Cloud Computing in Singapore 2013 Edition

ISBN: 978-981-07-5158-6

Contents

Foreword

The Singapore Landscape

Cloud Organisations

Case Studies

Directory Listing

Acknowledgements

2

4

28

39

70

176

Copyright 2013 Info-Communications Development Authority of Singapore. All rights reserved.

This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, in whole or

in part, without prior written permission.

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Foreword

CLOUD COMPUTING IN SINGAPORE2

Singapore has been making substantial progress in creating a

conducive environment for cloud computing.

According to the 2013 BSA Global Cloud Computing Scorecard,

a report to track year-over-year change in the international

policy landscape for cloud computing, Singapore has jumped

from tenth to fth position in this year's ranking. One of the

contributing factors is the introduction of a data protection

law. The ranking also scored Singapore the highest in the

component that compares the infrastructure available in each

country to support the digital economy and cloud computing.

For Singapore to become a global cloud computing hub, there is a need to ensure

high speed and seamless broadband connectivity domestically, as well as between

Singapore and the rest of the world. To this end, the development of major

infocomm infrastructures such as the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband

Network, Singapore Internet Exchange and Data Centre Park, provides a conducive

environment to nurture a vibrant cloud computing ecosystem.

As we continue to enhance our underlying infrastructure, IDA will also increase our

efforts to develop data related services and applications to encourage cloud adoption

and further develop Singapore's cloud ecosystem. For example, the Data-as-a-

Service programme will be launched in the second half of 2013 to catalyse the

development of a nationwide platform that allows the efcient delivery of data, on

demand, to interested data buyers to develop applications for in-house or business

consumption.

IDA will also continue to enhance and build on current cloud computing initiatives

and programmes. One of these is the attraction of agship users of cloud users to

Singapore to enhance Singapore's capability in this space. We have launched six

Calls for Cloud Computing Proposals since 2010 for selected projects to receive

support in terms of compute and storage resources and quantum of cloud services.

To-date, these Calls have awarded 75 projects with cloud resources to undertake

test-bedding, proofs-of-concept and research.

One such proof-of-concept project is the porting of the COnstruction and Real Estate

NETwork (CORENET) e-Submission System Disaster Recovery onto the cloud

environment. Owned by the Building & Construction Authority, CORENET provides

for electronic production, submission, checking and approval of building plans in

Singapore. This project aims to explore the overall feasibility, technical challenges

and cost-benets in cloud enablement of CORENET.

We have also launched the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Enablement Programme

(SEP) to support the industry's efforts to enhance their software applications into

SaaS offerings for various industry verticals. For example, in the construction sector

as of July 2012, IDA provided SEP grants to two independent software vendors

(ISVs) to SaaS-enable their software used in construction design and facilities

management.

3CLOUD COMPUTING IN SINGAPORE

For the manufacturing sector, IDA provided SEP grants to four ISVs to SaaS-

enable their Precision Engineering software.

Similarly, IDA will continue to encourage cloud adoption within the Government.

Both the Cloud Services Bulk Tender and EnVision Bulk Tender simplify and facilitate

purchasing of cloud based services by Government ministries/departments,

statutory boards, organs of state, and qualied participating entities. The Cloud

Services Bulk Tender allows Government users to procure cloud services from a pre-

qualied panel of public cloud service providers while the EnVision Bulk Tender

provides for the supply of cloud-based video hosting and streaming services using

the utility pricing model.

As part of the efforts in forging R&D relationships and building knowledge capital

assets, Singapore will continue to harness its existing knowledge capital resources

in tertiary institutions and research institutes.

To this end, IDA has partnered with the Institute for Infocomm Research on a

Technology Evaluation Programme where infocomm companies, through the

programme's short-term, no-fee evaluation licence grant, are encouraged to use the

technologies developed by the research institute to develop cloud computing

solutions. These companies are also encouraged to take on a commercial licence if

their trial deployment proves to be successful and of commercial value. We have

also signed MOUs on technology evaluation partnership with the National University

of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University in October 2012, as well as the

Institute of High Performance Computing in March 2013, while six local companies

have signed eight evaluation licenses.

In this 2013 edition of the Cloud Computing in Singapore booklet, we have

included details of IDA's initiatives and efforts to encourage and seed cloud

adoption, as well as case studies of how some companies have embraced cloud

computing. We hope that these will encourage greater interest and sharing among

potential cloud users and cloud-related companies so as to develop a more vibrant

cloud computing ecosystem. We hope that readers will continue to draw inspiration

and knowledge from this latest publication.

