RajMegh To Offer Free Cloud Services For Startups, Cheaper-Than-Market Prices To Govts And Corporates

The Rajasthan government, which recently concluded the Rajasthan Digifest, is now deepening its commitment to the growth of the Indian technology and startup ecosystem. The state government has announced that it will be extending cloud services to startups for free, and at a cheaper price to other state governments, PSUs and corporations under its RajMegh programme.

The Rajasthan government has launched its very own brand of IT infrastructure services, including cloud storage and data centre services, called RajMegh.

RajMegh leverages the Jaipur-based Tier IV Bhamashah State Data Centre, the first and only Tier IV data centre with uptime certification in the country, to provide these services.

The Tier IV data centre is designed to host mission-critical servers and computer systems, with fully redundant subsystems (cooling, power, network links, storage etc) and compartmentalised security zones controlled by biometric access controls methods.

Startups registered under the state’s iStart programme will be able to access RajMegh services for free. About 750 startups are registered under the iStart programme, of which over 100 are being incubated at present.

The good news is that RajMegh’s infrastructure and services are not limited to startups. The Rajasthan government is extending the benefits of the Bhamashah State Data Centre to the entire country — other Indian state governments and their departments, all public sector undertakings (PSUs), financial services corporations, as well as other private companies.

For instance, RajMegh customers can avail of co-location services at INR 60,000 per month for 40 U space and up to 4 kVA of power, much lower than prevailing market rates.

Among other services, RajMegh provides:

1. Co-location services
2. Cloud services including server infrastructure and storage
3. Cloud-based software services, including O/S, application & database servers
4. Managed services such as O/S, network, database (Oracle & MySQL) and storage management, as well as backup services
5. Database servers on offer include MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle 12c, Exadata, and Postgre. Application servers available include IIS, TOMCAT, JBOS, WAS and WebLogic, while O/S include MS Windows Server as well as Linux Red Hat

How Cloud Services Can Benefit State Governments And Corporates

India is second only to China as the largest and fastest-growing cloud services market in Asia Pacific. Over the last two years, the public cloud services market in India has seen phenomenal growth — reaching $1.8 billion in 2017, up from $1.3 billion in 2016. By 2020, this figure is expected to reach $4.1 billion, according to Forbes.

A CII and KPMG report entitled ‘The Indian Cloud Revolution’ said that the cloud technology, enabled by IT and bolstered by a sound telecommunications network, can herald innumerable solutions to enable tele-medicine, set up remote classrooms, create health and skills databases of citizens, and create a new cloud-based services industry for employment generation.

Cloud computing refers to practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. Cloud offers the following benefits:

• Flexibility: Users can scale services to fit their needs, customise applications, and access cloud services from anywhere with an Internet connection
• Efficiency: Enterprise users can get applications to market quickly without worrying about underlying infrastructure costs or maintenance
• Strategic value: Cloud services give enterprises a competitive advantage by providing the most innovative technology available

“Specifically, Cloud-based services can be leveraged by the Government to launch new e-Governance initiatives quicker and with lower overhead costs. A common Cloud platform will also enable local Governments and other public agencies to adopt e-Governance for better citizen services, without requiring the setting up of significant IT infrastructure,” the report added.

The cloud also presents an opportunity to India’s IT and ITES sector to provide cloud-based services to organisations and enterprises, the report added. These services can range from software as a service (SaaS)-based application services, remote testing and prototyping services, to remote application hosting services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

RajMegh: The Affordable Cloud Advantage

The Rajasthan government’s affordable pricing for other state governments and corporates may give tough competition to established cloud services providers.

At present, Indian cloud services are dominated by players such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), IBM, Google, and Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun), etc but the average pricing for such bundles can go into thousands of dollars.

Given the huge market opportunity and potential of deploying cloud services to improve e-governance, state governments, PSUs, and corporates across India would do well to leverage the RajMegh cloud services.

RajMegh cloud services promise reliability, service levels, scalability, manageability, flexibility, speed, and security. Here are the highlights of the bundle of cloud services offered by RajMegh:

1. Under Software as a Service, RajMegh offers various products at different pricing levels. For example, under operating system services, it offers MS Window Server and Red Head Linux, Per 2 Core, at monthly charges of INR 500, while application services such as IIS, TOMCAT and JBOS are free and WAS and Web Logic are for INR 10,000 a month.
2. For Database services, the RajMegh bundle offers MSSQL Server, Oracle 12c, etc at different price points.
3. For Infrastructure as a Service, RajMegh offers a multiple number of virtual CPUs at different price points with local storage extending up to 100 GB at monthly charges of INR 40K.
4. Under Managed Services, RajMegh cloud services offer database management at INR 5K-10K per month, GSLB management for DC-DR at INR 10K per month and storage management at INR 5K per month, among others.

Rajasthan Govt: On A Mission To Empower Startups

The Rajasthan government,under the leadership of Honourable Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, has been on a mission to develop and promote the state as a major startup hub in India. To this extent, it also launched iStart in 2017, a flagship startup programme to build a robust startup ecosystem in Rajasthan.

A startup incubation programme, iStart provides a single-window platform for startups, offering a host of relevant information and benefits to facilitate their entry into the ecosystem. The initiative is comprehensive in its approach and startups from anywhere in India can apply to be a part of it.

iStart is helping startups take off from the ground by providing them with the required fuel for setting up and scaling, with facilities such as incubation, mentoring, financing, and assistance in various government-related processes, which will enable them to quickly set up camp in Rajasthan.

We already mentioned earlier that the Indian cloud market is expected to reach$4.1 Bn by 2020. Gartner projects that Indian public cloud services revenues will grow by 37.5% in 2018 to a total of $2.5 Bn, up from $1.8 Bn in 2017.

RajMegh is the first-of-its-kind cloud infrastructure and data centre services from any Indian state government in the country that will be offered completely free to startups through their lifetime.

Other state governments, PSUs, and corporates, meanwhile, can benefit from the RajMegh cloud services leveraging the Tier IV Bhamashah State Data Centre. And that, too, at prices much lower than those offered by private companies.

This made-In-India cloud services initiative of the Rajasthan government of tapping into the public cloud market to enable ease of access and scalability for the Indian startup and technology ecosystem is sure to enable startups, corporates, and other state governments take their cloud-enabled services game to Cloud 9.

For further information on RajMegh, write to helpdesk.istart@rajasthan.gov.in.

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