Reliance Communications launches ‘Cloud Computing’ solutions in India on Microsoft Platform

MUMBAI - In a move that combines the power of virtualization technology and cloud omputing, Reliance Data Center, a part of Reliance Communications, today announced the launch of “Reliance Cloud Computing Services” - hosted infrastructure service for its customers, based on the Microsoft platform.

With this, Reliance will provide enterprises and SMBs in India, access to a variety of enterprise scale IT solutions, applications and services on the pay as you go model.

These include infrastructure services such as server hosting, data storage and archival, as well as business applications like e-mail, ERP, workflow automation, document management; IT monitoring and reporting, disaster recovery, firewall services and automatic security updates. Microsoft’s virtualization and management technologies will help Reliance reduce the input costs involved in providing these services.

As a result, Reliance will be able to pass the cost benefits to its customers. Furthermore, with “Reliance Cloud Computing Services” available on the pay-as-you-go model, businesses (both large and small) will be able to address their technology requirements without bearing costs involved in procuring, deploying and maintaining additional IT resources.

“Leveraging Microsoft’s cutting edge technologies, Reliance Data Center will deliver access to enterprise-class scalable, secure and reliable hosted IT infrastructure to help large, midsized and SMB companies leverage cloud computing technologies to drive business benefits. This is part of our long term vision to continuously provide the latest and best technology to our customers, so that they always enjoy a business edge against their competitors”, said George Varghese, President and Head, Enterprise Business, Reliance Communications.

Today, 35 million business owners in India spend a mere 0.4 to 3 percent of their total revenues on IT.

Despite increasing capacity and technology requirements - high upfront costs involved in procuring and deploying IT infrastructure, and overall need for cash flows has been cited as a deterrent to technology penetration, especially in case of SMBs in India.

However, increasing awareness around the relevance and advantage of hosted solutions is changing this scenario.

“Hosted IT offerings are a cost effective model for provisioning processes, applications and services while making IT management easier and more responsive to business needs. We believe businesses have matured in their IT strategies and are now ready to explore hosted infrastructure as an option not only for short term scalability needs but also longer term requirements”, added Varghese.

In fact, according to a recent Gartner report - technology adopters are expected to purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure “as a service” by 2011.

Rajan Anandan - Managing Director, Microsoft India said, “We believe that the world of technology will never be only-cloud or only in-premise. The best customer value will be delivered as a combination, and Reliance Communications represents this. By combining the best of software with the best of cloud-based services, Microsoft can deliver more compelling solutions for businesses of all sizes. Today, Microsoft is delighted to empower Reliance with the ability to offer an innovative and affordable business solution for their customers.”

Using Microsoft’s Dynamic Data Centre toolkit (an end-to-end guidance for leveraging virtualization infrastructure of Windows Server 2008 R2/ Hyper-V coupled with System Center to create managed services and partner hosted cloud offerings), Reliance is taking the lead in making cloud computing a reality for businesses in India.

“Thanks to Microsoft, we can cut down on server sprawl and related capital costs across Reliance data centers - and are geared up to deliver what is arguably India’s largest cloud infrastructure today”, added Varghese.

“Microsoft’s virtualization and management technologies deliver one of the highest return on investment in the market today. Reliance is betting on Microsoft to deliver the power of cloud computing to customers in India, and this is a true testament to the strong value that Microsoft can deliver”, added Anandan.

‘Reliance Cloud Computing Services’, targeted towards SMB as well as enterprise customers will essentially involve creation of a central computing + data storage IT infrastructure at the data centre, and then offering the same to multiple end customers as a standardized packaged offerings, accessible through public Internet, on a shared / virtual, pay on usage model.

Various software applications (including mailing, sales force automation, HR automation, logistics, supply chain, ERP, document management, work flow automation, billing, CRM) and underlying IT infrastructure like server computing, data storage and retrieval, disaster recovery, application development platforms and security tools will be offered by us under this banner.

The benefits to end customers will include cost reduction, cash flow improvement, pay per use (instead of upfront capex), better ime to market, high quality managed services at fraction of cost, 24*7 accessibility from anywhere in the world, no need for igh end IT skill sets, unlimited scalability, focus on their core business and hence essentially peace of mind. (ANI)