Saturday, Feb 21, 2009
Gulf News
Dubai: The UAE is the only country in the Gulf that has ventured into the field of cloud computing and the demand for this model will be robust in the years to come as the market matures, a top official at international technology services firm Keross says.
"In the UAE, a growing number of companies are already using Software-as-a-Service [SaaS] successfully. In November 2008, Tecom Investments, a member of Dubai Holding, unveiled a customer service portal that it provides to its customers in a SaaS model. Nakheel, Emaar and Dubai World Central have recently launched similar initiatives for project management, tenant management and property management, respectively," said Cyril Simonnet, CEO of Keross LLC in Dubai.
"Since Hotmail started in 1996, cloud computing has gone a long way in achieving credibility as a reliable and secure professional service used by enterprises of all sizes," Simonnet explained.
He said unlike conventional software and hardware, cloud computing gives businesses access to IT solutions for which they pay either a relatively low, flat subscription rate, or a usage-based fee. The advantages are obvious. There are no upfront capital expenditures, operating expenditures are substantially reduced and are a function of your growth, and deployment is a matter of months or even weeks, as opposed to years in the case of software and hardware. In addition, service levels are dramatically improved.
According to Sami Caracand, head of operations at Keross, the technical advantages are also very compelling.
"With cloud computing, you don't need to worry about upgrades and maintenance of software and hardware, since your service provider extends service guarantees that include continuous upgrades that are transparent and non-interruptive to end users," said Caracand.
He said that instead of focusing on core activities, some businesses are under the false impression that they have no option except outright procurement of hardware and software. This creates tremendous complication, as they have to hire support staff to keep the software running, technicians to fix hardware problems, and managers to keep them all in check.
However, cloud computing is not a panacea. As is the case with any technology, there are dangers involved. According to Caracand, there are risks associated with data protection and security, since data physically resides with the service provider. Properly managed, these risks are far outweighed by the advantages.
In addition, since service are provided over the internet, outages may occur. According to Simonnet, outage risk can be mitigated by contracting with a regional or local service provider, or a service provider that maintains local or regional data center facilities.
Quoting an IDC report, Caracand said that in the UAE, 67 per cent of total spending goes to hardware alone. But we are seeing the Gulf mature, since IDC noted a "shift towards increased spending on software and services". According to IDC, UAE spending on IT services grew a whopping 41 per cent in 2007.
Where do you start if you're considering cloud computing as a viable solution? The first step is to choose a good service provider.
What is cloud computing?-Cloud computing is the next wave in IT services revolving around the concept that technology can be procured as a utility (such as water and electricity) rather than as a packaged product. n Cloud computing is the current revolution in IT services.
The "cloud" (i.e., the internet) serves as a medium to provide customers with software, services, and even hardware as subscription services delivered securely without incurring capital expenses. Hotmail is one of the earliest successful examples of cloud computing, where you get full e-mail functionality without having to buy hardware or software. n
The majority of cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centres and built on servers with different levels of virtualisation technologies. n The services are accessible anywhere in the world, with the cloud appearing as a single point of access for all the computing needs of consumers. Cloud computing users leverage servers, applications and/or storage hosted by a provider (or by their own company, in the case of internal clouds) and are billed strictly for what they use each month, like a metered utility.
So if a company is launching a new product that requires a large database, it doesn't need to go out and buy one; it can use one hosted by a cloud provider such as Amazon, Google or Vertica. n In contrast to large up-front costs, initial costs are small because data lookups are few. If the new product turns out to be a success and lots of customers access the data, costs will go up, but then revenues should grow as well.
Gulf News 2009. All rights reserved.
