“Asia is entering an age of living in the cloud”

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Sundi Balu, CIO – Telstra Global, spoke to Pankaj Maru about how enterprises in the Asia are taking advantage of cloud. He also sheds light on the impact that Telstra’s shift to 3G will have on customers. Excerpts…

Telstra plans to move from 2G to 3G by 2016. What is the significance of this move?
As a vast majority of our customers already use 3G or 4G devices on the Telstra Mobile Network, our 2G traffic accounts for less than 1 percent of our total network traffic. Over the next couple of years, we will work with the remaining 2G retail customers to help them transition to our 3G and 4G technologies. This will lead to superior coverage, faster speeds and a vast improvement in the number and quality of services.

In this shift from 2G to 3G, what kind of technological challenges do you foresee?
We don’t foresee too many challenges. In fact, for Telstra’s customers this may be a simple process. Many of them are already using 3G phones, but they have not upgraded their SIM card. A few of them may need to change to a compatible 3G/4G handset. We don’t expect any impact on the cloud services.

What kind of impact will be there on your enterprise services and consumer services with your shift to 3G?
In the short term, there will be no impact for any of our customers. We will continue to operate the 2G network till the end of 2016, so the customers who access the 2G network will continue to have access to various services for the next two years. They can switch over to 3G at any point of time during this period.

To what extent is Telstra using cloud to drive the efficiency of its own business?
At Telstra, we are willing to take advantage of the benefits of cloud and cloud based services by hosting our international IT architecture in it. Like all businesses, we are driven by outcomes and costs. It is crystal clear to everyone that cloud can help businesses in many ways so it is in our best interests to implement it. Every department in Telstra, from sales to service, product management and HR to finance, uses cloud and the associated services in some form. With cloud, we can now access information, tools and services, and even scale business operationson demand. For instance, the key sales and service processes are already experiencing cycle-time reductions in the order of 20 to 30 percent. The learning that we have gained from our cloud deployment enables us to guide and support our customers in their journey into the cloud.

In the Asia region what kind of trends do you see in cloud adoption?
Asia is entering an age of living in the cloud. Over the past year, providers have discovered their individual and unique cloud plays and have expanded their services accordingly. For CIOs and their respective enterprises this is great time; they are increasingly turning towards the cloud to expand the scope of their businesses. Enterprises across the region are showing interest in hybrid cloud models, they are taking advantage of Infrastructure as a Service. By taking the hybrid approach in cloud initiatives, the enterprises can achieve valuable outcomes without having to worry about cost and security.

Can you give us an example of a company where the cloud solutions have been successfully deployed?
TIAA Henderson Real Estate the world’s third largest real estate investment management company was able to launch its global operations in just nine months by using next-generation cloud based technologies. Working with Telstra, TH Real Estate built a complete business and technology suite from scratch, including high quality video conferencing and other collaboration tools, which were spread across 19 countries. At Telstra we are seeing a growing number of applications developed by businesses in the cloud, due to the platform’s flexibility. The idea is simple: buying relevant computing space to test an approach and then shutting if off again when the activity has run its course drives innovation while reducing risk.

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