Trivandrum, June 17, 2010

To make best use of available virtualized resources, the Government of Kerala has initiated testing for cloud computing solutions. A tri-partite agreement to this effect was signed by Dr.Rathan U Kelkar IAS, Director, Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), Dr.Elizabeth Sherly, Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K) and Shri.R.Nagesh, Centre Coordinator, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Chennai (C-DAC) at Kerala State IT Mission.

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information, are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid. Cloud computing infrastructure allows enterprises to achieve more efficient use of IT hardware and software investments by pooling resources into large clouds. Pooling of resources would serve to bring down costs and increase utilization. Cloud computing also allows individuals, teams, and organizations to streamline procurement processes and eliminate the need to duplicate certain computer administrative skills related to setup, configuration, and support. The successful testing of cloud computing solutions can enable optimum use of resources in vital back-bone infrastructure like the State Data Centres in the future.

The Agreement was signed in the presence of a Kerala State Technical Committee of Cloud, chaired by Dr Ajay Kumar, Principal Secretary IT Department. Shri. M Rajagopalan, Director, C-DAC Chennai was also present on the occasion.  IIITM-K has developed a Cloud Infrastructure to test the applications and this was demonstrated in front of the committee.  The project is led by Mr. Meraj Uddin of IIITM-K. A Cloud Computing test-bed is also being in the premises of IIITM-K with the assistance of C-DAC Chennai for test deployment.