Cloud computing is evolving at a rapid pace and has changed the face of the IT industry in India. Companies are constantly progressing their developments to adapt to these new technologies. Many of them are allocating a good part of their revenue to be invested into cloud connectivity. These kind of trends form a solid basis for cloud computing in India. From communication to data storage to application development, the cloud offers game-changing opportunities for every business across all industries.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a technology that can deliver services like database, analytics, servers, software, networking, storage, etc. – over the internet. Using cloud computing, companies do not have to physically maintain servers. The cloud can help to:

– Create new apps and services

– Deliver new software

– Host websites

– Store, backup, and recover data

– Analyse data

– Stream video

What are the different types of clouds?

1. Public cloud: Here, the entire computing infrastructure is located on the cloud, i.e., on the premises of the cloud computing company that is offering the cloud service

2. Private cloud: Here, everything is in-house or there is a dedicated infrastructure for your use, placed in a data center. You host your own computing infrastructure and it is not shared. Private networks offer the highest level of security and control.

3. Hybrid cloud: This makes use of both public and private clouds. You host your essential application on your private cloud while the secondary applications are hosted on the public cloud.

4. Community cloud: This cloud is shared between organisations with a common goal

Cloud companies in India

Some of the cloud service providers in India, offering the best cloud computing services, are Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Digital Ocean. IBM Bengaluru, Cisco Systems, VMware, Sify, and CtrlS are the most important providers of private cloud enterprise offerings in India.

Future of Cloud in India

The ever-changing cloud computing infrastructure in India has made it necessary for every IT company to switch to this technology to stay relevant in the market. The cloud rapidly altered the IT landscape leading to situations where not switching to the cloud may lead to losing significant opportunities in business.

Cloud spending in India is estimated to grow at 30% p.a. to reach $ 7.1 to 7.2 billion in 2022. India’s public cloud market is projected to grow from $2.6 billion to $8 billion with a CAGR of 25% between 2018 and 2023.

Government of India has empanelled service providers like Microsoft India Pvt Ltd, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Hewlett Packard Enterprise India Ltd (HP), IBM India Pvt Ltd, and Sify Technologies Ltd etc. as a part of GI Cloud (MeghRaj) initiative. The goal of this initiative is to monitor and improve e-services for government departments and agencies.

Factors that can help in driving the growth of cloud in India

• Fastgrowing market
• Availability of suppliers for cloud services
• Competitive pricing
• Government initiative like GI Cloud (Meghraj)
• Rise of startup ecosystem
• Growth of skilled talent availability
• Advanced technologies like AI
• Rise in data centers
• Global cloud companies focusing on Indian market
• Rise in SaaS companies

Cloud providers like Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS have started setting up their data centers in India. The idea behind this is to stay close to the customers and to take care of regulatory requirements of various entities. India has more than 200 data centers out of which top 3 cloud providers own 5.

The Indian IT market has started to understand and appreciate the scalability, flexibility and agility that cloud brings. Accordingly, we can expect a huge increase in adapting the available cloud services in the near future.

Who should connect?

1. Enterprises, who are using services running in the cloud. To secure the reachability and quality of these services, a secure and stable cloud connectivity is needed.
2. Internet Service Providers (ISP) can improve their own service portfolio by providing the enterprises with transport into the desired cloud.
3. Data centers (DC) can also benefit from cloud connectivity by offering the same to their own customers.
4. Cloud Service Providers (CSP) with own cloud services can extend their footprint and offer cloud connectivity to enterprises and ISPs.

How can DE-CIX help you to connect with the cloud service providers?

DE-CIX gives you an access to different cloud service providers. DE-CIX’s DirectCLOUD service is a dedicated connection between your infrastructure and the chosen cloud service provider. The connection is established via SD-WAN, which is transported from your business to DE-CIX. DE-CIX then extends this VLAN to the cloud. All of this is done within DE-CIX’s cloud ecosystem for end-to-end cloud connectivity.

At the moment DE-CIX can connect you with Microsoft Azure Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Google Cloud Connect, and AWS Cloud. Stay tuned – there is more to come. To learn more click here