VADS Berhad (VADS), wholly owned subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia (TM), expands its collaboration with VMware to bring the latter’s virtual desktop and cloud solutions – Horizon Desktop-as-a-service(DaaS) and SocialCast – to Malaysian businesses, by the first half of 2015. VMware has one of their largest ASEAN install base in TM’s private cloud.
Stacking these DaaS and SocialCast services; currently two in a list of more to come later; on top of VADS’ IBM-based virtual private cloud (VPC), whilst wrapping secure IP VPN connectivity around this VPC, VADS is aiming these offerings squarely at larger enterprises.
During a media briefing that announced this collaboration, VADS CEO Ahmad Azhar Yahya, who used to be a group CIO himself, was able to relate to top current CIO concerns around how to preserve and protect enterprise corporate information.
He said, “Desktop is the most common tool for any business. And now, there are multiple devices out there, accessing corporate data, so organisations are facing the challenge of protecting their enterprise resource.
“With technology like Horizon desktop-as-a-service, we can lift their burden.”
He also observed the social media boom in Malaysia and how there was need for social media that was enterprise-grade for businesses.
“The danger of using public-based social tools is security. There are no enterprise-grade features like audit trails, analytics or even management. But with the need for social media in enterprises increasing, we can offer these to enterprises with SocialCast,” said Ahmad Azhar.
VMware country manager Laurence Si who had earlier presented about software-defined data centres and software-defined enterprises in Malaysia, said that the percentage of businesses that perceive themselves to be highly virtualised (90-percent of workloads), would have doubled to 31-percent in 2016.
He had also shared from the IDC Datacentre Economies Index (DEI) commissioned by VMware, that Malaysian businesses can potentially save a total of USD934 million from 2014 to 2020, if they virtualise compute, storage, networking and leverage a software-defined approach to managing IT.
Cloud computing in Malaysia
For businesses in Malaysia that do not want the hassle of on-premise IT or need to spin up applications quickly, cloud computing is becoming an appealing alternative.
Having launched last May as an Infrastructure-as-a-service offering, Ahmad Azhar shared that to date, VADS’ Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) has 6 customers on board.
“It is still early days, but there are lots of enquiries as well,” he said adding that VADS is working with MDeC to onboard local independent software developers (ISVs) on their cloud platform.
In December last year, VADS had signed a collaborative agreement to assist local ISVs via their VADS Cloud Enablement Programme. Besides having their applications promoted on VADS marketplace known as TM BizApp store, ten selected ISVs with MSC status would receive grants of RM34,000 each.
Ahmad Azhar admitted SMEs are an important segment for TM due to TM’s connectivity packages having a large install base among the local SME segment. This in turn gives VADS a good leg in the door approaching these small and medium enterprises, with their cloud solutions.
Global cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) have a lot of appeal for businesses looking at cloud computing, but there is still a market for local ISVs, the CEO opined.
Ahmad Azhar pointed out, that regulations would require data in certain industries, to remain in Malaysia, so there are opportunities for locally-developed applications like payroll and HR systems.
However Ahmad Azhar also opined, “The market is still nascent at this point in time. There is no single local cloud service that is playing a dominant role. What (VADS) has is also relatively new.”
In fact, localisation, security and compliance, plus service that can be customised for Malaysian customers are just some of the advantages VADS, and in fact other local providers, wield over foreign cloud providers like AWS.