Cloud-Based Remote Work To Become New Normal Post Lockdown: IBM India Predicts Everybody Will Have To Adjust

As enterprises, governments and small and medium businesses (SMBs) learn to adjust to the new normal, organisations will fully commit to Cloud-based flexibility in the near future - from embracing a hybrid multi-cloud design and shifting to 'as a service strategy to leveraging partners to supplement provision and capacity to ensure robust remote working environments, IBM India said on Sunday (26 April).

India is currently under COVID-19 lockdown, factories are shut and mobility is almost zero.

Most leading organisations planned in advance for disruptions that were anticipated, by building capacity, redundancy and agility to deal with unanticipated disruptions. But even in the most risk-averse planning for the unknown, the current situation has been profoundly unique.

"The most adaptable, resilient businesses tap into Cloud-based work environments that support distributed, ‘work anywhere teams without sacrificing efficiency, security productivity or quality," said Vikas Arora, Vice President, Cloud and Cognitive Software and Services, IBM India and South Asia.

"They need to keep their businesses running smoothly till things return to normalcy. And, as they do that they need to plan for continued growth, resilience, stability and security," Arora told IANS.

Dozens of business-oriented applications are now connecting homebound workers to collaborative tools that enable business continuity.

The Cloud-based support of video conferencing, file-sharing services, communications platforms, chatbots, and a host of data analytics, graphic design, accounting, HR, and sales management programmes have allowed remote employees to continue work as if they never left their company offices.

"Similarly, remote developers continue writing code and building applications in cloud-supported containerised environments, while AI-backed internal and customer-facing applications keep humming along because they are built and managed in the cloud," informed Arora.

In such a scenario when the bulk of employees are using applications and accessing programmes from all over, cybercriminals have more doors to open, making an organisation's threat vector broader than ever.

"Network availability and latency can also suffer under high usage, impeding workers' progress at a time when productivity is already under pressure. IBM Cloud is helping organisations with seamless transition to remote business with the assurance of security and agility, while providing digital services for mobility, virtualisation, collaboration and support," the company executive elaborated.

Strategic investments in Cloud computing and open technologies have significantly helped with the transition to remote working.

"Our 23 per cent growth in Cloud revenue globally in the first quarter is a proof point of how we are helping clients on their journeys to cloud," said Arora.

IBM Cloud is helping organisations with seamless transition to remote business with the assurance of security and agility, while providing digital services for mobility, virtualisation, collaboration and support.

"Specifically on Cloud, we are providing clients the much-needed resiliency and security that comes from its breadth of deployment options across 60 globally dispersed data centres including the one in India and time-tested data protection capabilities," Arora added.

The company has put together a bouquet of 11 free cloud offers to ease the burden of businesses across the globe.

The SaaS-based Cloud offers span AI, data, security, integration, remote learning, and more all via the IBM public cloud to support our clients and help them maintain business continuity, thus addressing customer requirements across various sectors like Financial services, healthcare, telecom, retail, government, educational institutions, manufacturing and automotive, etc.

"For example, for 90 days, free of charge, we're offering companies the ability to build virtual server configurations; providing access to our cloud service for high-speed file sharing and team collaboration; IBM Garage Methodology to remotely help with Design Thinking to address their emerging business requirements during this time and addressing critical security needs," Arora told IANS.

By leveraging DevOps on Cloud, enterprises can enable their entire DevOps infrastructure, available on the Public Cloud, to ensure their development teams remain productive and operational during the lockdown period.

"The final deployment may still be on-prem to facilitate security, compliance and other business requirements. Finally, companies can ensure business continuity by making it easy to securely store data on the Cloud and access when needed in these times," suggested Arora.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)