Mr Josh Fraser: Singapore is fast emerging as the cloud computing hub for Asia Pacific as large service providers are locating here to provide resources and support for international businesses.

RightScale, a global company focused on helping companies to manage their cloud computing solutions, sees Singapore as the ideal regional hub for cloud services, and has recently set up its Asia Pacific hub in the republic.

Founded in early 2007, RightScale offers a fully-automated management platform that enables organisations to design, deploy, manage and automate business-critical applications on the cloud. While not a developer of cloud services, one of the key value propositions it offers is the ability to aggregate multiple and disparate cloud services under a single umbrella.

“We are focused on multiple clouds, whether private or public,” said Mr Josh Fraser, the company’s Global Vice President for Business Development. “You can use both Amazon Web Services and your private cloud, or two completely different cloud providers.”

RightScale’s multi-cloud technology supports public clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Rackspace Hosting, and Microsoft Azure, as well as platforms such as Cloud.com, Eucalyptus, and OpenStack. Its app store of server templates enables organisations to quickly get up to cloud speed.

“We leverage pre-built server templates which are definitions of environments like a blog or automated gaming systems,” explained Mr Fraser. “They dynamically configure different cloud resources to set up the required solution for the company. It’s like setting up a playlist of songs which can change quickly according to needs as opposed to burning a new CD each time.”

According to Mr Fraser, setting up its regional hub in Singapore was only natural. “Singapore is fast emerging as the cloud computing hub for Asia Pacific as large service providers are locating here to provide resources and support for international businesses,” said Mr Fraser. “It is the ideal gateway to the rest of the region where adoption rate of the cloud is gaining speed.”

The nation’s established infrastructure also offered strategic advantages such as a skilled workforce and pro-business government, enabling RightScale to easily reach out to its target markets in the region including North Asia, India and Southeast Asia.

While currently focused on business development, RightScale in Singapore will also look to offer services engineering, post-sales support, technical implementation and support, and marketing functions in 2011.

“While we’ve just recently begun operations, we plan to grow six-fold in terms of manpower in the coming year,” said Mr Fraser. “With our ability to support public and private clouds in multiple geographic regions, we are ready to meet the appetite for cloud computing management in the region.”

In the future, RightScale expects to expand significantly in line with its core strategies. “We are focused on training and educating our customers,” said Mr Fraser. “People still need help understanding how cloud computing can help them.”

The company also expects to also increase its reach when it comes to technology and services depth. “We also want to work with more technology partners and independent software vendors to increase the number of cloud services available and we expect our server template library to grow dramatically,” noted Mr Fraser. “Although AWS is the undisputed leader, more are coming in like Tata, Microsoft, and IBM.”