Netmagic scales up services with multi-cloud offerings

Says NTT backing has made it easier to undertake investment heavy projects

Data centre services provider Netmagic is expanding its service portfolio with a range of cloud offerings to position itself as a one-stop cloud solution provider. 

Noticing a long period of transition where customers want hybrid IT solutions having a combination of bare metal-based DCs, hosted private clouds, and multiple public clouds; Netmagic is positioning itself as a Multi-cloud provider.

“Clients want a range of cloud services for different products. Some may go for AWS or Azure, some projects require dedicated hosting while others may require captive data centres depending on workload. Instead of approaching different vendors we want them to see us as a one-stop solution,” said Sunil Gupta, Executive director and president, Netmagic.

The boom in finance and e-commerce services has spiked demand for cloud and data centre hosting services, said Gupta. Netmagic seized this opportunity to offer clients more than just their traditional managed offerings. The company’s revenue growth has remained stable at 34 per cent CAGR since over four years.

According to Gartner’s latest report, Indian IT services will spend up to $3181 million next year on data centre systems alone. Netmagic along with Singapore based ST Telemedia and NxtraData are among the top players in the data centre category in India according to a report by IT research firm 451 Research. 

“Every customer is running Hybrid IT services with parts of their service running on different platforms. We integrate the entire range of solutions to the customer and we help to manage the infrastructure with a cloud management platform developed by our R&D team,” he said. This application also helps manage different cloud applications through a single online dashboard.

While managed and cloud services comprised almost 75 to 80 per cent of their revenues earlier, co-location service (third-party data centre) has pushed its way up to occupy almost 40 per-cent of the business lately, he added.

The Mumbai-based company with almost 1.1 million square feet of data centre real estate has been one of the leading players in managed-services for Indian IT companies since almost two decades.  However, it was an acquisition by Japan’s NTT Communications that really opened up the global and Japanese markets for Netmagic.

“NTT is also very committed towards capacity building in our data centres. Two new data centres will go live in April adding over 0.5 million square feet of data centre space by April next year. Our speed and scale of constructing data centres have increased greatly in the last 5 years,” said Gupta. 

Plans for even larger data centres in Mumbai and Chennai are already in swing following higher demand from ecommerce, cloud and government-driven projects he said. While some of the earlier data centres were built on leased land, the company has been investing in wholly owned data centres off late as a larger business strategy.

“While local players like CTRLS and Sify do have a dedicated clientele, a large multinational backing in NTT allows Netmagic a larger capacity to invest and mobilize funds in new projects as markets demand, “said Gupta. India’s data centre market is roughly two-third the size of the Chinese market, but as international technology players set up base here, public cloud players are strengthening ties with local infrastructure providers.

Global players like AWS and Microsoft Azure are partners before they are competitors in the local market for the company, said Gupta. Netmagic is a Tier 1 partner for both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services in India meaning customers can avail these services through Netmagic solution products as part of the multi-cloud strategy.

Facts:

· 1.1 million square feet of data centre real estate across the country.

· 0.5 million square feet of additional data centre space by April 2018.

· 34 per cent revenue CAGR.

· Aiming to be the one-stop data centre and cloud solution for multiple client needs.