Building a smart infrastructure

For most of us snow means that puffy, cool powder ice that melts away when you hold it. But for an Eskimo, who has to live with that through the year, it means several things. “There are 16 different words in their lingo to describe different varieties of snow. There is this watery snow, wet snow and sleet. Only those who live there know the intricacies,” says Raj Biyani, Managing Director of Microsoft IT (India).

This was one of the thoughts that was lingering in Biyani's mind when he teamed up with Salil Dave and Pankaj Arora, both his senior colleagues, to write a book on the cloud titled ‘To the Cloud – Cloud Powering an Enterprise'. The book is targeted both at novices and those who are already on the job. Apparently, it is not like selling ice to Eskimos. This is explaining to them what exactly it is and how varied and useful it could be.

“For several people the cloud is the cloud, just like the way we understand snow. But those who are practicing it know what exactly it is,” says Biyani.

The MD of Microsoft IT (India) doesn't restrict his views just to what and how of the cloud. He explains why countries like India need the cloud. To understand this, he read a great deal about the economic history of India. The list includes Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations , Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India and Chanakya's Arthashastra . It also includes Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India .

It, in fact, is a revelation for him to know that India was the second biggest economy in the world in 1820 with a size of about $100 billion then. And with China it could control 51 per cent of the global economy. “Somewhere along the way, we have missed the plot and got relegated to the lower strata in the rankings,” he says.

He, however, says that the India story has begun again. “See, they are talking about India and China again,” he quips, to bring home the message that these countries are on the growth path again to become leaders.

It took 190 years for the country to reach $1,000 billion (or a trillion) from $100 billion in 1820 with a negligible growth rate of 0.2 per cent. “But to reach the next trillion, it won't take much time. Economists today say that it will take just 10 years,” he points out.

It is a bit striking that an IT executive is talking with so much passion on the economic history of India. But, Biyani knows quite well that the growth of his industry largely hinges on the economy. And, for the kind of growth rates the country needs to clock in the next one or two decades, he argues that we require large scale progress in infrastructure. “Roads, airports and sea ports are important. But what is also important is smart infrastructure,” he observes.

In the West, they are taking to the cloud by migrating from the existing systems. “Since we started late, we can leapfrog into cloud-based infrastructure without having to invest huge sums on IT infrastructure,” he says.

He cites the example of telephones. “Those who never imagined owning a landline in India currently own a mobile phone. We can replicate this in the cloud,” he says. Small firms have begun designing business plans around IT. “RedBus is case in a point. The bus reservation facilitation portal buys computing capabilities from the cloud. They need not spend huge chunks of money on buying IT infrastructure. In fact, they are doing this, while spending their energies on their core business activity,” Biyani points out.

On his first writing venture, he says the book focuses broadly on four things – exploring (understanding the cloud), envision (how the cloud could help organizations), enable (on getting equipped with the right skills) and execute (designing and implementing the cloud plan).

He claims that Microsoft itself is a big gainer. “We save 30 per cent of IT spending every year. This is not a small saving and not a one-time saving. Year on year, we are saving this much by taking to the cloud,” says Raj Biyani.

People from several walks of life used to ask me – what is the cloud? Academics, students, clients and IT pros themselves would ask what actually is the cloud?

“What started as a white paper, evolved into a book. The original version in fact was four times bigger (now, 120 pages). But there is no point in writing a huge treatise. It will end up on library shelves. We then edited it with the idea that anyone boarding a flight should be able to complete the book by the time he lands,” Biyani sums up.

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