Cloud not for all workloads: Ensono MD

Cloud not for all workloads: Ensono MD

Amid a surge in cloud technologies for enterprises and customer use cases, a senior executive of mainframe-as-a-service company Ensono said cloud is not meant for all workloads.

India Managing Director of Ensono, Raj Bagga spoke to PTI as the company makes a foray into hybrid solutions for enterprise data.

The government recently imposed restrictions on the import of microcomputers, large or mainframe computers, and certain data processing machines.

Mainframe computers, informally called mainframes, are used by large organizations for bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing – especially by large companies having sensitive information.

"Earlier, companies used to see the cloud-only approach, moving 100 per cent to cloud, but that thinking is changing drastically. People are realizing that cloud is not for all the workloads and suitable for that," Bagga said.

On mainframe technology applications, Bagga said, "Chandrayaan-3's head mentioned that one of the platforms they used which was making this successful was the mainframe technology. Mainframe is the one wherein we support the large insurance providers, banking, retailers, healthcare, a lot of government sector which run this platform now."

Ensono merged with a Wipro-hosted data centre business, and Bagga, a Wipro veteran with 26 years of experience, took the helm of the company after the acquisition in 2018.

"When Wipro or most Indian IT service providers look at data centre business, they are more into asset-light business and they don't want to carry assets of larger extent because data centre and private cloud or mainframe business required a lot of capital investment and these companies are more interested in an asset light kind of model," Bagga said.

Ensono has grown its revenue by 50 per cent over the last 5 years and increased its India employee base by 26 per cent over the same period, he said.

The headcount of the company has grown from 450 employees in 2018 to over 1,500 at present, he added.

Ensono's revenue last year touched USD 775 million and is expected to reach USD 900 million this year. Bagga said the company invests about 3 to 5 per cent of revenue in innovation.

Speaking on companies preferring to stick to mainframe technologies amid concerns of enterprise cloud data used for training Generative AI, Bagga said, "Considering we are a data centre provider, so we follow all the security requirements for SCCM to PCI and all the ISO 27,000. All those things we have certified to ensure that our data, data privacy and data risk is mitigated."

Bagga also shed light on Ensono's steering committee for Gen AI headed by their CTO, comprising leaders from all functions, including HR, finance and legal.