what

to sell”) for different market segments (“whom to sell”) and a denitive sales and channel

partner strategy (“how to sell”).

Cloud service providers should invest in developing cloud labs that enable customers to

use cloud IaaS services on an experimental basis. This is also expected to assist customers

in assessing challenges that could arise from integrating enterprise data centers with

infrastructure on the cloud. Cloud-computing adoption case studies of customers

worldwide should be made available to enterprises to help them clearly understand

the areas where cloud IaaS services benets can be leveraged. Interestingly, the SMB

Perception of environment challenges — SMB and large enterprises

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Lack of mature

service providers

No vendors

available

Lack of

guidance

Lack of

ecosystem support

SMB Large enterprise

segment does not perceive environmental challenges to be as critical a barrier to adoption

as compared to the large enterprises. The lack of mature service providers, guidance or

ecosystem support are rated as less signicant concerns by SMBs. Vendors should target

the SMB segment as potential early adopters of cloud computing.

The most signicant

challenges enterprises

perceive in adopting cloud

IaaS services include

data privacy and security,

vendor lock-in concerns

and ecosystem maturity.

Signicantly, the SMB

segment does not rate

ecosystem maturity as a

major challenge.

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19Cloud adoption in India

5. Expectation from vendors

This section summarizes the survey’s key findings regarding the enterprise expectation of

vendors. It covers areas unique to the cloud IaaS services environment such as the pricing

model, service channels, acceptable security and controls framework and key vendor

assessment criteria.

5.1 Preferred pricing models

Preferred pricing models

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

 

29%

25%

25%

13%

8%

Annual contract based on monthly capped resource requirements with coverage charges

Month to month minimum commitment on resource usage with coverage

Month to month resource usage based charges without any contract

Monthly/Annual charges per user

Others

The essence of the cloud IaaS model is a pay-as-you-go financial model. The high percentage

of respondents indicating their preference for annual contract-based pricing indicates lack

of clarity on the cloud’s financial model. Further analysis indicates that the majority of therespondents opting for an annual contract-based model are the large enterprises, while the

majority of the SMB segment prefers the resource-based usage model.

At this stage, a single pricing model is unlikely to satisfy all potential customers in the

market. Vendors need to have pricing structures that are easily understood, transparent

and offer substantial benefits in terms of cost savings. Options for alternative pricing

models can be as follows:

A true pay-as-you-use model based on the use of resources such as per hour usage or• 

CPU cycles consumed will be attractive to the SMB segment.

More flexible models integrating the features of usage- and contract-based pricing can be• 

developed, where server instances can be charged on a daily or monthly basis instead of hourly.

Reserved instances with discounts on hourly rates can be more cost-effective for larger• 

enterprises with visibility on demand. Reserved instances are likely to help large enterprises

better estimate and plan their cloud IaaS needs.

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20 Cloud adoption in India

The stated preference of enterprises to buy cloud IaaS services from IT service providers

or data center service providers could mean that the cloud computing idea becomes

central to these service providers’ portfolios. Equipment vendors should recognize and

respond to this possibility.

For data center providers, cloud IaaS services may prove to be a more protable sourceof revenue as compared to their existing service/product mix. IT service providers looking

to leverage the cloud IaaS opportunity should form alliances with third-party data center

service providers or invest in building their own infrastructure.

Data center service providers and IT system integrators also need to play a pivotal role in

bringing the ecosystem together to demonstrate commitment to security, service-level

agreement (SLA) adherence and complete support at every layer of the cloud

service model.

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

 

46%

8%

46%

Data center service providers

hardware and software vendor

IT service providers/system integrators

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

100%

88% 83%

75%71%

63%

13% 13%

25%29%

33%

4% 4%

Disaster

recovery

Business

continuity

planning

Identity

access

management

Data

encryption

Security

certifications

Third-party

audit

Need to have Nice to have Not needed

5.2 Preferred channels for cloud services

5.3 Enterprise expectations on security and control framework

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21Cloud adoption in India

As indicated in the challenges section, data security and privacy constitute the primary

challenge of the cloud IaaS model. Consequently, the majority of the respondents have

identied that the service provider should address the following areas.

Disaster recovery•

Business continuity planning•

Identity access management•

Data encryption•

Security certication•

Third-party audits•

5.4 Vendor assessment criteria

Vendor evaluation factors

Source: EY survey — Cloud adoption in India, 2010

4%

4%

21%

13%

13%

13%

13%

4%

8%

38%

46%

42%

25%

29%

21%

4%

38%

42%

46%

58%

58%

75%

88%

Past track record

Pricing models

Vendor support network

Portability and interoperability

Cost competitiveness

SLA compliance

Data security and privacy

Extremely significant Fairly significant Significant Not a driver

Data security and privacy again shines through as the top differentiating factor for the

enterprise. Providers should refer to Appendix D for an initial guidance on security areas

to be considered for cloud adoption.

