Cisco, US-based multinational technology services and telecom equipment provider, has announced that it is making investments into dedicated data center space in India for WebEx, its suite of services for remote conferencing, file sharing, and contact center operations. Regulatory permissions for WebEx in India will be obtained as well as a domestic data center will be established with the undisclosed investment amount.
The WebEx data center investment, according to Cisco’s announcement, is a first for an over-the-top (OTT) collaboration and communications service provider in India. The action is in accordance with the DoT’s latest draft telecom rules, which require OTT service providers to be subject to the same regulatory framework as telecom carriers because their respective services are naturally competitive.
A home data center facility could be essential for providing a wider range of services. The latency of a connection or the amount of time it takes for data to move from one point to another can be significantly reduced when a client and the service provider are located closer to a data center. Additionally, this allows for greater control over security protocols and increases the amount of data that companies may use for their services.
According to Cisco, after the US, where it was founded, India is WebEx’s second-largest market. As a result, service providers in India are increasingly offering data localization services. For companies moving to online services, a local data center facility could definitely aid with data localization initiatives
On September 21, Cloudfare, US-based content delivery network (CDN) operator, debuted its data localization suite to India, Australia, and Japan in order to give businesses in these countries more control over how data crosses borders.
On August 29, given the expanding market possibility for cloud-based services in the country, Jonathon Dixon, Cloudflare managing director for Asia-Pacific, Japan and China, informed Mint that the company will be data localization compliant in India by the end of the year. Hence, other companies also seem prepared to adopt this strategy.
Furthermore, according to Daisy Chittilapilly, president of Cisco India, by making this move, Cisco hopes to increase its market share in the hybrid work platforms market, which is anticipated to reach at least $250 million by 2025.
