Bharat Bytes: Public cloud spending; Karnataka’s data centre policy; cybersecurity training; cybersecurity breach by military officials

Public cloud spending to grow 29.3% in 2022

End-user spending on the public cloud in India is expected to reach a total of $7.5 billion in 2022, up from $5.6 billion in 2021, according to a report by analyst firm Gartner. It expects spending to reach $9.8 billion in 2023.

In India’s public cloud services market segment, infrastructure-as-a-solution (IaaS) is forecast to see the highest growth in 2022, at 39.4%, followed by service-as-a-solution at 21.7%. They are further expected to grow by 26.9% and 22.8% respectively in 2023.

India follows the global trend when it comes to IaaS. Globally, IaaS is forecast to experience the highest end-user spending growth in 2022, at 30.6%, followed by desktop-as-a-service at 26.6% and platform-as-a-service at 26.1%. However, SaaS remains the largest market segment globally, expected to reach $176.6 billion in end-user spending in 2022.

In Gartner’s report, research vice president Sid Nag said cloud-native capabilities such as containerization, database platform-as-a-service, and AI/ML contain richer features than commoditized compute such as IaaS or network-as-a-service, and are generally more expensive, thus fuelling the spending growth.

“IT leaders who view the cloud as an enabler rather than an end state will be most successful in their digital transformational journeys,” said Nag in the report. “The organizations combining cloud with other adjacent, emerging technologies will fare even better.”

Karnataka approves new data centre policy

Karnataka’s cabinet has unveiled its new data centre policy, budgeting ₹100 crore for incentives and subsidies that it hopes will attract investment of ₹10,000 crores into data centres in the state by 2025.

Data centre investment will get a one-time capital subsidy of 7% on the value of fixed assets, excluding land and building, along with ₹10 crore in capital subsidy over the policy period of five years for the investor. The government will also provide land subsidy at 10% of the cost or ₹3 crore, whichever is less, on the purchase or lease of land. Special incentives will be given for projects of strategic importance where investments exceed ₹4,000 crore.

The policy incentives and concessions are available to existing and proposed data centres. Those related to land are available only to investments made outside the Bengaluru urban area, whereas other concessions on electricity duty, concessional power tariff, and green power tariff reimbursement will be for all.

The policy offers eight types of incentives and concessions such as exemption of stamp duty, land conversion fee, electricity duty, concessional registration charges, concessional power tariff, and green power tariff reimbursement.

Bangalore is currently home to data centres operated by Reliance, Sify, NTT, Next Gen, Trimax, Airtel, STT, and ESDS, among others.

Cybersecurity training for government staff

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval inaugurated the national cyber security incident response exercise, a 10-day hybrid exercise to train government personnel. With the large number of digital services launched by the government, the need to safeguard cyberspace and build awareness of cybersecurity among staff has increased.

Senior management and technical personnel of government organizations are amongst the 140 officials that will undergo the training on contemporary cyber threats and handling cyber incidents. They will be trained in areas such as intrusion detection techniques and malware information.

The program is conducted by the National Security Council Secretariat with the Data Security Council of India, and the platform for training is provided by CyberExer Technologies, an Estonian cybersecurity company.

Military officials breached cybersecurity

Emphasising the need for cybersecurity training, intelligence agencies found cybersecurity breaches by military officials related to certain WhatsApp groups, in what is suspected to be espionage-related activities by a neighbouring country.

A high-level probe has been launched, but details on the breach are not being made public for fear of it interfering with the investigation, according to the Deccan Chronicle. It said there have been reports that Pakistani and Chinese intelligence operatives have been attempting to engage with military personnel on social media platforms to gain sensitive information.

From time to time, India has been subjected to such attacks. Recently, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future released a report that reveals the ongoing targeting of Indian power grid organizations by China-linked adversaries. The national emergency response system and the Indian subsidiary of a multinational logistics company were also compromised by the same threat activity group.