While vendor lock-in and lack of guidance are perceived to be challenges to cloud-

computing adoption, interoperability and vendor support network are not rated very high

on the criteria list of vendor assessment. This indicates that both these factors can be

expected to be barriers to adoption and associated with the environment rather than as

differentiating factors between vendors. With cloud IaaS services being a new business

and operational model, a high degree of customer interaction during the sales cycle and a

strong support framework will assist customers in adopting the technology seamlessly.

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22 Cloud adoption in India

6. Recommendations

As the market evolves, economies of scale provided by third-party organizations through

cloud computing IaaS can create a viable environment for enterprises to reduce costs and

better align limited IT resources with key business goals and initiatives. In a market that is

ready to experiment with cloud IaaS services, providers need to begin crystallizing their

cloud offerings, while cloud adopters should begin to engage with providers to include

cloud IaaS services in their overall IT strategy.

6.1 Recommendations for service providers

1. Develop a cloud IaaS strategy: The market is ready to experiment with cloud IaaS.

Cloud providers should incorporate a cloud IaaS strategy in their overall portfolio and

initiate communication with potential buyers on the drivers and total value proposition

of cloud IaaS services to enterprises. Storage as a Service can serve as an initial service

offering, since it is an easier area for enterprises to experiment and integrate with. There

is an expressed need-awareness gap on the storage offering in the market, with 55%

indicating their readiness to adopt the technology and only 33% indicating awareness of

the service.

2. Reach out to the SMB segment: Providers should target the SMB segment for initial

adoption. The SMB segment is more attuned to cloud benets and challenges, thus

making the SMB segment the ideal early adopter of the technology.

3. Develop go-to-market strategy focusing on future roadmap for cloud IaaS: Providers’

go-to-market strategies need to be aggressive in communicating the cloud IaaS services

currently on offer as well as the future roadmap of these services.

4. Set up test labs: To allay apprehensions surrounding the actual applicability of cloud

IaaS services, vendors should set up test areas, which customers can access on an

experimental basis. This will allow enterprises to experience the technology before full-

scale adoption.

5. Communicate with buyers on the perception of cloud benets and challenges: The

perception of these benets and challenges need to be factored into communicationstrategies, service offerings and SLA structures.

6. Develop pricing models and ROI expectations: Enterprises are expected to benet

from detailed nancial models benchmarking in-house data center costs with the

investment and running costs associated with the cloud IaaS model, using different pricing

models to help estimate the ROI.

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23Cloud adoption in India

7. Establish collaborative engagements with the enterprise: The cloud IaaS space is

evolving. As such, it is necessary for vendors to take a collaborative approach to engaging

with enterprises. Providers should focus on the following areas:

Differentiating the benets of cloud IaaS services•

Discussions with potential buyers on the pricing structure, nancial model and ROI that•

a cloud adopter can expect from moving to the cloud

Guidelines and benchmarks to help enterprises select applications that are most•

suitable for adoption in either the private or the public cloud model protably

Security-related aspects•

8. Building the ecosystem: Data center service providers and IT system integrators

should also play a pivotal role in bringing the ecosystem together and demonstrating the

commitment to security, SLA adherence and complete support at every layer of the cloud

service model.

9. Building competitive advantage: Some of the ways in which cloud service providers

can build their competitive advantage in this space include:

Providing consulting and integration support to customers•

Providing excellent customer support options•

Building the SLA framework in collaboration with the enterprise•

Security and data privacy concerns should be met as a primary hygiene check•

10. Addressing security concerns: Cloud computing IaaS services constitute a distributed

computing model with inherent difculties in locating where the data is stored. This leads

to a unique set of security challenges and concerns.

6.2 Recommendations for enterprises

Enterprise IT decision makers need to continue monitoring the market in the short

term for provider strategies around cloud IaaS services. Enterprises at the forefront of

technology adoption should start interacting with service providers to understand current

offerings. Although the ecosystem does not appear to be mature enough to extend

support to a complete cloud IaaS services portfolio, the economic crisis could well serve

as an impetus to both providers and enterprises to opt for the cloud. With providersbeginning to invest in infrastructure, the economics and feasibility of cloud services are

likely to evolve rapidly.

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24 Cloud adoption in India

Companies considering cloud computing need to consider the broad range of business

factors and effects that may arise from such an initiative. Among the cloud computing-

related areas companies should consider are:

Privacy•

Enterprise architecture•

Information security•

Application controls and security•

IT effectiveness/transformation•

The following questions are critical for business leaders to consider when planning atransition to cloud computing:

How can my data center be better equipped to function with part of its infrastructure•

on the cloud?

What specic areas are most appropriate for cloud computing?•

What services are third-party vendors providing?•

What are the most signicant data privacy and security issues that we will likely face?•

What are the cloud provider’s key risks and performance indicators, and how will this•

impact be monitored and measured from an enterprise perspective?

How can I deploy IaaS in a way that makes it relatively easy to switch providers, if•

needed?

What are we trying to achieve through cloud computing? What ROI can we expect?•

What technology needs will be required with cloud computing?•

How do I assess the actual infrastructure that will be needed to support my•

applications? How do I benchmark application performance in the provider

environment?

