Indian companies likely to opt for hybrid cloud rather than public cloud

With business transformation taking foreground and firms which use cloud platforms and digital technologies looking at new ways to leverage data for improved business performance, cloud computing has taken the centre stage in developing new, digitally-driven business models. A latest survey by IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) shows that decision-makers in Indian companies are increasingly planning to invest in hybrid multi-cloud platform strategies and capabilities to drive business transformation.

According to the survey, in the next three years alone, hybrid cloud adoption among Indian businesses is expected to grow by 49 per cent and the average organisation using nearly six hybrid clouds. With the increased full hybrid, multi-cloud platform technology and operating model "at scale business can derive 2.5 times the value compared to a single platform, single cloud vendor approach," the report said.

Viswanath Ramaswamy, VP, IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software and Services, IBM India & South Asia says, "This is proven in the instance of leading businesses that have successfully achieved demonstrable competitive advantage through robust hybrid cloud management and governance platform."

Of the more than 400 executives from India across industries who currently use hybrid cloud, multi-cloud and were part of the survey, only 29 per cent of their firms have a holistic multi-cloud management strategy. They, however, were confident of increasing their investment in cloud management 2.6 times over a period of next 10 years. Also the main reason for a third of these Indian firms to seek Cloud Management Platforms was for improved visibility and control of their cloud costs

"In India, leading businesses such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are achieving business transformation by leveraging hybrid multi-cloud platform technology and embedding AI. We are betting big on Hybrid Cloud which is secure, interoperable, open and free from vendor lock-in," said Vishwanath.

However hybrid multi-cloud adoption may not be everyone's cup of tea with challenges such as maintaining sufficient security, inadequate IT management and governance processes and also the scarcity of skills needed to build and manage a multi-cloud orchestration platform weighing down on firms while taking decisions on cloud infrastructure at companies.