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Indian IT, Biz Out Of Synch On Cloud Computing

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[IT and business executives in India are out of synch on the potential of cloud computing. There are disparities between expectations and reality indicating that organizations are still learning what these technologies are capable of and how to overcome the new challenges they bring with them, reveals a a study by Symantec Corporation released last month. The 2011 Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey found 43 per cent of CFOs as well as CEOs who are implementing hybrid/private clouds are less than "somewhat open" to moving business-critical applications to cloud. They were mostly concerned over issues of reliability (71 per cent), security (76 per cent), availability and performance (81 per cent). In practice, however, many C-level concerns proved to be unfounded based on responses from IT. For example, concerns about performance was cited as a top reason for caution. Yet more than 75 per cent of those who deployed server virtualization, managed to achieve their goals related to performance. "Awareness around these emerging technologies is prevalent, but the Indian enterprise is yet to move completely. There is a wait and watch approach to the level of maturity in the market before implementation," said Anand Naik, director, Technology Sales (India & SAARC), Symantec. "Indian CIOs evaluate new technologies with a business driven ROI approach to technology decision–making to meet company's objectives." The Symantec commissioned survey covered 3,700 enterprises including large, medium and small across segments in 35 different countries based in North and Latin America, Europe, Middle East Asia (EMEA), Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) regions. From India, 200 firms participated in this survey. The survey highlighted topics including server, client, and storage virtualization, storage-as-a-service, and hybrid/private cloud technologies; and the results uncover disparities between expectations and reality as enterprises deploy these solutions. CEOs and CFOs are concerned with moving business-critical applications into virtual or cloud environments due to challenges including reliability, security, availability and performance. The survey shows that organizations are increasingly leveraging or planning to leverage virtualization for business-critical applications.  Of enterprises who are implementing virtualization, 73 per cent plan to virtualize database applications in the next 12 months. Forty per cent plan to virtualize web applications, and 33 per cent plan to virtualize email and calendar applications. Thirty-three per cent plan to virtualize ERP applications. About 57 per cent Indian firms have adopted server virtualization against 45 per cent globally, while one-third of the 200 Indian firms surveyed are discussing or are at a planning stage for private and hybrid cloud deployments, the survey found. "Indian enterprises are discussing virtualization and private/hybrid clouds. While agility and affordability are the main drivers, having fewer legacy systems is helping this transition," Vijay Mhaskar, Symantec's vice president - Information Management Group, said. Server and storage virtualization topped as the most mature technologies with 31 and 26 per cent of enterprises implementing it, while Private Storage-as-a-Services stood at just 21 per cent of adoption, the survey noted.   "Awareness around these emerging technologies is prevalent but Indian enterprise is yet to move completely. There is a wait and watch approach to the level of maturity in the market before implementation," Anand Naik, Symantec's director -Technology Sales (India & SAARC). "Indian CIOs evaluate new technologies with a business driven ROI approach to technology decision–making to meet company's objectives," Naik added. (BW Online Bureau)