How does resource pooling and allocation occur within the cloud providers’•

infrastructure setup?

Based on the approach, application performance and expected usage patterns, what is•

the best pricing strategy?

How can existing resources, both machines and people, be reallocated for maximum•

impact?What are the broader cultural and operational implications of this approach?•

Cloud IaaS service providers

should look at building

out a complete cloud

IaaS service portfolio and

begin communicating with

potential buyers. Enterprise

IT decision makers should

continue to monitor the

market in the short term

for provider strategies

around cloud IaaS services

and actively participate in

creating a robust ecosystem.

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25Cloud adoption in India

Appendix A: models of

cloud computing

There are three typical models through which cloud-computing services are offered:

Software as a Service (SaaS)• : Software is offered as an on-demand service, thereby

reducing the need for the customer to install, upgrade and maintain applications.

Salesforce.com is one of the rst enterprise applications to be offered as SaaS.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)• : The development environment is provided as aservice that encapsulates a layer of software integrating the operating system (OS),

middleware and application software. Customers develop applications with the help of

vendor-provided application programming interfaces (APIs) on platforms enabled with

automated management and scalability. Commercial examples of PaaS include Google

Apps Engine and Microsoft Windows Azure.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)• : Processing, storage and bandwidth are offered

on demand with metered billing. A consumer can store data and run an OS, software

applications and web or database servers on the rented hardware. Some major

commercial examples of IaaS include Amazon, Rackspace and Savvis.

There are three main cloud

service models: SaaS, PaaS

and IaaS. IaaS provides the

capability to execute rent

processing and storage

over the internet. It is, in

many senses, the most

commoditized version of

cloud services.

CRM ERP

Enterprise web applications

Email

Available as a metered, scalable

and ubiquitous serviceMonitoring

vStorage vServer vNetwork

Storage Server Network

Web management console

Virtualization

Power HVAC Land

Hardware

Facilities

Provisioning Scheduling

Database Messaging Queuing

API and middleware

   I  n   f  r  a  s   t  r  u  c   t  u  r  e  a  s  a   S  e  r  v   i  c  e

   P   l  a   t   f  o  r  m   a

  s  a   S  e  r  v   i  c  e

   S  o   f   t  w  a  r  e  a  s  a   S  e  r  v   i  c  e

Bandwidth

Storage

Compute

Principal characteristics

Abstraction of infrastructure

Pooled resources

Services oriented architecture

Scalable

Utility based model of consumption

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26 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix B: the global cloud market

The cloud market is constantly evolving as larger scale adoption creates viable

commercial opportunities in this space. The IDC forecasts that by 2013, cloud will

form 10% of total IT expenditure across the ve major IT product segments (business

applications, infrastructure software, application development and deployment software,

servers and storage).

Worldwide IT cloud services spending: 2008–2013*

2008 2013 CAGR

All IT spending** (USD billion) 383 460 2.7%

Cloud spending 16 44 22.5%

IaaS spending (% of cloud spending) 14% 29%

Total IaaS spending (USD billion) 2.24 12.8 41%

* Source: IDC 2009

**Business application, application development/deployment, system infrastructure software, storage and server

Cloud computing and IaaS growth

IaaS Cloud spending

2.23.7

5.1 6.9

9.4

12.8

16.217.8

22.3

28

35.2

44.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Year

   U   S   D    b

   i   l   l   i   o   n

While the market share of cloud services is forecasted to be around 10%, its growth

trajectory, at a CAGR of 22.5 %, is four times the growth of traditional IT. IaaS accounted

for 14% of the total cloud market in 2008 and is expected to grow to account for

approximately 29% of the overall cloud market in 2013. This is expected to position the

IaaS market at USD12.8 billion in 2013.

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27Cloud adoption in India

Drivers of cloud IaaS services in the global market

Among the major factors contributing to the growth of the IaaS market is a maturing

ecosystem. Amazon.com was one of the rst to offer cloud IaaS services on a commercial

scale, and has successfully established market dominance in this space. Amazon currently

has more than 440,000 developers registered with Amazon EC2 and storage services.

IBM is also betting heavily on becoming one of the few true utility providers of technology.

The company has strategically located IBM cloud labs in both major and emerging

markets. IBM is now looking to leverage these cloud labs to address the specic needs of

customers experimenting with transitioning IT requirements to the cloud model.

Cloud computing timeline

1999 2002 2006 2008 2009

Salesforce.com

(SaaS)

Amazon Web

Services (AWS)

Verizon CAAS,

Amazon EC2

load balancing,

monitoring

Google

AppEngine,

IBM Blue Cloud,

Savvis Cloud

Hosting

Verizon CAAS,

Amazon EC2

load balancing,

monitoring

Within a short span of time, other top players such as Google and Microsoft started

offering cloud products. A number of niche players are also challenging Amazon’s market-

leading position, including service providers such as Savvis, Verizon, Box.net, GoGrid and

Terramark. Support and commitment from large players have also led to a concerted

effort to educate customers through conferences, seminars and publicity. Industry

forums such as the Open Cloud Alliance are focusing on resolving some of the barriers to

cloud adoption, including inter-operability and security. An extremely robust developer

community that has taken to developing and deploying applications on the cloud has also

helped popularize cloud IaaS services.