Ronnie Tay

Chief Executive

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

The Singapore Landscape

5 Genesis of Cloud Computing in Singapore

6 Developing the Cloud Ecosystem

8 Promoting Cloud Adoption

19 Attracting Cloud Players

20 Developing Competency for Industry

22 Forging R&D Relationships and Building

Knowledge Capital Assets

25 Providing Enabling Infrastructure

26 Building a Trusted Environment Through Policy

and Legislation

Genesis of Cloud Computing in Singapore


The National Grid Ofce (or NGO) was

established in 2003 under the Agency for

Science, Technology and Research

(A*STAR), to promote the adoption of grid

computing in Singapore. NGO was then

led by the National Grid Steering

Committee (NGSC) chaired by Mr Peter

Ho, former Permanent Secretary for

Defence and Head of Civil Service. The

NGSC oversaw and provided directions for

the National Grid effort. The National

Grid's vision is to facilitate the seamless

use of an integrated cyber infrastructure

in a secure, effective and efcient manner

to advance scientic, engineering and

biomedical R&D, with the longer term goal

of transforming the Singapore economy

using grid.

Grid Services originated from the scientic

community, where there was a need for

high performance computing, increasingly

achieved by harnessing commodity

hardware through aggregation and

virtualisation of infocomm resources. Over

time, concepts of utility business models,

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and advance-

ment in virtualisation resulted in the

popularity of grid services to a larger

community beyond the scientic users, to

industry and business users, in what we

now refer to as cloud computing.

NGSC saw the po ten t i a l o f how

industries and enterprises could reap

cost savings in IT and the benets that

grid computing promises. Under the

chairmanship of Mr Richard Lim, then

Chief Executive of Defence Science &

Technology Agency, the use of grid

services for animation rendering was

promoted among the digital media

industry. To achieve this fully, the NGO

was transferred to IDA in April 2007. This

allowed IDA to facilitate enterprises to

adopt grid computing, while A*STAR

continues to champion research efforts

to advance grid technologies. The NGSC,

in turn, became the National Grid

Advisory Council (NGAC).

Reecting the objective to promote cloud

computing adoption among users in

industry, businesses and enterprises, NGO

took on its new name as the National

Cloud Computing Ofce (NCCO) with

effect from 1 April 2013. Accordingly,

NGAC became known as the National

Cloud Computing Advisory Council

(NCCAC).

The Council, currently chaired by Mr Noel

Hon, Chairman of e-Cop Pte Ltd, com-

prises key stakeholders such as cloud

users, providers and researchers, con-

tribute their ideas towards Singapore's

cloud vision, and ensure that our strategi-

es are in step with our economy's needs.

Developing the Cloud Ecosystem


With the paradigm shift in computing

where businesses and end-users can

access infocomm services via cloud

computing, IDA has increased its focus

on seeding cloud computing efforts.

Our cloud vision now is to sharpen

Singapore's overall economic com-

petitiveness through adoption of cloud

computing and to enhance the vibrancy

and growth of Singapore's infocomm

sector through the development of a

cloud ecosystem.

To achieve these objectives, IDA has

identied six key thrusts.

Thrust 1 Support Flagship Users of

Cloud Services

The attraction of agship cloud users into

Singapore would lend global credibility of

Singapore's capability in this space.

Thrust 2 - Attract Cloud Players

Clouds require signicant investment in

the underlying infrastructure, such as

data centres, broadband connectivity

and servers, as well as in manpower

resources for research and operations.

Such investments are long-term and well

considered business decisions.


Thrust 3 Develop Manpower &

Competency for Industry

A pre-requisite to a vibrant cloud

computing ecosystem is the capability of

the local infocomm companies and

workers to exploit the new paradigm shift

in order to develop innovative cloud-based

services. There is a role for IDA to put in

place the necessary framework and

incentives for companies and workers to

upgrade their competencies in this new

space.

Thrust 4 Forge R&D Relationships

and Build Knowledge Capital Assets

Singapore seeks to harness its existing

knowledge capital resources in institutes

of higher learning and research institutes

to attract major corporate cloud research

and development (R&D) to set up in

Singapore. Investing in cloud R&D is not

enough where there is a need to bridge

the gap and provide a conducive environ-

ment for the translation of R&D results

into industry practice and product/services

deployment.

