INET working to get more of its customers using cloud service

Internet Thailand (INET) aims to have at least 150 customers using its cloud service by the end of this year.

Managing director Morragot Kulatumyotin said INET’s business strategy this year was to continue to focus on providing its INET Cloud enterprise service, including Internet infrastructure and solutions to help Thai businesses compete in a “digital economy”. 

She said that this year, cloud services would see high growth. The company aims to have at least 150 companies using INET’s enterprise cloud-based infrastructure service, after fewer than 100 of the 400 customers currently using its Internet service began using its cloud services over the past three years.

“We have partnered with Cisco, NetApp and VMWare to provide enterprise cloud-based infrastructure services to our customers for three years. This year, we plan to extend that coverage to more customers with more services. For example, the company will partner with local software firms to provide SaaS as well,” Morragot said, using the abbreviation for “software as a service”. 

She said INET’s revenue from its cloud service had been growing by more than 100 per cent in each of the past three years. It is expected to continue growing at the same rate this year.

“We allow enterprises to trial our cloud services for free. In the past six months, more than 500 enterprises tried it. Therefore, this year, we will gain a lot more customers, because they have acquired experience in using the cloud service and realised that the cloud is important and is the appropriate IT solution to help them in the digital-economy environment.” 

She added that her firm’s cloud service, which is operated on its data centres, could support any size of business. Its strength is to focus on providing local services with international standards, including ISO/IEC 27001:2005 for cloud security and ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 about cloud service management. 

“Our cloud system is operated at two redundant [network operation] centres located at Thai Summit Tower and Bangkok Thai Tower, to assure our customers’ business 

continuity and as a backup data site, which obviously enables a disaster-recovery guarantee with a 99.9-per-cent uptime service level 

agreement,” or SLA, Morragot said.

She said INET planned to apply for certification under ISO 22301 covering business continuity management this year.

Moreover, the company hopes to provide SaaS over its cloud-based infrastructure service by next quarter. It has provided platform as a service (PaaS) since last year, partnering with I Am Consulting Company. This means INET will have all layers of cloud services including IaaS (Internet as a service), PaaS and SaaS. 

“Information and communication technology is the crucial tool for running a business in the digital world. In Thailand this year, the government insists on promoting the use of technology through its ‘digital economy’ scheme, which will encourage more businesses and organisations to invest more in ICT. Cloud is the good investment choice for now,” Morragot said.