After announcing the opening of three data centres in India, Microsoft says the time is ripe now for the Indian government to formulate a clear policy for public cloud services.
“Till now, government held the view that it will not be on public cloud due to the fact that data goes outside the country. Now that we have local data centres, what is required is a clear policy environment by the government on the use of public cloud by government agencies,” Karan Bajwa, Managing Director Microsoft India , told The Hindu .
Microsoft has made a number of suggestions based on the learning from other countries that have come out with a public cloud policy. “We are sharing some of the learning with the regulators and discussing what kind of certifications are important to handle data security, privacy, sovereignty etc. We are literally giving them a template to invest in creating a policy,” he added. Analysts have forecast strong growth for public cloud services in India. IT research firm Gartner has projected revenues through public cloud services in India at $838 million for 2015.
“While public cloud market in India has been growing at 68-72 per cent, we would only expect it to increase further as a consequence of our new local data centres. We have about 30 per cent share in this market,” he said.
Mr. Bajwa also said the opening of three data centres in the country would primarily drive adoption of public cloud services by government departments, state-owned agencies and banks and financial institutions, which stayed away from using cloud services as they wanted the data resident within the country’s boundaries.
While public cloud market in India has been growing at 68-72 per cent, we would only expect it to increase further as a consequence of our new local data centres.
