Coalition casts clouds over Asia

A group of 11 companies including operators and vendors formed the Asia Cloud Computing Association this week. But the protagonists seem to be throwing a party for those who want to enter the region and not necessarily the region stakeholders themselves.

Under the banner of ACCA, the non-profit organisation will work to address regional issues and challenges in the adoption of cloud computing in Asia, addressing privacy and security concerns, compliance and regulation, business models and service levels. Founding members are Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Nokia Siemens Networks, PLDT/Smart, Rackspace, REACH, Telenor, and Verizon. As analyst house Ovum pointed out, the founding members include a number of heavyweights but all the leading regional cloud computing telcos are noticeably absent.

According to Mike Sapien, principal analyst and Claudio Castelli, senior analyst at Ovum, the fragmented regulatory environment is the greatest challenge to be addressed. Asia Pacific is one of the most complex regions for companies seeking regulatory compliance and market entry by outsiders. Some of these members are even offering professional services to support customers on this challenge; for example, Verizon Business has recently introduced a portfolio of professional services to help its customers comply with regulations in the multiple countries where they operate.

“The association will need to be engaging policy makers, service providers, and especially early users of cloud computing within the region to promote, sponsor, identify and share some standard messages with the stakeholders (including regulators). This will also include sharing best practices within the region, as well as setting achievable goals that will reduce barriers to cloud adoption. It is likely that a prioritized list of issues, starting with a few countries and focusing on a few barriers, will be more successful than having broad and general goals across too many complex issues and countries,” Ovum said.

In the region, China continues to present one of the most challenging regulatory environments. Foreign service providers cannot directly offer telecoms services within China. Joint ventures and partnerships are allowed, but direct investment is tightly restricted. It is still very unclear whether infrastructure or data can be shared outside China, which creates unique design challenges for cloud services or the ability to even back up services outside the country.

It is likely that a prioritised list of issues, starting with a few countries and focusing on a few barriers, will be more successful than having broad and general goals across too many complex issues and countries, the analyst advised.