Tag: Internet in India

Cloud Computing and its Importance

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What is Cloud Computing?

The cloud consists of software and services that stay and operate on the Internet instead of having any physical elements like a local computer or on premise network servers. Cloud Adoption is a structured shift by organizations of minimizing expenditure, lowering risk and attaining scalability of database capabilities. Cloud adoption may be of various types in an organization, depending on the depth of adoption.

Benefits of Cloud Computing:

  • Cost Reduction: The cloud does not require the company to invest in new hardware, storage infrastructure and maintaining an in-house IT infrastructure (variable expenses). In the cloud, assets are made accessible on-demand and excessive resources can be returned/replaced, thus cutting costs. Likewise, the company may not splurge money on appointing IT staff to supervise the infrastructure.
  • Flexibility: Cloud computing offers more flexibility to businesses. Employees can obtain files using web-enabled devices such as smartphones, laptops, and notebooks. Sharing documents over the internet around the clock and to work online at any place has helped in internal and external collaborations of the business.
  • Scalability: Cloud enables users the ability to upscale or downscale infrastructure as and when required with ease, which results in optimal usage of resources. Companies can have high-performance resources available at the fingertips with professional clarifications without any up-front investment.
  • Mobility: Corporate data in the cloud can be easily saved, recovered, or organized with just a couple of clicks on their smartphones and other devices to keep up with clients and colleagues. Users get access to their works, 24/7, via any devices of their choice. This saves the IT team workload and results in customer satisfaction.
  • Agility: In Cloud computing, new IT resources are only a click away, which means that companies reduce the time spent to make those resources available to you just in minutes. These resources can then be more seamlessly and efficiently. This results in quick development of businesses’ market.
  • Disaster Recovery: There is no way one can prevent or control natural disasters which can cause great damage to the organization. But through cloud computing, the data can be stored in the cloud which guarantees that data will always available, even if your equipment like laptops or PCs, is damaged.

Types of Cloud Computing:

cloudcomputing types

Types of Cloud Computing Services:

cloudcomputing services types

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) refers to the supply on-demand software for developing, examining, delivering and managing applications.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a method for delivering applications-as-a-service over the Interne (cloud computing) as per the demand and on a subscription basis.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the most basic category of cloud computing services that allows you rent IT infrastructure: physical or virtual servers, storage and networking from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Who uses Cloud Computing & Why?

Every type of companies use cloud computing irrespective of size, industry, It is used for a wide variety of cases, such as data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development, etc. Even healthcare companies are using the cloud to create treatments for individual patients. Bank and financial sector companies are using the cloud to detect real-time fraud and its prevention. And video game makers are using the cloud to deliver online games to players around the world. One of the major use case is, running on premise data center is not simple, so the industry chose to use cloud computing. When it’s about scalability, cloud computing lays out a very resilient solution.

Security Concerns of Cloud Computing:

  1. Data Infringement: Data leakage can have grievous impact on company, its brand and reputation, employee, and customers’ hope and belief. Loss of vital intellectual property could have competitive and financial indications also.
  2. Seizing of Accounts: Attackers can hijack the account and use your credentials to remotely enter the data saved. They can counterfeit and tamper the data.
  3. Malware Injection: Cloud computing can be injected with malware scripts and codes which run as SaaS to cloud servers, through this the attackers can snoop in all the important information.
  4. Insufficient Training & Knowledge: Proper knowledge of cloud services should be provided to employees that manage database of the company. Deficiency of this may impact decisions relevant to privacy.
  5. Mutual Liability: Cloud surveillance is a common burden for the clients and service provider. This partnership between client and provider requires the client to take preventative actions to protect their data.
  6. Data Loss: Data on cloud services can be lost through a malicious attack, natural disaster, or a data wipe by the service provider. Losing essential facts and figures can be harmful to businesses that don’t have a recuperation plan.

Limitations of Cloud Computing:

  1. Internet Connection: In order to enjoy the features of cloud computing, your organization should always have an internet connection.
  2. Data confidentiality: Data & cloud protection must be powerful because then it won’t be perilous for data confidentiality.
  3. Downtime: Cloud computing systems are internet-situated, service outages are always an unfortunate possibility.
  4. Technical Issues: For technical issues, one has no choice but to call your hosted provider’s technical support.
  5. Vulnerable to attacks: Saving data in the cloud may cause consequential challenges of information heist since in the cloud every data of a company is online.

Some of the leading cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc are on the list of 50 connected cloud providers at DE-CIX Frankfurt.

 

OTT & VoD data traffic in India grew 1,317% during Covid, gaming rose 1,007%: Ivo Ivanov

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What has been DE-CIX’s experience handling data traffic in India?

There were huge changes in data traffic. In India, the four DE-CIX locations noted a strong rise in traffic from internet usage – up to 192% since the pandemic hit the country. The demand is enormous, and DE-CIX has further increased its geographical presence lately in order to offer new connectivity options closer to the users in different geographies around the globe, as well as doubling our backbone capacity in India for seamless and secure interconnection.

