By Tabrez Khan
In a bid to gain a foothold in the nascent but potentially vast cloud computing market, HP will allow Sify to leverage its channel network to promote its newly-launched cloud computing service in the SMB market. The cloud computing service jointly launched by the two companies is based on HP’s Converged Infrastructure, and offers IaaS, PaaS and SaaS on an on-demand basis to customers.
According to Santanu Ghose, Country Head, Infrastructure Software and Blades, HP India, “The industry is shifting rapidly, and going forward customers will adopt a dual model of IT infrastructure. They will have certain applications and infrastructure in-house, while others will be consumed as services. We want to expose our channel partners to cloud computing, and help them be prepared because this will be a big revenue-generating opportunity for them.”
Ghose said Sify was keen on leveraging HP’s ISV partner ecosystem for developing applications which could be hosted on the cloud. Applications such as mail messaging, industry-specific ERP, billing and payroll will typically be the ones initially considered for cloud adoption, he informed.
According to Ghose, certain micro-verticals in the SMB segment were expected to be the early adopters of the cloud computing service. “Health care, education, travel & tourism and broking are areas where you will see a lot of interest for on-demand cloud computing. Some verticals such as travel have seasonal spikes, and therefore their interest in and utility for an on-demand computing model is substantial.”
Ghose said that organizations were also increasingly interested in adopting virtual desktops due to the security and higher ROI they offered compared to traditional desktops.
On the pricing of the service and benefits of the service to its partners Ghose said that these details were still to be worked out, “but they will be sufficiently attractive for partners.”
Sify’s cloud computing service is based on HP’s Blade System Matrix which pools together Sify’s IT resources into a highly automated and virtualized resource pool. Specific application templates automatically provision resources for every new business requirement. Business users can request IT services on the fly by using a self-service portal powered by the HP Insight Orchestration tool within the Blade System Matrix.
“HP’s Blade System Matrix is meant to simplify the adoption of technology for customers. All the complexities that exist are internal to the system and are not exposed to the customers. It is important to have that level of simplicity, otherwise it is difficult to take any service to the market,” explained Ghose.
He said that there was no revenue-sharing arrangement with Sify, and the initiative was more of a joint-branding exercise. |