Embracing Cloud- The Way Forward
In this data-intensive age, enterprises both large and small, are always on the lookout for technologies which can give their business the required boost. We often get to hear that Indian businesses are gradually embracing the cloud model in various ways, making it quite popular. Although there are compelling reasons for a positive outlook in this matter, yet there are certain aspects which are basic and remain entrenched in the Indian business landscape which needs to be catered to in order to move ahead seamlessly.
Indian enterprises are gradually changing the way the cloud is perceived and rightly so. Reports show that public cloud services have grown around 28 per cent from last year. Gartner estimates that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is still one of the largest segments of the public cloud market in India and has grown 34 per cent to reach $932M in 2018, quite a positive sign.
Cloud-based SaaS allows enterprises the flexibility along with high levels of data protection and security in order to operate without breaking a sweat. In the longer run, it has a cost benefit over on-premises systems, given the subscription models which are based on concurrent users and the amount of data. These require no installations, no maintenance, and no hardware expenditure and also have the ability to upscale or downscale as per the requirement. To achieve this, businesses should adopt a ubiquitous approach by building a composite platform with core software components such as Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) to have a robust infrastructure.
Despite all the optimism around cloud services there is still a long way to go. Several measures are being taken into account to create a favourable environment for the proliferation of cloud services in India. Firstly, a majority of enterprises running on legacy IT infrastructure are making a shift to cloud services. They are also shedding their prejudices attached to data security and pricing issues as they want to make use of the service which allows them the freedom to store, manage, access and compute their data through programmes on remote servers. Secondly, the Government is making policies to provide adequate infrastructure along with stronger internet services to make the best use of technology.
A need for more secure and cost-efficient systems is leading the enterprises to consider adopting the cloud. An increase in the spending on cloud-based services is expected in the next few years. This will be a revolution for Indian enterprises. Besides, the rapid growth of SaaS is also an indicator that cloud-based services will give a new dimension to Digital India. Perceived as a buzzword until a few years ago, the cloud is currently being put to work.
