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Enabling the Cloud: The Future World of Work
At the Verizon Business APAC Media Forum 2011, the Cloud
was the center of attraction with discussions revolving around how businesses
could enable and adopt it in the best possible way
 With
a tremendous shift in the way that today's businesses operate, the role of CIO
calls for innovation and Cloud computing is the way to go about it. Verizon
Business discussed technology enablers for business transformation and key CIO
concerns with a focus on the business implications of the Cloud computing environment.
The event commenced with announcements and an overview from Andrew Dobbins,
Vice President, Asia Pacific, Verizon Business. Verizon Business is rapidly
transforming to a Cloud-based, everything-as-a-service delivery model. Its strategic
areas are wireless devices, wireless data, FiOS and enterprise strategy services.
Over the last couple of years, Verizon Business has significantly expanded its
presence in India to support the direct delivery of advanced telecommunications
services to multinational companies with operations in India as well as to India-based
multinationals.
The service provider’s revenue for Q3 2011 totted up
to $27.9 billion as compared to $27.5 billion in Q2. On the global enterprise
front, it has dived deep into Cloud computing with the Terremark integration
and CloudSwitch acquisition. Through this, it is continuing to broaden its global
network infrastructure’s scope and capabilities. The Cloud infrastructure
has been strengthened with 13 data centers in the APAC and 200 data centers
globally, along with 1 NOC or 1 SOC and 45+ MPLS nodes. To date, Japan is its
largest market in the APAC.
 "We
are transforming to a Cloud-based, everything-as-a-service delivery model."
Andrew Dobbins,
Vice President, Asia Pacific,
Verizon Business |
According to Dobbins of Verizon Business, the ongoing economic
crisis was affecting businesses globally and making them look for innovative
growth mechanisms. The trend amongst today's businesses was heavily leaning
towards Cloud computing and end-user devices with priorities and demands shifting.
Business realities were going from fast to faster, border to borderless and
physical to virtual.
 "GDP
power is shifting with technology acting as a lever."
Chris KIMM,
VP, Network Field Operations (Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle-East, Africa),
Verizon Business |
Chris Kimm, Vice President, Network Field Operations, Europe,
Asia Pacific, Middle-East, Africa, Verizon Business, spoke about 2020 vision
and how GDP power was shifting with technology acting as a lever. He ended his
talk by posing a question as to how do you dynamically get the technology that
you need to make life nimble? The way that businesses operate has changed dynamically
with the workforce becoming more mobile and getting work done through social
networking. The Cloud is becoming a new paradigm for operations in this changing
business scenario.
Vishal Dhar, Co-Founder & CEO, iYogi, gave a customer
perspective on using the Verizon Cloud. iYogi’s Cloud services sit on the
Verizon network. iYogi is an online subscription-based technical support services
provider offering services directly to consumers and small businesses across
a wide range of computing and communications devices and software.
Dane Anderson, VP, Research Director & Region Manager, Forrester, led a
panel discussion along with Dobbins, Kimm and Dhar regarding problems faced
in the Cloud. Data privacy has become a major concern even more than security.
The regulations regarding where the data can reside and who can access it is
becoming a barrier in terms of companies wanting to adopt Cloud computing. Another
factor that comes in the way is complying with regulations and SLAs. There are
various challenges faced in Asia as an operator. One of them is getting people
and retaining them. In regions like China, getting an English-speaking workforce
is a big hurdle. Roadblocks faced on consumer side would be network licensing.
Also, with some applications, latency is an issue. One interesting point that
was discussed was that, following regulations like ISMS and PCI DSS, reduced
threat levels by 86%.
Forrester’s Anderson also mentioned that any long term investment would
be a disadvantage unless there was a lot of technology background to support
it. Cloud adoption continues to increase. 52% of APEJ organizations are either
currently using or actively planning a Cloud initiative up from 44% in 2010.
The aspects to look at while adopting Cloud services are data protection and
decreasing the complexity in current business environments. Presently, healthcare
is one sector wherein lots of Cloud initiatives are being taken.
From Verizon Business’ perspective for Cloud and IT services, security
is critical. The latest trend being witnessed is a move towards delivering industry-specific
solutions. DR is another aspect wherein organizations are viewing the Cloud
as a serious option and tops the list in BCP for most organizations. Verizon’s
Dobbins cited the example of the recent tsunami that struck Japan. Medical records
of over a hundred years were lost but could be restored as the hospital had
a Cloud backup.
Mark Beaumont, Global Product Development, IT Solutions, Verizon gave a Cloud
update by talking about Verizon/ Terremark’s Cloud vision and strategy,
enterprise drivers and Cloud differentiators. According to Verizon’s Beaumont,
there would be four times more growth in the public Cloud over the course of
the next few years. IT spending is going to increase in the APAC as opposed
to the US where it is going to decline. It will be a tug of war between the
commodity Cloud vs. the business Cloud. Verizon/Terremark has 56 key data centers
as part of its Cloud strategy. The recently developed data center in Miami,
US has 7,50,000 sq. ft. of space and it will provide multi Cloud and multi hypervisor
support.
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