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28 Cloud adoption in India

Rising computing demand in the BRIC countries has also opened up new cloud markets.

The overriding business need in these countries is for inexpensive and effective solutions.Using cloud computing’s usage-based pricing models, traditional IT vendors can now

leverage cloud to boost growth in these price-sensitive markets. Cloud computing can help

vendors shift focus from high-end, large-enterprise buyers of IT resources to the SMBs

that constitute the major industry segment in developing countries.

Infrastructure services Management

Storage

Amazon S3•Amazon SirnpleDB•Microsoft SSDS•Nirvanix•Rackspace Mosso Cloud FS•CTERA•

Compute

Amazon EC2•GoGrid•Joyent Accelerators•Flexiscale•Terramark•Flexiscale•Appnexus•Elastra•Savvis•Rackspace•

Services management

RightScale•Cohesive FT•Kaavo•Scatr•CloudStatus•Cloud Foundry•

Cloud management

3Terra Applogic•VMWware Ops•Cohesive FT•Open QRM•Enomalism•Eucalyptus•Open QRM•Appistry•

Infrastructure providers

Servers

IBM•HP•

Dell•

Operating Systems

Microsoft Azure•Google Chrome•Linux•

Storage

EMC•NetApp•3Par•

Virtualization

VMWare•Citrix Zen•Microsoft Hyper V•

Network

Juniper•Cisco•

Akamai•

Identity

Ping Identity•Open ID•Syrnplied•

Billing

Aria Systems•eVapt•OpSource•

Industry Bodies

Open Cloud Alliance•Open Cloud Manifesto•

The cloud ecosystem

Case study: Vendor solutions

Source: Amazon Web Services (AWS) website

Amazon: The Amazon AWS cloud-computing platform can host business applications

on the cloud with resizable compute capacity. The Amazon Elastic compute is a web

service that provides a virtual development platform. AWS has recently introduceda limited beta version of its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). The VPC is intended to be a

hybrid solution, extending to enterprises the capability to connect their existing IT

infrastructure to an isolated set of resources at the AWS data center through a virtual

private network connection.

Instances are charged on hourly usage basis, with charges increasing in tandem with

compute capacity. There is also a provision to reserve the instance by making a low

one-time payment with a signicant discount for its hourly usage rate. Limited inbuilt

memory for a server instance is free. More volume of data can be stored in Amazon

Storage Services (S3), where it is billed at storage rates. Data transfer is billed based on

data transferred in and out of Amazon EC2. Elastic IP and elastic load balancing are also

charged separately.

IaaS has steadily gainedground in the past few

years. Support and

commitment from a number

of large players in the

market and well-publicized

implementation of the

cloud have contributed

to its success.

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29Cloud adoption in India

Appendix C: IaaS and the enterprise

IaaS is an operational model in which physical IT resources are delivered as abstracted IT

services, both on demand and at scale. IaaS mainly refers to processing and storage capacity

available from anywhere, through any connected device. Infrastructure resides in massively

scalable provider data centers, where processing capacity and storage can be dynamically

provisioned and shared to achieve signicant economies of scale. The end user accesses the

infrastructure over the internet through a user-centric interface that makes the cloud IaaS

transparent.

On the buyer side, adding cloud IaaS leads to reduced capital spending on hardware and a

progressive shift from a capital to an operational model of IT expenditure. The degree to which

an enterprise implements cloud IaaS services can be directly related to the company’s growth

stage. A start-up company is more likely to use cloud infrastructure for most of its IT needs, as

this is expected to drastically reduce entry barriers. Larger enterprises are likely to use public

clouds to meet stretch capacity needs, while continuing to use private clouds and existing

enterprise data centers for heavier applications that require more uniform resource usage.

Storage as a service: The provider rents out storage hardware on a cost-per-gigabyte-data-

stored model. Storage as a Service provides a cost-effective method with which to meet the

enterprise’s data-storage needs. Cloud storage offers an alternative solution for particular

kinds of unstructured le data, which require batch processing and have low security

requirements or large datasets such as rich media les, image les and records, streaming

media and secondary/tertiary web accessible storage for data.

Scaling &

provisioning

User

interfaceMonitoring Billing

Virtualized

serverVirtualized

storageVirtualized

network

Servers Storage Networks Security

Enterprise cloud user

Low demand

variability,

core applications

High demand

variability,

non core

applications

Access through the internet

Provisioning and management

Virtualization

Physical infrastructure

Cloud providerEnterprise data center

Better utilization, lower costs

Scalability on demand

Integrating in house data centers with cloud infrastructure

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30 Cloud adoption in India

Backup and archival are among the traditional uses of cloud storage. However, as it

evolves, cloud storage is expected to also power the development of a new breed of

applications that leverages service-oriented architecture (SOA), web services, APIs and

their advanced services.

