Infosys's Gopalakrishnan to head govt's cloud computing panel

The committee has been set up following instructions from IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal. "Infosys' Kris Gopalakrishnan is chairing the committee. It will suggest a framework to promote cloud computing service

in and from the country," Indian Computer Emergency Response Team's Director Gulshan Rai, also member of the committee, told PTI.

In cloud computing, end users are not required to buy software or devices as they are provided by service providers on a rental basis.

When contacted, Gopalakrishnan said, "Cloud computing is the way forward to bring affordable services in areas like healthcare, education, e-governance and banking to masses." Cloud computing is one of the thrust areas of the proposed National IT Policy that envisages to increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry from $100 billion at present to $300 billion by 2020. This policy likely to be placed before Cabinet within a week for its approval, sources said.

Sibal has also asked Department of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary, J Sathyanarayana to discuss cloud computing issues with the industry after National IT Policy (NIP) is approved.

The members of the committee include representatives from Department of Information Technology, National Informatics Centres, NASSCOM, industry chambers CII, FICCI and others.

While appreciating the benefits of cloud computing, RBI Deputy Governor Anand Sinha recently pointed out that it being a new technology, data integrity and confidentiality seem to be a major concern at this stage.

"Further, if too many participants rely on a single service provider, it may lead to a risk of over- concentration inasmuch as the failure of the service provider will be catastrophic," he said at Hyderabad.

Amid increasing use by small and medium businesses (SMB), the public cloud market in the country is expected to reach $685 million by 2014, according to a study by research firm Zinnov.

In case of public cloud, services (either free or offered on a pay-per-use model) are made available to customers by providers like Microsoft and Google who own and operate the infrastructure and offer them through internet.

"Public cloud market is expected to grow at 55 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) in the near future and will become a default choice for new IT investments, especially in the SMB segment," Zinnov Management Consulting Director-Market Expansion Praveen Bhadada said in a statement.