 

Could you share some statistics on data consumption?

There was a significant growth in traffic. For instance, between February to December 2020, OTT & Video on Demand grew a whopping 1,317%, while gaming grew at 1,007%. Similarly, ISP traffic grew at 397%, whereas traffic from content delivery networks rose 328%. Data traffic at social & online media grew by 210% during the same period.

 

What were the data consumption trends for rural India?

Rural data consumption has increased in comparison to urban India, but this figure is only for mobile data usage.

 

With respect to India’s data consumption story, have you witnessed any trends and how do you plan to evolve with it?

What is clear from last twelve months is that all areas of business and private life rely more heavily today than ever before on digital applications. But beyond the virtual desktop and video streaming, where we certainly saw enormous jumps in usage during 2020, we have also seen specific sectors taking leaps ahead with digital applications and services, ranging from e-health to logistics and mobility applications, and on to the finance sector – but also education, administrative services, and even agriculture. This transformation has not been caused by Covid, but accelerated by it.

So last year, we developed and announced DE-CIX Enterprise Interconnection Federation services that allows enterprises to create their own interconnection ecosystem (closed user groups or virtual private ecosystems) based on their security, performance and compliance requirements. For instance, a bank can create its own closed user group in the DE-CIX ecosystem and invite all its stakeholders like data analytic companies, transaction providers, cloud connectivity providers and corporate and residential internet access providers to interconnect with the bank’s network directly. This increases the performance, efficiency, and security of the data exchange.

 

DE-CIX recently increased points of presence (PoPs) in India. What is the rationale behind it?

We embarked on this expansion for connected network operators. We are able to bring a lot of internet content closer to the users across India. By announcing these four very important locations, we will have our key markets fortified for interconnectivity solutions. In last 12 months at DE-CIX India, we have unambiguously demonstrated to the industry how we have significantly impacted and redefined the market, such that we have become the market leader with a customer base of 310+.

The lowest latency of internet traffic is more crucial than ever. DE-CIX India will continue to enable more platforms across the country, as close as possible to the users. This is key to cover the future demand for the best possible performance on all digital applications, including live sports streaming, gaming, virtual desktops and cloud connectivity in general, real time adoptive robotics in the manufacturing section, etc.

DE-CIX is also in discussion with LEO satellite operators to support their expansion plans to deliver great internet experience in remote areas. LEO satellites have a strong business case. They cost lower compared to common satellite technology. Second, maintenance is easier. Third that they are low cruising allows a much better performance on the latency side. They perform lower than 25 milliseconds, which is today absolutely okay for online gaming, and bandwidth is much higher, in range of tens of gigabits, and is sufficient enough to serve house calls and offices. So my expectation is that on account of much less capex and open on the operator side, the products will be affordable.

 

What is your view on India’s digital journey going ahead?

In 2021 everything related to digitisation of entertainment, gaming, live sports, education, healthcare, digitised cars etc will gain prominence. In the B2B world, digitisation of processes, usage of cloud services and use of a distributed data exchange, which is not on premise with the enterprises and needs to be placed in hyper scale data centres and needs to be distributed across the country.

 

 

Understanding the Gaming Sector of India

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With around 40-50 million youth internet users, The video gaming industry is a developing market in India and is expected to grow rapidly. According to a survey conducted by KPMG, the game development company stands at 275 currently, citing that in 2010, there were only 25 companies in India. The number speaks about the increasing development and potentiality of the gaming country in India.

number of online gamers india

 

The gaming industry in India was introduced in the early ’90s. Hand-held gaming consoles became a vogue. A couple of years later, smartphones were introduced. The number of people accessing smartphones with data gradually was increasing. Online gaming is now available at one easy click. The recent obsession of Facebook games like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans and the most popular one PUBG has caught the attention of the young Indian crowd – spending hours at length on the interface. Games based on well-known events like Kaun Banega Crorepati, IPL, Khel Kabbadi, and T20fever.com, etc. are becoming a trending initiator of entertainment amongst the teenagers & millennials.

Value of gaming industry in India

                       (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/235850/value-of-the-gaming-industry-in-india/)

As of the year 2019, India is ranked as one of the top five mobile gaming markets in the world in numbers. The Indian online gaming industry is assumed to generate earnings of INR 11,900 crores and the number of users projected to become 628 million by then by the end of 2023. With a business of $890 million in 2018, the video game sector is still underdeveloped in contrast to other Asian countries, such as China and South Korea. However, many video game companies are rising to invest, and India could become a prime market for this sector. One of the factors that drove the growth of the video game market was its large number of cybercafés with more than 100,000 in 2006, 40% of which were used to play online.

Boom of gaming industry in India

 

The industry is also seeing investments from global gaming giants, including Tencent, Alibaba, Nazara, Youzu, and others. Tencent’s PUBG, for example, is said to have changed India’s mobile gaming environment forever. Media reports state that PUBG is adding Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore to Tencent’s income from India and is also a part of DE-CIX India’s connected peering network.