An example of such an application is a content delivery network (CDN), which is ideal

for cloud hosting and the distribution of popular les accessed frequently. Regular

cloud storage networks to access such les are not optimal, as they support lower data

transfer speed. CDN is a viable alternative for hosting frequently accessed website

components and distributing downloadable software and its updates, media audio and

video les. Integration with cloud storage is provided through APIs, which support multiple

programming languages.

Computing as a Service (CaaS) provides the capability to spin up virtual machines

and load them with pre-congured or customized images of OS, web and database

servers, thus creating a complete virtual environment for application development and

deployment. Processing capability is provided as server instances congured with OS and

software images acting as units of deployment. The virtualized server instance may be of

varying sizes, with different memory, instance storage and virtual core congurations.

CaaS is conducive to a variety of processing needs, and has so far been used primarily for

the following:

Building a virtual test and development environment on the cloud, replicating•

production environments

Applications with unpredictable capacity requirements such as those directed toward•

marketing campaigns

Data mining applications needing high-powered processing over unstructured data•

Bandwidth that is used to access cloud IaaS services is billed for bandwidth usage on a•

per-GB-data inbound and outbound transfer.

Case study: Customer adoption of IaaS

July Systems• : July Systems is a leading mobile media company offering feature-rich

mobile solutions for live events, updates and advertising on its Mi™ Channel. July

Systems Live Center on Mi™ faces extremely dynamic requirements due to supportextended for multiple devices, dynamic content and the personalization of delivered

content. The platform also faces steep hikes during sports events and live news.

July Systems uses Amazon’s cloud computing services to cost-effectively scale its

business.

British Telecom• : British Telecom uses AppLogic to deliver market-leading, on-demand

telecom services using only a web browser and basic IT skills. 3Tera offers AppLogic

utility computing services through a grid platform that converts commodity servers

into scalable grids, on which users can visually operate, deploy and scale transactional

web applications without any code modications.

Eli Lilly• : To invent a breakthrough drug, Eli Lilly needed 25 servers to crunch large

volumes of data. Rather than taking months to become functional, Eli Lilly took

the alternate cloud route. Eli Lilly created an account on AWS and had 25 servers

operating almost instantaneously. Consequently, transactions were completed within

a day at a total cost of USD89.

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31Cloud adoption in India

A key aspect of the overall IaaS experience to the end user is the provisioning and

management layer that abstracts the hardware. Some of the key functionalities delivered

to the user through this layer include:

Billing•

End-user provisioning and scale up capability•

End-user monitoring and management•

User access and user management interface•

Wrapper interfaces such as software backup solutions•

Animoto• : Animoto is a good example of leveraging cloud for instant availability

and virtually limitless scope. Animoto’s Facebook application creates videos for

consumers and applications. The application is complex, with each subsystemrequiring multiple servers. Animoto ramped up from 25,000 to 250,000 users

in three days with the help of AWS, thereby provisioning around 4,000 servers

simultaneously.

CyberGamer• : Online gaming company CyberGamer has tapped the Rackspace

Cloud to support its growing number of subscribers. CyberGamer has increased its

membership from 1,000 users six months after its launch, to 21,000 by the end of

the second year. The requirements of a gaming company are dynamic because of the

uneven trafc ow and higher computing power needed to process queries round

the clock. On implementing virtualization, CyberGamer found that during peak times,

it would still hit a threshold that prevented new members from viewing the website

content. Subsequently, the company transferred its IT resources to the Rackspace

cloud with virtually no downtime and, as a result, experienced a 137% increase intrafc within the rst month. This was indicative of the amount of trafc the company

was losing previously on account of overloading.

Storage as a Service has

been primarily implemented

to meet storage needs

arising from unstructured

data and backup needs and

to support CDNs.

CaaS has been used to

primarily build scale into

existing infrastructure.

number of large players

in the market and well-

publicized implementation of

the cloud have contributed

to its success.

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32 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix D: addressing

security concerns

Cloud computing IaaS is a distributed computing model with inherent difculties in

locating where the data is stored. This leads to a unique set of security challenges and

concerns. Data security and privacy is also rated as the top concern of enterprises moving

to cloud technology. Listed below are some of these associated concerns as well as

suggested guidelines to resolve the concerns:

Issue Suggested guidance

Identity and access management

Identity and access management are very important for thestrategic use of dynamic cloud computing resources.

Providers’ authentication systems should either meet or exceed•enterprise standards.Enterprises should be encouraged to adopt single-sign on for•applications to simplify identity and access management.When resources move to cloud, authorization should be•provided at business-line levels, with policies regulating theprovision and release of resources.Encryption and key management policies should be•

implemented for secure access.Compliance and audit

Data location abstraction and multiple copies of data can provetroublesome with respect to compliance. It may be difcult to

audit the data in the cloud, because isolating the scope in a cloudenvironment is challenging.