Thrust 5 Provide Enabling

Infrastructure

For Singapore to be a cloud computing hub

to the rest of the world and region, there

would be a need for world-class high speed

and seamless broadband connectivity within

Singapore, as well as connecting Singapore

with other major cities. Development of

major infocomm infrastructures such as the

Next Generation Nationwide Broadband

Network (Next Gen NBN), Singapore

Internet Exchange and Data Centre Park,

provide a competitive environment in

nurturing a vibrant cloud computing

ecosystem. In the past year, IDA has also

taken a multi-pronged approach to facilitate

the development of the infrastructure such

as technicality, standards, and cloud

security.

Thrust 6 Build a Trusted Environment

through Policy and Legislations

Cloud computing investments would

gravitate towards jurisdictions with stable,

trusted business environment, especially

when larger enterprises with mission-critical

or data sensitive requirements move into

the cloud.

Promoting Cloud Adoption


A cloud adoption study commissioned by

IDA in April 2012 found that Singapore

continues to maintain its leading market

position in the ASEAN region in terms of

cloud adoption and maturity.

Utility pricing model is perceived

as having a positive impact on

business growth with an average

10% savings in operating costs.

By 2015, it is likely the world leaders

would have surged ahead at the high 40-

50% levels in cloud adoption. As a highly

developed infocomm hub, Singapore

should aspire to similar levels of adoption

to strive for greater competitiveness of

our industries in Singapore.

Our framework for cloud adoption can be

divided into programmes that target users

directly and those that provide enablers,

as depicted in the gure below. These

programmes can be categorised as (1)

Flagship Projects, (2) Awareness Creation,

(3) Industry Outreach, and (4) Support

Programmes.

In the Asia-Pacic region, Singapore is

ahead of Korea and Hong Kong SAR

but behind Australia and Japan in

terms of cloud adoption level, using

the number of businesses with

Internet connection as the base.

Singapore's cloud adoption is forecast

to be at 33% by 2015 but will still lag

the world leading cloud adopters (such

as USA, Germany and UK).

Medium-sized businesses mainly use

SaaS for new applications as compared

to enterprises that employ SaaS for

existing solution enhancements.


- Flagship Projects


Construction & Manufacturing Sectors

The National Productivity and Continuing

Education Council has identied Con-

struction and Precision Engineering (PE) as

two of the priority sectors that have the

greatest potential for productivity

enhancements. These sectors contribute a

signicant share to GDP and employ a

large number of workers. IDA has since

embarked on cloud computing initiatives

to enhance the IT offerings in these

sectors.

Building Information Modeling (BIM)

BIM is a 3D modeling process that allows

the building construction professionals to

explore building projects digitally, before it

is built. The Building and Construction

Authority (BCA) has mandated BIM e-

submissions for building works for

regulatory approval by 2015, in a phas-

ed manner starting from the year 2013.

A $5.7M BIM Adoption Fund is made

available to spur BIM software adoption.

However, a conservative estimate of the

BIM software and hardware costs for all

the 3,000 construction rms in Singapore

is $100M per year. IDA is working with

BCA to develop a more sustainable

adoption model for BIM software by

ensuring its availability on pay-per-use

basis and thereby distributing BIM

software and hardware costs over longer

term. This model would make the BIM

software adoption nancially attractive to

the construction SMEs. IDA plans to

provide support to those BIM independent

software vendors that port their BIM

software to cloud and provide it on pay-

per-use basis to users. In collaboration

with BCA, IDA would conduct technical

and user trials of cloud-enabled BIM

software to ensure their technical

readiness for deployment and roll-out.

IDA has also launched the Software-as-a-

Service (SaaS) Enablement Programme to

provide funding support for SaaS

enablement projects in specic industry

verticals in Singapore. As of end July

2012, IDA has provided grant support to

two companies to SaaS-enable their

construction sector software. The rst

project seeks to SaaS-enable a facility

management software that uses BIM as its

input, while the second aims to reduce the

BIM design cycle time through cataloguing

of multiple common purpose plug-and-play

BIM designs.

Proof-of-Concept (POC) in Cloud

Enablement of CORENET

CORENET (COnstruction and Real Estate

NETwork) prov ides for e lec t ron ic

production, submission, checking and

approval of building plans in Singapore.

