The telecom technology landscape in India is undergoing a paradigm shift owing to the changing IT needs of enterprises, which require on-demand delivery of services, shorter time-to-market and scalable solutions. Enterprises have embarked on an IT transformation path by bringing in virtualised servers, making cloud an integral part of their strategy, and deploying software-defined applications and infrastructure. Integral to these technological changes is the concept of collaboration and convergence to establish an environment of seamless data transfer, access and management.

In 2015, the Indian information and communication technology (ICT) industry will continue to witness significant changes in its environment. While several technologies that are currently at a nascent stage will find more takers during the course of the year, some new technologies may also come to the fore as a result of an increase in IT spends. As per Gartner, the IT spend in the country is projected to reach $73.3 billion in 2015, a 9.4 per cent increase from the $67.1 billion estimated for 2014. Further, the country will be the third largest IT market within the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2016 and will progress to become the second largest by end-2018. IT services will record the strongest revenue growth at 15.7 per cent in 2015 while software will grow at 14 per cent. The telecommunication services segment will account for 39.3 per cent of the Indian ICT market and is set to record 4.2 per cent revenue growth in 2015.

tele.net takes a look at the key technology trends being witnessed in the Indian ICT space...

Shift towards hybrid cloud

The Indian cloud market is dominated by private models, which constitute about three-fourths of the overall cloud market. The low adoption of public cloud-based services can be attributed largely to the security risks perceived in moving to such a model. However, as these security concerns get addressed and the cloud market in the country heads towards maturity, companies are adopting the public cloud in conjunction with private models, presenting a strong business case for hybrid cloud solutions.

Such models are suited for enterprises that have existing investments in IT infrastructure and want to leverage public cloud benefits such as pay-per-use and scalability while managing core applications in-house and retaining substantial control over their critical data. In addition, organisations can realise cost and time benefits while handling periodic as well as unpredictable workload changes.

In addition, a hybrid solution allows organisations to choose storage as per their needs and entails a limited investment in infrastructure. They can use the existing infrastructure to store critical data on the premises and the remaining data on the public cloud.

The year 2015 will witness only the beginning of hybrid cloud. Indian enterprises are highly unlikely to put critical workloads or even production workloads onto the hybrid cloud during this year, but they are ready to explore the market by trying out basic applications and information.

Analysing big data

The increased use of smartphones coupled with the rise of social media has resulted in an unprecedented growth in the volume of information being generated on operator networks. In such a scenario, a service provider’s ability to leverage huge amounts of customer, network and operational data can go a long way in establishing a leadership position in the market. Insights drawn from the large amount of information can help telecom operators deliver innovative and customised services and bundle products better to differentiate their offerings from those of their peers; identify new revenue streams to enhance profitability; transform and simplify operations to achieve business and service excellence; and build intelligent networks to deliver a seamless, high quality customer experience. Further, big data analytics can help service providers offset the competition from over-the-top (OTT) service providers to a great extent, as analytical tools make operators more responsive to the needs and demands of their customers. A significant growth in the adoption of big data analytics tools like SAP HANA and Hadoop will be witnessed in 2015. Preconfigured, converged and hyper-converged platforms will expedite the implementation of big data applications.

Further, with machine-to-machine-based communications coming into focus, the internet of things (IoT) phenomenon will gain momentum during the year. Batch analytics will be replaced by data streaming analytics for enhanced intelligence and real-time analysis of sensor data. Companies with expertise in sensor analysis are bound to develop applications with IoT at the centre. These applications will be critical to business verticals such as surveillance and health care.

Software-defined applications and infrastructure

The software-defined network (SDN) continues to be an underexplored technology concept in India. While the large-scale adoption of such a technology is still a few years away, the uptake trend exhibited by the Indian market so far has been encouraging. As per Gartner, the Indian server, storage and networking market stands at approximately Rs 153 billion. Of this, 5-10 per cent is SDN centric.

SDN can help customers improve application performance, achieve business agility and contain costs. In fact, software-defined everything is going to emerge as a key trend in the coming years in the Indian market. The traditional way of implementing hardware-driven network and services results in rigidity and limits the scope of dynamically changing application requirements. In contrast, new applications such as cloud, mobile computing and big data have a much shorter lifespan and can be customised on demand.

Virtualisation is often the first step towards leveraging an SDN environment. Network functions virtualisation (NFV) is a key part of a service provider’s broader SDN strategy and is used in combination with SDN to deliver enhanced value. NFV allows for the deployment of network components as software through virtual machines. NFV transforms service providers’ networks from a predefined set of physical infrastructure components to a set of modular software-building blocks. These building blocks can be customised to lend dynamism, elasticity and flexibility to network services. Further, the adoption of NFV will help service providers compete with the more nimble-footed OTT players. However, high network equipment costs and operational complexity will prevent operators from matching the pace of OTT services to address customer expectations.

Further, server-based computing, which is also referred to as hosted shared/virtual desktop (HVD), is witnessing increased adoption in the India. More than 80 per cent of desktop virtualisation implementation is based on HVD. While organisations are currently looking at desktop virtualisation as a tool to contain costs, in the coming years they will leverage HVD to realise benefits such as full data back-up, bring-your-own-device support, extended hardware life cycles, security, compliance, and any time, anywhere access.

The growth in 3G uptake as well as a large-scale launch of 4G will promise a strong business case for SDN and NFV in the Indian market. Operators can leverage SDN and NFV for the orchestration of a cloud-based radio access network (RAN) environment and simplification of the backhaul infrastructure. In addition to this, SDN can be used to organise traffic flows and hand-off mechanisms across small cell architecture.

Focus on data security, management and recovery

In recent times, with data being transmitted through various media, its security has become paramount. This puts a special onus on data centre managers who have seen the volume of back-up data explode, thereby driving up recovery time. In 2015, much of the focus is expected to be on driving down the recovery time while simultaneously continuing to reduce the cost of data protection.

Software-defined storage (SDS) is gaining traction as it simplifies data management. It enables data accessibility across cloud platforms consistently and addresses a range of use cases by managing data placement according to cost, compliance, availability, and performance requirements. SDS platforms can be installed on different hardware and can be extended to cloud architecture as well.

VoLTE expected to get a boost with 4G commercialisation

Voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) uses the IP multimedia subsystem and new RAN features to ensure low latency, improved error correction, and other features that guarantee high quality voice services. For network operators, VoLTE offers a host of marketing and operating advantages, including reduced cost and complexity of network, enhanced user experience and capability to support rich multimedia applications like HD voice. The Indian telecom industry, however, is yet to realise the benefits of VoLTE, which will only flow in once 4G services get launched on a pan-Indian basis. The Indian market may see some VoLTE instances as 4G services pick up pace during 2015. Currently, the Indian market is in the trial phase for both long term evolution (LTE) and VoLTE. However, LTE and VoLTE adoption is predicted to surpass 3G uptake in India. As data consumption continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, VoLTE will be the future of voice traffic.