Today NTT Communications revealed a partnership with Microsoft, resulting in a Hybrid Cloud Resilience Solution in Hong Kong. The service will reduce more than 55% of the cost for organizations when compared to current backup solutions.
NTT Communications Enterprise Cloud service, Azure public cloud, and ExpressRoute will all combine to create the product. NTT Communications will be the sole manager, however, and it will only be available in Hong Kong.
The news comes from the South China Morning post, who managed to talk to Hideaki Ozaki, NTT's president and chief executive of East Asia. “In Hong Kong, hybrid cloud is becoming the new normal,” he says,“Our ultimate goal is to widen the adoption of cloud solutions as much as possible.”
Taylor Mann, the Chief technology officer for the company, mentions that demand for hybrid cloud is growing rapidly in Hong Kong. He puts this down to the large percentage of multi-national companies in the area who are driving the change.
The Future of Hybrid Cloud in Hong Kong
The NTT-Microsoft partnership will allow companies to store their sensitive data on a private cloud, whilst still running apps on the public cloud. This means corporations have to spend less money developing and building their own storage.
Retail, manufacturing, and service sectors have been very open to the idea. However, Microsoft Hong Kong General Manager Horace Chow says that some are less willing:
“Hong Kong is being perceived as very regulated for the last 10 to 20 years, particularly in the finance and public sector, so cloud is basically a new venture for them. We have to work with the government to educate… and do classification of the cloud as well as define the data categories. Some industries like finance and the public sector will take a bit of time.”
How long the transition will take exactly remains to be seen. However, with such a natural and cost effective solution now in place, it will likely begin very soon.