Hear from the Asia Cloud Forum

The Asia Cloud Forum, an online media portal, has been created to represent the interests of enterprise users, governments, telcos, vendors, policy makers and others with a stake in the development of cloud computing in Asia.

Equinix’s third Singapore data centre opens 2014

Equinix’s SG3 data centre in Singapore will begin operations in Q3 of 2014. Proposed investment for Phase 1 is estimated at US$50-55 million.

The new facility is targeted at cloud service providers, financial services institutions and digital content distributors. It will feature over 35,000 m² of gross floor area and 5000 cabinets.

SG3 will be located close to SG1, Equinix’s first data centre in Singapore. They will be interconnected via a dedicated fibre network, enabling expansion opportunities for SG1 customers. Equinix’s second data centre in the country, SG2, is located 13 km from SG1.

Key features of the SG3 include compliance with financial services industry guidelines introduced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in July 2012 and a solar power system.

Speaking at the facility’s groundbreaking ceremony, deputy chief executive for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) Leong Keng Thai cited research saying enterprise spending on public cloud services is expected to hit US$207 billion by 2016, more than double the amount for 2012.

Leong added that Singapore’s next-generation national broadband network will support an exponential increase in cloud usage, and the corresponding need for ultrafast connectivity and enhanced network capabilities.

Read full article by Melissa Chua at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/equinixs-third-singapore-data-center-opens-2014

Tips for engaging the current SMB cloud market

The SMB cloud service consumption market has diversified globally, as SMBs who are already onboard the cloud bandwagon look to purchase additional services.

Opportunities abound for cloud services providers, who need to understand what SMBs today seek and subsequently offer the right combination of services.

According to research from Parallels, offering bundled services is the way forward for cloud service providers as SMBs shop around for the best value and look towards an integrated cloud journey. Cloud service providers must also take mobility into consideration as they roll out new services.

The Parallels SMB Cloud Insights 2013 study covered more than 12,000 SMBs in 14 markets globally last year. It forecast that the global SMB cloud market will be worth $95 billion in 2015, more than double 2012’s $45 billion figure.

According to Forrester, SMBs are faced with the need to innovate their product and service offerings. Their top IT priorities include increasing business intelligence use, upgrading disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities and increasing virtualisation use.

Read the full article by Melissa Chua at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/tips-engaging-current-smb-cloud-market

Mandarin Oriental: cloud keeps mobile workers in the loop

The rise of consumerisation of IT in the last few years has led the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group to support mobile communications internally.

Last month, the group adopted the Microsoft Office 365 communication and collaboration system to support its ‘one single cloud service’ project across its 28 high-end luxury hotels.

As part of Office 365, Mandarin Oriental implemented Exchange Online for its 5000 staff worldwide. According to Raju Daryanani, vice president of IT infrastructure and information security, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, “One of the major benefits of Exchange Online is its support for all the different mobile devices that users have, including BlackBerry, Windows Phone 8 and other smartphone models.”

Supporting employees that work on the go is a typical challenge for most hotels. With a large number of housekeepers, delivery service and room service attendants, there is a strong need for the hotel to keep them in the loop.

“We want to get our services delivered very, very quickly,” said Daryanani. “So mobile communication does happen in our hotels. Also, there is a strong need to communicate globally with other hotel staff in the US and Europe as my global role requires communication on a global basis.”

Read the full article by Carol Ko at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/mandarin-oriental-cloud-keeps-mobile-workers-loop

NUS cuts data analysis man-hours by half

The National University of Singapore (NUS) has saved 50% in man-hours needed to analyse massive amounts of user data.

Completed in December 2012, this big data deployment has already enabled NUS to capture real-time analytics to improve the user experience of its online learning management system, Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE). This deployment involved Microsoft SQL Server 2012, chosen for its features, cloud readiness and ease of use.

IVLE hosts 90% of academic modules offered in the college and the portal is accessed by most of its 37,000 students daily.

To ensure a top-notch user experience, the college’s Centre for Information Technology (CIT) had invested many man-hours since 2010 into digging deeper into terabytes of data to understand the user habits of a diverse set of students using IVLE.

Jeffery Tay, Associate Director of CIT, NUS, said: “In analysing large sets of data about user behaviours, we were faced with the challenge of consolidating different sets of structured and unstructured data; and uncertainties in the accuracy of insights gathered.”

Read the full article by the Asia Cloud Forum Editors at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/nus-cuts-data-analysis-man-hours-half