Rent the Server 2.0

From the recent Fusionex and Alibaba partnership, we have learned that renting server is part of the option - for better management of Capital Expenditure on IT deployment.

http://www.it-sideways.com/2017/10/fusionex-got-engaged-to-alibaba-cloud.html

This is followed by two more announcements which encourage adoption of the subscription based cloud computing.

  • Oct 24, 2017 - Prime Minister of Malaysia's Cloud-First strategy for Budget 2018
  • Oct 30, 2017 - Official Commencement of Alibaba Cloud Data Center


A typical data center

Oct 24, 2017 - K.L : Internet Alliance Lauds PM's Cloud-First Strategy

Internet Alliance ('IA'), a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates about 85% of Malaysia's active Internet scene, lauds the ‘Cloud-First’ strategy for government agencies and public sector to boost the digital economy.

Announced by the Prime Minister just before the upcoming Budget 2018, "Cloud-First" would become part of the National Agenda, starting with the public sector.

Chan Kee Siak, President, IA


The ‘Cloud-First’ strategy fundamentally involves the adoption of cloud for government agencies to rapidly deliver innovative public sector services without incurring high levels of capital expenditure to invest in the IT infrastructure such as data centres, services and storage.
 President of IA, Chan Kee Siak says: -

"We at IA, are thrilled that the government recognises how the cloud is fundamental to digital transformation. The Cloud has become a powerful and cost-efficient method to deliver ICT solutions and services to support the economy. Therefore, prioritising government agencies to adopt Cloud-based ICT solutions, sets a strong example of how to free from the high costs of initial equipment investments."

Call to Lower or Exempt Withholding Tax for Cloud & Digital Adoption

At the same time, Chan calls on the government to consider lowering or exempting withholding tax for local organisations wanting to adopt Cloud or other Digital Services.

He says that currently, Malaysian companies and organisations which want to adopt Cloud technologies or deploy Digital Services by foreign vendors - have to pay an additional 10% withholding tax on top of the fees they already have to pay to foreign Cloud providers.

“Some common instances of Malaysian companies incurring this additional 10% withholding tax are when a) Advertising with Google and Facebook b) Subscribing to overseas’ Software-as-a-Services (SaaS) and/or foreign Cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Alibaba Cloud c) Purchasing software licenses.

If the ‘Cloud-First’ strategy is to be a successful National Agenda, there should be economic incentive to boost it too. Therefore, IA highly suggests that by lowering or even abolishing this additional withholding tax for Malaysian businesses, they will feel incentivized to accelerate their adoption of Cloud-based services and digital services.

Buy More Local Cloud Services

Chan also encourages and wishes that local government agencies and businesses to engage services from local Malaysian Cloud providers, be it Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud models.

Oct 30, 2017 - K.L : Alibaba Cloud Malaysia Data Center Commences Operations

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, today opened its data center in Malaysia. Located strategically for Southeast Asian coverage, the data center will meet the surging demand for scalable and cost-effective cloud computing services among enterprises in the region. 

As the first global public cloud platform in Malaysia, the new center will provide Malaysian enterprises a local choice to build their businesses and run their applications on a powerful, reliable and secure cloud platform. Customers with low latency or data sovereignty requirements will be able to store and process huge amounts of data in Malaysia. By migrating IT infrastructure to the cloud, enterprises can leverage Alibaba Cloud’s scalable and cost effective cloud services to scale rapidly, accelerate innovation and expand their geographic reach in minutes.

The data center will offer a comprehensive suite of cloud products and services ranging from elastic computing, database service, networking, security, middleware, to analytics and big data. This will encompass the full range of Alibaba Cloud’s solutions which will satisfy the needs of governments and large corporations as well as enterprises in the Internet, game, multimedia, mobile Internet and finance industries. The big data service “MaxCompute” (a big data platform that allows users to store and process massive amounts of structural data to levels as high as terabyte or even petabyte) in particular, will bring sophisticated data intelligence services ranging from data processing and analytics to machine learning to Malaysian businesses, driving their technology-enabled business transformation. 

Alibaba Cloud has dedicated a local team of solutions architects and professional consultants to provide services from cloud consulting to after-sales support, helping customers of all sizes as they move to the cloud and enabling them to realize their full economic potential. 

The new data center in Malaysia will add to Alibaba Cloud’s 14 data centers worldwide, covering mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. (East and West Coast). 


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