Metrics for formalizing the audit should be developed.•Due diligence of the suitability of existing audit standards to the•cloud environment should be conducted.Cloud providers should try to acquire certications such as•SAS70.SLA and security-level objectives should be redened to include•data audit.

Application-level security

Porting an application on the cloud has implications such aswhat the security levels are and who controls them. The vendorproviding virtual machine images needs security levels similar to

those of in-house applications.

Vendors should provide the enterprise with capabilities to•create customized virtual machine images.Inter-application communication security should be ensured in•

a distributed cloud environment.Additional security and masking sensitive enterprise•information are needed.Application security must be represented as a clearly•articulated set of actions and guarantees within the SLA.

The growth of cloud computing is expected to increase the type•and occurrence of incidents, such as malware infection, databreach, Man-In-The-Middle discovery, session hijacking anduser impersonation. Application-level rewalls and vulnerability

detection need to be put in place.

Security and data privacy guidance principles

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33Cloud adoption in India

Issue Suggested guidance

Data backup and disaster recovery

Data backup and disaster recovery are among the most desiredsecurity and control framework controls.

Vendors need to ensure the redundancy and backup of all•hosted data through replication and storage across multiplezones.Business continuity plan with round-the-clock failover•protection are required.The SLA should include terms on data backup and disaster•recovery.

Legal

Some of the legal risks are similar to those faced in any•outsourcing industry, with the enterprise being heldresponsible for any acts of its subcontractors.Some customer contracts prohibit trans-border data ow.•The adoption of industry standards for security and•regulations are mandatory for some types of data.Enterprises may need to know the physical location of their•data, which can be dynamic and prone to change.Data residing in the cloud may not be easily accessible for•electronic discovery in case of litigation.

Enterprise and vendors need to perform due diligence and•evaluate their own practices, needs and restrictions to identifythe legal barriers and compliance requirements associated witha proposed cloud-computing transaction.Cloud vendors need to collaborate with the enterprise to dene•the key components of the contractual arrangement.The vendor needs to provide business continuity and disaster•recovery to prevent outages.The contract should be periodically monitored and reviewed.•In case of any change in the vendor’s business model or thecompliance laws, the contract should be updated accordingly.The legal implications of whether the third-party vendor or the•enterprise is held responsible in case of a data breach should beexamined.

The ownership and control of the data in the cloud should be•given to the enterprise so that it controls the condentiality,

security or privacy of its databases, or if it wishes to control theentity that has access to its data.

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34 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix E: customizing the cloud

Like all good things, cloud IaaS services, too, come in many varieties. The nature of the

application and the level of control required determine the most suitable deployment and

connectivity model. Cloud services can be customized to include the following parameters:

Level of investment the enterprise is willing to make for the transition•

Core vs. non-core applications•

Expected SLAs and vendor commitment to application uptime•

Security•

Data privacy•

Degree of control the enterprise wants over its infrastructure•

Differences in cloud models arise from the deployment method and the way in which a

customer chooses to access cloud IaaS services.

Deployment models

Cloud services are primarily deployed and managed in three modes: public, private and

hybrid. The deployment models differ on two important factors:

Service access•Service control/ownership•

Capital intensive

and fixed

Mixed Operational

expenditureand varibale

Private clouds

Public clouds

Financial model

Hybrid

Managed hosting

Third party

shared

   O   f   f   s   i   t   e

     D    e    p     l    o    y    m    e    n     t

   O   n   s   i   t   e

Third party

managed

dedicated

Managed by

organization

Third party

internal

IT team

Cloud-deployment models

Traditional

IT setup

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35Cloud adoption in India

Public clouds: Third-party service providers offer public clouds. They are usually multi-

tenant (shared) operating environments with all the benets of elasticity, but the third-

party vendor controls the management of the resource and security.

Private clouds: An organization or its designated service provider supplies private cloud

services with dedicated rewalls and operating environments. The organization controls

the management and security of the cloud IaaS.

The challenges to private cloud adoption are primarily around high initial capital

investments and less scalability due to the limited availability of resources as compared to

a public cloud.

Hybrid clouds: Hybrid clouds are a combination of public and private cloud offerings. They

enable the organization to retain direct local control over critical data while continuing to

offer the advantage of the economies of scale available through a public cloud for services

that are not critical. For example, a single application such as email systems can span

through both realms by linking an on-premise email infrastructure with a public cloud

service for continuity. This can help organizations reduce the total cost of IT operations

while still meeting their security and regulatory requirements.

Public-private cloud trade-off

Private cloud Public cloud

Exclusive

Enterprise

Service access

Service control/ownership

Anyone

Third party

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36 Cloud adoption in India

Accessing the cloud

A number of network options such as public internet, private dedicated lines or hybrid solutions (VPN) should be evaluated to selectthe best-access option for the service. Performance and cost are among the parameters that are used to judge the network. Indian

ISPs currently provide high-speed broadband ranging from 100Mbps for public internet to Ethernet-based WAN 10Gig-Ethernet of

dedicated internet access for enterprise customers. Network options such as VPN provide enterprises with the same capability that

private leased lines traditionally deliver, but with cost savings enabled through the use of shared networks. Virtual private cloud is

built on the concepts of VPN, providing enterprise-level security to resources deployed on the vendor’s public cloud platform.

