Biswas Nair, Founder & CEO, Inspirria Cloudtech, shares his views on Growth of Cloud Technology in 2020

Meeting Challenges

During lockdown, Cloud deployment has seen many challenges. At the same time, many solutions have evolved to fulfil the

needs of the enterprises. A conversation with Cloud Solution Provider Biswas Nair, Founder & CEO, Inspirria Cloudtech,

Pune, shows these patterns. 

- DR ARCHANA VERMA, archanav@cybermedia.co.in

HOW IS THE CLOUD TECHNOLOGY EVOLVING IN 2020?

Over the past decade, cloud computing adoption has seen explosive growth at both consumer and enterprise levels.

Companies are rapidly incorporating cloud technology, the ability to access distributed computer processing and

storage capabilities. We have seen a plethora of cloud-native solutions emerge with Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings but Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) as well.

In fact 451 Research has found that 90% of organisations will be using some form of cloud computing services in the next two years, with 60% saying that the majority of their IT will be off-premise. What’s more, 49% of organisations have adopted a cloud-first approach for deploying net new applications. 451 Research also predicts the cloud computing market will reach $53.3 billion in 2021. The main reason the adoption of Cloud has become mainstream is because of the below mentioned benefits which business has realised over the last many years -

Improved Operations - Cloud technology enables companies to scale their computing solutions as they grow and the pay as per usage models assists them with their growth

Support Customers More Effectively - Not only does the cloud allow companies to create more valuable apps for customers, it enables better customer support. The cloud provides a flexible system that connects customers and employees & also makes it easier to share information with customers. Even small companies can wow customers with high quality web content.

Enable a Flexible Workplace - Employees also benefit from companies adopting the cloud. When all their work information is stored on the cloud, they are able to work from home. In the current pandemic times, the cloud essentially enables the entire office to be present in any employee’s home.

The Cloud Increases Productivity - Investing in the cloud allows businesses to provide a central repository for all their data, communication and processing. With this central hub, employees can work from anywhere in the world, using any internet-connected device that they prefer. Employees and customers can connect through the cloud 24/7 for better service.

WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE WHILE OFFERING CLOUD SOLUTIONS IN 2020?

The following are the main challenges –

Reliability on new technology - By using cloud computing they have fear of losing control over the data. ey think that data is taken from them and handover to an unknown third party.

Cost barrier - For efficient working of cloud computing you have to bear the high charges of the bandwidth. Business can cut down the cost on hardware but they have to spend a huge amount on the bandwidth. For smaller application cost is not a big issue but for large and complex applications it is a major concern.

Lack of knowledge and expertise - Every organisation does not have sufficient knowledge about the implementation of the cloud solutions. They have not expertise staff and tools for the proper use of cloud technology. Delivering the information and selection the right cloud is quite difficult without right direction.

Consumption basis services charges - Cloud computing services are on-demand services so it is difficult to define specific cost for a particular quantity of services. These types of fluctuations and price differences make the implementation of cloud computing very difficult and complicated.

Alleviate the threats risk - It is very complicated to certify that the cloud service provider meet the standards for security and threat risk. There are mainly two types of threat such as internal threats, within the organisations and external threats. These threats and security risks put a check on implementing cloud solutions.

Integration - Many organizations, especially those with hybrid cloud environments, report challenges related to accessing their public tools and applications to the public cloud to work together. For many of thebusiness connecting old systems with cloud applications is a barrier to adoption.

HOW DID YOU MEET THESE CHALLENGES?

Cloud computing facilitates businesses to focus on achieving their goals, with performance at the core, without any fuss. When a five-pronged cloud computing phenomenon that leverages flexibility, agility, security, mobility, and scalability combines with existing processes, the level of business’ performance rises to a new level. The idea is to help businesses get computational power they need, and how they want it to work for them, and move on. As cloud computing continues to make inroads in enterprise  worlds, all stakeholders are looking forward to the evolution of the model.

It’s not just computational power, networking speed, or storage capacity that makes cloud computing great. Those are just operational metrics that better technology would eventually change and replace over time. The real value of technology is what it does, not what it’s made of. The assurance on the cost balance with skill shortage is a major challenge and we have assisted many of our clients with right tools & proper internal user training on cloud. As the enterprises dive deep into the Cloud world, integration challenges with open API’s are resolved, ensuring that there is smooth flow of data between applications and infrastructure.

As things stand today, almost every significant innovation such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, and IoT rely on cloud computing technology.

WHERE DO YOU THINK CLOUD TECHNOLOGY IS GOING IN THE NEXT 2 YEARS?

It’s no secret; Cloud computing is revolutionizing the IT industry. As cloud adoption grows exponentially, businesses of all sizes understand the benefits. For start- ups and small and medium businesses (SMEs), they cannot afford expensive server maintenance but may need to be tested overnight. And cloud solves this problem for them.

Following in the footsteps of hybrid cloud but going one step further, there comes multi-cloud — a combination of cloud environments ranging from on-premises cloud to hosted private cloud to public cloud, each dedicated to different use cases.

Given that no single cloud today can competitively provide for all solutions, the most mature businesses find in multi-cloud the promise of excellence — selecting the best solutions from the entire cloud offering available to build a single application environment, in which all components are interdependent.

In fact, it’s no longer a question of whether or not a company will undergo a cloud transformation. Rather, questions about precisely what services and operations should be shifted into the cloud, how much will they cost, how much will they save the business, and how quickly can it all happen, are dominating the conversation. For one thing, the extreme agility and accessibility of a Cloud is far superior to the use of current technology.