Enterprise cloud at the tip of the iceberg in Sri Lanka, says Finetech CEO
Mr. Clehan Pulle
While business entities are moving into cloud based data storage solutions worldwide, in Sri Lanka the enterprise cloud is at the tip of the iceberg, says Finetech Consultancy CEO, Clehan Pulle.
In an interview with the Business Times Mr. Pulle said, in Sri Lanka the enterprise cloud is at the tip of the iceberg. Taking the whole IT infrastructure in the country, only 5-10 per cent is in the cloud. Regulatory issues in Sri Lanka are dragging this while the Central Bank too hasn’t come up with a proper guideline, a reason why banks are wondering whether to shift to the cloud, he added. He further elaborated, looking at the private sector most of the companies are working on strategies to move towards the cloud. The industries want to take a planned approach which is why the process is slow. Cloud is the future of technology where 90 per cent of the enterprises must think of moving towards it from now, he noted.
He also mentioned that in 2011 Google decided to work with a partner based out of South Africa and Finetech became an enterprise partner for Google in Sri Lanka. At that time cloud was a difficult term to explain and educate the people on its benefits. Later in 2013 people started accepting cloud and businesses started to grow on cloud. Finetech has grown 100 per cent year-on-year since then. From the Google perspective the company has grown by 250 per cent. With that result Google decided to appoint Finetech as the premier partner for Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh.
Finetech has the highest number of certified engineers where Google is concerned at the technology aspect of a company apart from its revenue. There is a minimum required amount of engineers that must be certified by Google to become a partner. All engineers at Finetech are from Sri Lanka who get the exposure from a technical point working with Google.
Enterprise cloud is different from a private user cloud. The legality and security aspect is taken care of by Google. Large companies go for enterprise cloud due to security reasons when an employee leaves so that he or she will not take the data along. The enterprise cloud could also be accessed through the mobile device. Look at the collaboration suite, from a confidentiality point, Google servers has the most confidentiality platform more than an individual has in its own servers. Google has its own unique way of storing data by breaking into compartments somewhere in the world. The data is encrypted and when you retrieve it to the end user the data gets decrypted. The servers are duplicated twice for data redundancy. Google is one of the only companies that has not yet been hacked, noted Mr. Pulle.
He also stressed, there is no option for enterprises other than moving into the cloud in the future. More and more companies are seeing the benefits of cloud. An organisation running a data centre will have massive costs on power and space while running the organisation. Google enterprises storage is much cheaper than having a data centre. If enterprises don’t take the route of moving to the cloud they would be left behind.
Mr. Pulle stated, there are government institutions that have moved into the Google cloud. The entire Ministry of Foreign Affairs is using this collaboration within the country and 67 missions across the world for the last three years. The Sri Lanka Tourist Board, the Board of Investment and the Ministry of Disaster Management are using the Google cloud for data storage. Many government institutions are moving towards the cloud, he added.