Trade-off factors for both public and private clouds

Features of various cloud-deployment models

Deployment model Managed by Owner Location Users Most suitable for:

Public Third party Third party offsite Untrusted users Start-ups/SMBs•Low level of customization•Higher degree of tolerance for SLAs and•data securityAccess to a wider audience•Preference for OPEX IT spends•

Private Organization or

third partyOrganization

or third partyOnsite

Offsite

Trusted Mature enterprises• High degree of customization•

Mission-critical applications with low•level of tolerance for SLAs and data

securitySufcient funds to invest in a private•cloud

Hybrid Both organizationand third party

Bothorganizationand third party

Onsite

Offsite

Trusted andUntrusted

Enterprises can adopt a private cloud•to support mission critical applications,data and a public cloud for otherapplications and data.

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37Cloud adoption in India

Public internet Leased lines VPN

Advantages Cost-effective solution•Highly accessible due to•ubiquitous natureGreater customer market•

Ensured levels of data security•Access to better bandwidth and•speedEnd-to-end SLA ensuring•guaranteed quality of service andfeaturesAlmost error-free data exchange•

Security is comparable to leased•lines.More cost-effective solution as•compared to leased linesScales easily•Accessible•High quality of service and•performance contractuallyensured through SLA

Predictable support for business-•critical applications sensitive tonetwork congestion

Disadvantages Security concerns•Quality of service not guaranteed•Lack of enterprise-level SLA•Use of less secure protocols such•as HTTPProne to disruption due to routing•issues and cable cuts

Not - cost-effective•Not easily scalable•Expensive to build•Expensive to maintain•

Dependency on a single provider•Investment in some hardware•equipment to implement VPN

Quality of service not as high as•that of leased linesLess cost-effective than public•internet

Suitable for Startups, SMBs•Non-critical applications•

Not a cost-effective solution in•most scenarios; can be evaluatedfor private cloud

Large enterprises•Critical applications and data•

Internet access methodologies and features

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38 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix F: benets of implementing

cloud IaaS services

The potential benets of a well-designed and well-executed cloud-computing

infrastructure services strategy can be signicant. The relative importance of each benet

varies considerably with the size of the enterprise. Key benets include:

Lower costs: The combination of reduced capex with a pay-as-you-use model effectively

changes the prole of IT expenses from capex to OPEX.

Data centers currently account for around 30–45% of enterprise IT costs. Data center

capacity is usually provisioned for close to peak-capacity utilization, while actual

utilization varies between 15–45%. Apart from the direct costs of setting up the data

center, the actual running costs almost double the actual cost on a per server basis. This

is primarily due to high overheads arising from power and cooling requirements. The

cloud model eliminates the overheads with the pay-as-you-use model and the dynamic

allocation of resources based on actual demand. Public clouds are also most likely to have

infrastructure with higher processing capacity, which translates to lesser time to run

compute-intensive applications.

Provisioning and utilizing data centers

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0%

5 years

Overheads that

can be eliminated

using cloud

100% utilization

 

Actual utilization

Planned utilization

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39Cloud adoption in India

On-demand self-service model: The on-demand self-service model of cloud IaaS services

essentially implies that a consumer can unilaterally become self-sufcient in provisioning

computing capabilities such as server time and network storage without requiring human

interaction. This ease of deployment is a major advantage to a line of business that faces

roadblocks from the IT department in taking innovations to market. Access to resources

in traditional IT involves hierarchical channels, which results in lower speed and ease

of deployment as compared to the cloud, where hardware capabilities are offered as

transparent, on-demand self services. The end impact is IT infrastructure that is extremely

responsive to business and an increased pace of innovation.

Low entry barriers: Cloud computing reduces the barriers to entry because infrastructure

is rented rather than purchased. With minimum upfront capital investment, even rms

with lower IT hardware budgets can leverage the scale and capability of the cloud provider

to build applications on the latest technologies. To the SMB enterprise, cloud IaaS services

extend the benet of minimizing start-up costs by making available much of the required

computing capacity easily. For the SMB segment, this becomes the primary driver for the

adoption of cloud IaaS services.

Elasticity and scalability of resources: The capabilities available for rent appear to be

innite and can be purchased in any quantity at any time — an application never “goes

down” due to the inability of infrastructure to scale up to demand. Computing resources

can be rapidly and elastically provisioned to quickly scale up and rapidly released to swiftly

scale down. The capability to provide and use multiple systems simultaneously for high-

process computing needs also has the potential to signicantly reduce overall time tocomplete operations.

