With the advancement in Cloud Computing technology, various leading IT firms have tightened their belts to focus on innovations and develop virtualised architecture. Juniper Networks—a leading firm in network innovation—firmly believes that Cloud can be optimised for rolling out more citizen-centric services with the help of secure next gen networks. Sajan Paul, Director Systems Engineering – India & SAARC, Juniper Networks, interacts with Vishwas Dass of Elets News Network (ENN)
Cloud technology is the buzzword these days. How can it be put to use to improve citizencentric services?
The extensive focus on Cloud technologies has prompted us to further innovate and create more integrated and virtualised architecture. It can be understood from the fact that the Cloud is something that affects everyone today, be it an average user, large-scale enterprises or even full-fledged data centres globally. Cloud-based technologies remain at the heart of most discussions vis-à-vis the technological transformation enterprises are undergoing. Notably, a significant portion of the innovations pioneered in Cloud technology affects the average citizen as well. Almost everything a user accesses on the Internet is sustained by the Cloud, be it new reforms in governance like the eGovernance project or just day to day usage on the networks.
Cloud can be better optimised for more citizen-centric services only with the help of scalable and secure next gen networks. With massive eGovernance and Digital India initiatives, Cloud infrastructure plays a vital role in enabling citizen-centric services. More importantly, providing such services at affordable cost, like a typical utility, is extremely important. Innovations in the area of Hybrid Cloud and Inter-Cloud Federation are very important to achieve mass adoption and affordability.
What are the Cloud-related products / services that you offer?
Being a leader in high scale networks across the globe, Juniper Networks has given a lot of importance to innovate technology to empower mass scale Cloud infrastructure enterprises and Governments to give their businesses maximum agility and efficiency while maintaining an adequate level of control and privacy. In this regard, Juniper Networks has pioneered an array of products, spanning from the QFX Series Ethernet switches, SRX series firewalls to the MX Series routers.
Juniper Networks has also developed automated and scalable private or hybrid Cloud infrastructure that eliminates the delays and risks associated with manual provisioning to a large extent. Switching, routing, SDN and security put together ultimately forms the Cloud infrastructure solutions we develop and deploy. ‘Juniper Contrail’ Cloud platform is a fully orchestrated open stack system that works on existing infrastructure to support scale-out and agile framework using seamless orchestration of server, storage and networking resources.
Can you tell us about some of the Cloud technology-based deployments that the company has implemented in India?
Juniper Networks provides enterprise grade Cloud-based networking solutions to a number of leading telecom service providers as well as large enterprises and educational institutes in India. We have deployed our Cloudbased infrastructure at Xavier University, Bhubaneswar (XUB) in Odisha, which has enabled the varsity to be a fully digital institution with leading edge services, such as Xavier Videobook and Xavier My Room, among others. This has enabled students to source relevant and contextual video content to make learning more immersive, and hosting virtual classrooms and peer-to-peer interaction using high-quality video and audio conferencing.
Besides, Juniper innovation is at play in several large-scale Cloud providers – both public and private build-outs. With enormous network automation APIs, rolling out a Cloud system could be a lot faster.
What is the scope of public private partnership in the field?
Juniper Networks headquarters in Sunnyvale, California
In order to further strengthen various digitisation initiatives, I believe public-private partnerships are crucial. At the onset of the Cloud revolution, most organisations were not really sure whether the network’s security and stability would be compromised. It is important to have credible local players in the public Cloud space for faster rollout and capex containment. In fact, many of the web- 2.0 companies are capitalising on the public and on-premises Cloud technologies for faster rollout and disaster recovery framework.
Compared to the global standards, where does India stand in terms of Cloud technology adoption? Are we ready yet?
Adopting Cloud-based technologies remains critical for the digital empowerment of the people. Projects like Digital India, Smart City Mission, eGovernance etc., all depend on the rising levels of adoption of the Cloud technology. Compared to other countries, India is still behind in terms of adoption; however, adoption levels are going up as awareness increases. Recent studies show that public Cloud adoption is accelerating in India. According to Gartner, public Cloud services sales will see a 36 per cent increase compared to the previous year. Given the privacy and confidentiality laws prevailing in the country, it is even more important to have Cloud infrastructures hosted within India.
Juniper Networks has developed automated and scalable Private or Hybrid Cloud infrastructure that eliminates the delays and risks associated with manual provisioning to a large extent
What are the grey areas, according to you, which you would like the Government to focus on?
The Government must focus on building legal framework and information security laws at par with the international standards. It should also ensure that there is no monopolistic approach in this area due to the very high dependency on a particular provider, as the cost of switching then becomes prohibitive. It is also very important to clearly articulate our stand on privacy and confidentiality framework in line with the international laws.
What are your expectations from the Elets 2nd CloudGov Summit 2015?
The industry has come to recognise Cloud as a significant driving force on the technology front. However, at this stage in time, there needs to be more discussions and debate on how we can further innovate and drive better results. I think the Elets 2ndCloudGov Summit 2015 aims to do exactly that and extend the debate to various domains and create interesting outcomes. Another key highlight of this conclave is that it is highly collaborative with active participation from the Government, and this, I feel, is of significant importance.