In Phl this year, retail, banking, logistics to lead cloud migration

CEBU, Philippines - The retail, banking, and logistics sectors are seen to lead the major deployment of cloud migration this year in the Philippines.

Cloud computing and IT services provider DataOne Asia expects remarkable developments as new global players will emerge in cloud services this year, and a broader market as more industries migrate to the cloud.

DataOne Asia president and chief executive officer (CEO) Cyril Rocke anticipates formation of partnerships between traditional hardware vendors and new cloud providers, adding that there will be a creation of new services and business applications due to cloud adoption.

Rocke said the emergence of new major cloud providers such as Google to compete with Amazon, Rackspace, and other players is expected.

He sees IT infrastructure being standardized globally and that more enterprises worldwide will continue to turn to the Cloud for their IT computing needs. "This is the major trend and I see that this is accelerating.”

In the Philippines, cloud computing’s acceptance from enterprises is increasing faster than anticipated since last year.

This 2014, Rocke expects cloud computing to gain an even wider recognition.

“I’m not saying that all companies will go for it, but we see from a lot of different industries the demand and acceptance for Cloud,” he said explaining that this is because companies are seeing more benefits beyond cost and performance.

Rocke cited industries that need to adopt cloud technology are those that involve large amount of transactions such as companies in retail, logistics, and banking.

“If you’re a logistics company, there’s a lot of movement of goods to be delivered quickly, frequently, and precisely. Due to the nature of this industry, network security and speed of computing infrastructure are key because you need to scale or increase your capacity quickly on demand,” he said.

During peak or holiday seasons, DataOne has clients requesting for an increase in capacity. “Being able to deliver that capacity very quickly shows our service is able to address the specific needs of those industries," Rocke said.

The Cloud’s impact was already felt in 2013. Last year saw a drop in sales in large hardware manufacturing as enterprises were slowly migrating to the Cloud.

“At the same time, the large traditional hardware vendors like IBM, HP, Dell, and others are using various strategies to enter the Cloud. We see convergences between them and new emerging cloud providers," he added.

Although he expects a higher demand for data center services and cloud infrastructures in 2014, Rocke clarified that it doesn’t mean needing larger data centers because a lot more computing power can now be delivered through the Cloud.

The wide acceptance of cloud computing technology is a major advancement. “It is becoming a standard and it opens new opportunities,” he stressed.

For instance, the large amount of transaction data in the financial market over the past 10 years can now be provided as a service to conduct analytics. “So you can analyze what happens in the financial market and try to anticipate what’s coming because all the platforms are getting standardized," he added. (FREEMAN)