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40 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix G: challenges in shifting to

a cloud IaaS model

Data security and privacy is the most often cited area of concern around the

implementation of cloud computing. Security issues arise mainly due to the dependence

on an external service provider and sending potentially sensitive data out of the enterprise

data center. Some of the anticipated challenges are generic to any outsourcing scenario,

while others are unique to the cloud services provider. Overall, the challenges that

enterprises anticipate when transitioning to cloud include:

Data security and privacy issues• : As compared to a more traditional IT outsourcing

arrangement, cloud-computing clients do not have dedicated servers. This raises

concerns around where exactly client data exists and under whose jurisdiction it resides

at any single given point.

Legal and regulatory compliance• : Many companies have to follow a number of

regulatory compliance laws. Some rms have regulations, which do not allow their

data to cross national boundaries. The data-handling regulations require the ability

to track changes and follow audit trails. In cloud, there is a perceived compliance and

operational risk of dependence on the vendor. A well-developed compliance and risk

mitigation strategy by the service provider will help mitigate this risk.

Control and responsiveness• : With in-house IT functions and employees reportingdirectly to in-house executives, there is little question about who should be doing what

and when. However, when employees and servers are separated, the provider’s and

executive’s priorities may not be aligned.

Lack of benchmarking or leading practice experience• : Because the use of off-site

computing capability is relatively new, there is insufcient experience from which to

draw guidance for companies looking to build an effective cloud computing strategy.

For example, there is some uncertainty on how to plan cloud capacity to meet the

existing performance requirements of current applications, or how to factor in current

architecture into cloud servers.

Ambiguity over how best to quantify, track and communicate the benets of•

cloud computing

Threat of potential over reliance on a single-source IT provider• : The relativelyeasy turnkey nature of cloud computing and its subsequent attraction of cost

reduction may promote a company’s gradual overdependence on a particular

third-party service provider.

Lack of interoperability• : There are no prevalent standards for vendor interoperability.

This gives rise to fears of vendor lock-in among the enterprise.

Resistance from datacenter IT personnel• : Current datacenter operations personnel

may resist the adoption of cloud computing at present, owing to the fear of losing their

 jobs. The adoption of any new technology requires a change in mindset and culture of

the organization.

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41Cloud adoption in India

Appendix H: cloud enabling technologies: virtualization

Virtualization is the technology that makes cloud computing a reality. Shared resources are

made available on demand through memory, storage and network abstraction enabled by

virtualization, thereby allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single physical system.

The virtualization of servers and storage helps improve hardware utilization dramatically,

from 15–20% to 75–80%. An added advantage is reduced expenditure on cooling and power.

Virtualization and the dynamic data center

Survey response: is virtualization a key enabler of cloud technologies?

Hypervisor

Port test and

developmentenvironment

Save capital

expenses

Capacity on

demand

Save OPEX

expenses

Dynamic

datacenter

Hypervisor

 C l   o u d  c  om p u t  i  n g

ManagementManagement

Application Application

Automation

Management

Virtualized

infrastructure

Virtualized

infrastructure

Virtualized

infrastructure

Virtualized

infrastructure

Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor

Survey highlights:

Of the total respondents surveyed, 84% perceive virtualization to be a key technology in•

enabling public or private-cloud creation.

Out of the 84% who believe virtualization is a key enabler, 12% are currently using•

virtualization, 20% plan to adopt virtualization within a year, while 40% are looking to

adopt virtualization in the next one to three years.

Perception of virtualization as a key enabler of cloud services

16% 14%

48%

5%

24%10%

84%YesNo

Currently using In the next one to three years In the next three to five years In the next year Not sure

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42 Cloud adoption in India

Appendix I: About the study

This report is an outcome of a primary survey Ernst & Young conducted in

January - March 2010. The primary respondents were CIOs belonging to both large

enterprises and the SMB segment. Participant prole, awareness and perception of cloud

IaaS services, expected benets and challenges of adoption and outlook were among the

areas the survey covered. The respondents were representative of all industry sectors.

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43Cloud adoption in India

Sources

“Perspective 2020,”• NASSCOM report, May 2009.

“About us,”• NetMagic website,

http://us.netmagicsolutions.com/company/corp_overview.html,

accessed September 2009.

“Mi™ Platform,”•  July Systems website,

http://www.julysystems.com/mi_channel/mi_platform.html,

accessed September 2009.

“BT selects 3Tera AppLogic,”• 3Tera website,http://www.3tera.com/News/Press-Releases/Archive/BT-Selects-3Tera-AppLogic.php,

accessed September 2009.

“Eli Lilly on what’s next in Cloud Computing,”• InformationWeek website,

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/blog/archives/2009/01/whats_next_in_t.html,

accessed September 2009.

“What you need to know about Cloud Computing,•

A Real-World Example: Animoto,” PCMag website,

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2330239,00.asp# ,

accessed September 2009.

“CyberGamer Beats the Boss and Conquers the Cloud,”• Rackspace website,

http://www.rackspacecloud.com/blog/2009/07/02/cybergamer-beats-the-boss-and-conquers-the-cloud/,accessed September 2009.

“About AWS,”•  Amazon Web Services website, http://aws.amazon.com,

accessed September 2009.

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