Cloud computing has become much more than the buzz word in the technology world with more number of companies innovating to get this platform to become mainstream and this will play an influential role in every sector for years to come. Google has been in the forefront of developing new applications, technologies to make cloud computing more accessible and simple to use. Shailesh Rao, director at Google and Global Head of the Cloud business unit said that they find the India market ripe for adopting cloud technologies and they are ready with more innovations, in an interview with PP Thimmaya. Edited excerpts.
Could you provide an overview of Google’s cloud strategy?
This is one of the most exciting areas. For the last 15 years, we have been building amazing cloud infrastructure and innovating so many dimensions around it. All these fundamental innovations are in order to make our services faster. What we are doing is just exposing the same infrastructure to everybody else. The amount of reliability, performance and ability to scale at attractive costs is something we can bring to the entire world. Cloud has become mainstream in some markets and it will be in others over the next few years. This is long term play. Over time we will continue to expose more and more services available within our core infrastructure.
What more can we expect from Google?
There are multiple layers. Cloud is not a monolithic thing and there are expansive set of options in terms of innovating on raw computing infrastructure. For example, the ability to do live migration, is a fundamental innovation in computer science. We also announced major price cuts, driven by our belief that cloud computing has still not caught with Moore’s law of pricing on processors. We think we need to get certain level of scale and reliability that actually makes a dent.
We are going to innovate in the area where it will be very easy for the developers to use our cloud infrastructure. For example, a developer with a couple of click of clicks can deploy the code. In the core infrastructure side we are going innovate to bring the latest hardware. In networking there is lot of opportunity, we own and operate one of the largest proprietary networks and we will continue to innovate on that front.
We believe SaaS applications will be a big part of the future. We have 5 million companies that have gone Google and 5,000 are joining everyday. Everyday, we process 28 billion requests through Google app engine while Wikipedia gets about 2.6 billion. We are getting started.
How does Google see the interplay between public, private and consumer cloud?
Over time businesses, consumers, applications, will revert to whatever is the most convenient and valuable option, there will be labels assigned to them, There is going to be private cloud, but more of that is something which going to be in the past. One will be forced to move to cloud because that is the fundamental underpinning. Over time there will be some blending and what will give matter is which one is going to give the best value. We believe it will be primarily public cloud which is going to be most dominant.
How does Google view the Indian market?
We see that fair amount of education which has to be done and we are investing in those areas. The Indian market is ripe for moving to cloud, if you just look at the number of startups here. In traditional companies the move is going to happen but it will probably take a little longer. We continue to expand, hire more people. The potential is just tremendous and we are very excited. Cloud infrastructure allows you to experiment, innovate, without spending too much time on trying to understand. Our goal is to try and put everything online. Transparency is one our core values.
Will Indian cloud market see a sharp growth curve?
If I look at the number of companies that are being started here and the general mindset, I do believe it is a huge market and is going to explode. Though, a few things that will have to happen in terms of people getting more comfortable. What is attractive here is the mindset for the things they want to do, they need the infrastructure. On the large enterprises moving, it is too early to tell but we see enough, promising signs. We have not reached the tipping point as yet.
Which sectors are the early adopters of cloud in India?
Today it is the tech companies—e-commerce and product firms. We are seeing some disruptive business models that is going to change the landscape. Retail companies could really benefit from Google’s big query. For them, what is important is not the data that they possess but the value and insights they are able to generate. I see a huge potential in retail that is amount of value they can get by analysing data, they want to decision in minutes.
Courtesy: Financial Express