Advantage of Gaming Sector in India

  • World’s enormous youth population has a potential market
  • World’s second huge Internet population attracts new tech culture which includes gaming.
  • Accessibility of creative talent of Engineers, Designers which come at cheap price and great quality.
  • Huge skills based Programmers across IT, Testing and Arts.
  • World-class automation and advanced technology for setting up all relevant gaming development, publication and event setups.
  • Existence of significant development centers like Microsoft, Nvidia, UbiSoft, Zynga, Electronic Arts, Disney, Playdom, Sony, Digital Chocolate, etc

Facts:

  • 22.2cr gamers devote an average of 42 minutes per day on mobile games.
  • Close to 60 percent of India’s online gamers are below the age of 24, according to industry estimates. Young internet users have a higher tendency to play online games, generally on mobile devices.
  • There are about 250 million game developers in the country, up 10X from 2010 when there were just 25 million.
  • User penetration in the Mobile Gaming is at 19.9% in 2018 and is expected to hit 26.0% in 2022.
  • It is assumed that 294.48 billion and 98.4 billion will be spend on digital ads and mobile internet ads respectively in the year 2021.
  • 95% are mobile centric games.

With high traffic comes great responsibility; How an internet exchange operator successfully manages continuously growing data traffic

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At the latest since the spread of the global Covid-19 pandemic, people have become more and more dependent on digital services and have come to rely on them, in both their private and professional lives. Digitalisation is picking up speed faster than expected. On the front lines of accelerated digitalisation, internet exchanges, as part of the critical internet infrastructure, face the challenge of a fast, secure and smooth interconnection of thousands of networks.

Coronavirus pandemic as a driver of digitalisation

The past year was quite extraordinary for everyone. Never before, as companies, the entire economy and even private individuals, have we been exposed to a truly global pandemic. The fact that the pandemic is a driver of digitalisation became apparent early on. In 2020, India enjoyed a strong rise in Internet usage, which hit the peaks when recorded at internet exchanges. Data traffic indicated increases in all areas, especially in the home working environment through collaboration tools such as Teams, VPN use or video conferencing as well as entertainment options such as online and cloud gaming and streaming.

Now, the virus, with its consequences of a changed culture of work and leisure, is not the only component causing data traffic to skyrocket. Growth in streaming services and cloud computing, mobile internet, and real time communication has been ongoing and accelerating for years now. Innovations and advancing automation of technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence along with day to day events also play a decisive role, as do seasonal influences. Seasonally, in most years the internet experiences a slow down during the summer months  but not in the extraordinary year of 2020. In fact, at DE-CIX Mumbai, total customer bandwidth grew by 75 per cent as a result of both new customers and existing customers ordering upgrades. This brought the total connected customer bandwidth to close to 3000 Gigabits, or three Terabits, customers of the exchange grew by 53 per cent to 280 and there was an increase of 67 per cent in the number of 100GE ports sold, reflecting customer needs for greater bandwidths. This is evidence to the fact that during the Covid-19 pandemic, growth in the use of digital applications and Internet services continued unabated.

Increased demand: Interconnection available at any time

Data traffic is growing and demand for bandwidth is increasing. Managing this ongoing transformation in a way that guarantees a seamless user experience is crucial for both private or business purposes. Internet exchanges are well equipped to meet these challenges; On the one hand, they can immediately upgrade existing customers’ connections, for example, by upgrading a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) port to a 100GE port. Also, new networks that want to benefit from the advantages of peering, that is a direct connection to and between different networks via an internet exchange can be quickly connected. As a result of the direct connection, data packets reach their destination directly and as quickly as possible, as well as securely, cost effectively and without packet loss.

Cloud connectivity is particularly in demand to enable dedicated access by enterprises to cloud service providers. Ever increasing data volumes and increasingly critical business applications mean that dedicated connections are becoming more and more important. To constantly meet all of these needs, sufficient capacities must be planned. In this way, internet exchanges can ensure fully comprehensive interconnection worldwide at all times. Strategic and proactive plans that ensure sufficient capacities are always available, making certain that these needs are permanently met and that there is full coverage at all times. As soon as the utilisation of the connected bandwidth by networks at internet exchanges reaches 63 per cent, it is common practice that it gets upgraded. This process allows it to ensure full coverage at all times.

High data traffic means growing responsibility

With high traffic comes great responsibility. Due to accelerated digitalisation and the increased demand for interconnection, peering, cloud connectivity and the like, an internet exchange must be continuously prepared for the needs arising from increases in data traffic, not only by connecting new customers every day but also by always providing sufficient capacity for further growth. It is also necessary to look beyond the horizon; Digital technology will continue to evolve rapidly, and only by constantly monitoring developments and planning extensively in advance is it possible to live up to responsibilities encompassing partners and customers, to the end users, and also to the environment.

By Sudhir Kunder, Country Director, DE-CIX India