Hybrid Cloud is the way to go: IBM

New Delhi: At a time when the considerations for adopting cloud technology have evolved and customers globally are looking for public and private cloud capabilities in one infrastructure, hybrid is the solution, an IBM executive has said.

"When we work with private and public clouds on workload assessment, customers think of what would go Hybrid. We do studies and assessment with our customers every day. So, there is no doubt or question in our mind that hybrid is the way to go," Vikas Arora, Cloud Business Leader for IBM India and South Asia, told IANS.

He said IBM believes that it has the best of enterprise cloud and hybrid is a very core capability that it has, adding that there is a need of a global footprint of data centres.

"Datacentres need to be secured and Watson gives this additional capability to secure our cloud, along with the capability that it should provide support for innovations like blockchain and quantum computing," Arora noted.

On a question on the key focus areas for IBM cloud in India, Arora said that the company`s priority in India is to make sure that all our customers are aware of what really is our cloud and cognitive road-maps.

"We have seen the progression of cloud in India very closely. While some businesses adopted it for more efficient infrastructure and to move from capex to opexmodel, some did as they believed it is low cost IT," Arora emphasised

"Cloud is not just a race for how big or global you are. It is a big factor that gives you the global scale. But Cloud also needs to deliver value to the business that comes from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning.

Taking about the Friday`s tie-up announcement with automaker Honda and Kalyan Jewelers, Arora said that the company`s second priority in India is to grow from their existing clients relationships.

"With Honda, are working with them on their connected car initiative using the Watson Internet of Things (IoT) on IBM Cloud platform. Kalyan Jewelers will use our cloud to enrich their customer experience as they engage with them around their products," Arora told IANS.

He noted that "IBM has the largest automotive platform in the world, as far as Watson is concerned".

It is the largest platform on IoT capability and supporting industries like automotive, operations, security, weather, oncology, financial industry and agriculture.

While commenting on the progress of Cloud adoption in India, Arora noted that as the Watson capability has progressed, IBM has got things such as visual recognition, pattern recognition, speech, IoT, natural language, deep learning as a service and more than 40 APIs in the platform.

"We see a lot of this happening in India. I have examples of retail industry embracing Watson to enhance the client experience. And the beauty of this is that all of the Watson APIs built by startups and enterprises are delivered over Cloud," Arora added.

Asked, if India can compete on a global level when it comes to IoT, machine learning and cloud, Arora explained that a lot of Indian customers have adopted AI to enrich the consumer experience.

"India would present some of the biggest and most sophisticated use cases just because of the large consumer population in the country. India is also one of the countries with the largest developers anywhere in the world and the country would be seen as the bedrock for innovation as far as AI and cloud is concerned," Arora noted.