Tata Communications just became India’s first local Public Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service(IaaS) provider by offering compute, data transfer, and storage infrastructure services. Their new InstaCompute service delivers self-service, pay-as-you-use IT application and data center infrastructure services, accessed through the Internet. This is the first time that an Asian regional provider has established an Amazon EC2-like IaaS offering that allows users to rent general purpose servers provisioned in the cloud.
Tata’s new InstaOffice service was also announced providing Email, Calendaring, Groups, and Collaboration via Google Apps. Vinod Kumar, President and COO, Tata Communications says, “Driven by a rapidly evolving economy, Indian businesses desire flexibility and scalability of infrastructure as they pursue growth within India and overseas. Simultaneously, the competitive environment requires them to achieve their goals with low upfront investments. Tata Communications’ InstaCompute and [InstaOffice] will help our customers to quickly leverage advanced IT and networking services, without the cost and complexity associated with them.”
Tata’s new InstaOffice and InstaCompute services complement their existing contact center (InstaCC), customer relationship management (InstaCRM), and content management (InstaECM) services. These services, along with Tata’s $500M investment in data centers in India, Singapore, and abroad, makes Tata the early public cloud computing leader in South Asia.
As a sign of Tata’s aspirations in the region, they recently opened a 66,000 sq. ft. Tata Communications Exchange (TCX) data center in Singapore. Vinod Kumar further states "Our substantial investment in TCX, coupled with our submarine cable build-out, ensures scalability and global reach while delivering on our commitment to meet customer requirements. We will continue to lead the industry in offering superior data center and connectivity services into emerging markets. This is where we see high growth potential."
What does this mean for the Philippines?
This announcement has different implications for the Philippine Telco, Business, and Government sectors:
- Government – This serves as a wake-up call for policy-makers to craft data geo-location policies applicable to not just US-based IaaS providers, but also those based regionally. CICT, NEDA and DOST need to also pay attention as this allows the massive base of Indian developers and SI’s to more easily create innovative solutions for the Asian market with minimal up-front costs. The question then becomes whether we are resigning the Philippines to become a net consumer of these emerging regional solutions. Hopefully not…
- TelCos – Prudent for PLDT and Globe to closely monitor Tata’s forays into IaaS and SingTel’s announced alliance with Cisco and VMWare to set it up as a regional cloud computing hub. Our local carriers will need to decide whether to invest millions in CapEx or cede the local and regional Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) market.
- Businesses – Tata now joins the ranks of established IaaS providers (Amazon, Rackspace, etc.) and can be considered as a regional cloud alternative. Tata’s InstaCompute service is priced competitively compared to Amazon’s EC2 Std service and Rackspace’s default offering (see table).