Owned by BCA, and currently hosted at

the Government Data Centre, CORENET is

utilized by 15 Government agencies,

departments and statutory boards under

eight ministries.

Due to its highly irregular load and usage

patterns, CORENET lends itself well to

leverage on the scalable nature of cloud

computing. In 2012, BCA completed a POC

to explore the overall feasibility, technical

challenges and cost-benets of porting

CORENET to the cloud environment. The

experience garnered and data gathered

from this POC will prepare BCA for the

possible future migration of CORENET's

production system to the cloud environ-

ment.

Besides evaluating the benets cloud

could bring for our users, we hope to

take the opportunity to familiarise

ourselves with this new computing

paradigm.

- Ms Doris Lim, Project Manager,

Building and Construction Authority

Compute-Intensive Design & Analysis

Software for Precision Engineering

The PE industry forms the backbone of

Singapore's complex manufacturing

activities and is a core enabler for

industries such as electronics, marine,

aerospace, oil & gas and medical devices.

This industry plays a crucial role in

attracting and retaining Singapore's key

manufacturing clusters by providing high

quality components, sub-assemblies and

nished products. According to the

statistics provided by SPRING Singapore,

there are 2,973 PE companies, of which 91

per cent are SMEs.

The highly complex manufacturing process

in PE industry requires compute-intensive

design and analysis software. The high cost

of software licenses is a major impediment

to IT/Software adoption by PE rms,

especially SMEs that seek to move up the

value chain from core manufacturing to

design and analysis activities. In the

absence of software automation, PE rms

face productivity issues because of the

inefciencies involved with the manual

processes.

In order to ensure the viability of design

and analysis software for PE industry, IDA

plans to make it available on a pay-per-

use basis to the users. By doing so, the

upfront license costs for PE software could

be spread across a longer term, an


expense model which is more sustainable

for PE rms. In this regard, IDA has

partnered with SPRING Singapore to

develop a program for cloud enablement

of PE software and its adoption by PE

rms.

Youth Olympic Games

Use of public cloud services by Government

agencies has been steadily on the rise in

recent years. Cloud computing played a

key supporting role for the infocomm needs

of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games

(YOG) hosted by Singapore in 2010.

Key applications such as the Games

Management System and Results Manage-

ment System, management of location

passes, re lated Internet appl ica-

tions, email services, and web hosting

leveraged public cloud resources provided

by Alatum.

A cloud-based platform was deemed the

most cost effective solution to support

technical infrastructure for the Games: it

had a low setup cost and provided fast,

cost-effective, robust and highly scalable

infrastructure needed by the Games.

Another key consideration was that the

Games would be a one-time event, and

therefore a cloud-based infrastructure

would signicantly reduce the need for

post-Games wasteful disposal of hardware

inventory.


Government Cloud

The Government Cloud aims to provide a

cloud infrastructure for Whole-of-Govern-

ment. The Singapore Government acknow-

ledges that each cloud computing model

provides its own level of assurance and

benets. As such, the strategy is to

leverage the appropriate cloud for the

appropriate needs by adopting a multi-

prong approach to cloud computing as

follows:

Leverage commercially-available public

cloud offerings for appropriate needs

so as to benet from lower cost of

computing resources. For instance, the

Ministry of Education's iCONnect

system is a collaboration and email

system for teachers built on a public

cloud

Implement a private Government cloud

(G-Cloud) for Whole-of-Government

use where security and governance

requirements cannot be fullled by

public cloud

G-Cloud will provide efcient, scalable and

resilient cloud computing resources and

High Assurance Zone a physically

dedicated computing resource pool

which will only be used by Government

to serve its high assurance needs

Medium Assurance Zone a computing

resource pool which will be shared with

non Government cloud users to lower

cost of computing resources for the

Government

Basic Assurance Zone whichp rovides

public cloud resources

To further aggregate Whole-of-Government

demand to maximise cost savings, the

Government will identify and provide

common services such as customer

relationship management and web

content management as SaaS offerings

on G-Cloud.

G-Cloud enables standardisation, and

sharing of computing resources and

applications at the Whole-of-Government

level, thereby generating cost savings.

will be designed to provide three zones to

address different level of security and

governance requirements:


Providing Ease of Procurement

IDA facilitates public sector's procurement

of public cloud services through a number

of bulk tenders. To date, these bulk

tenders have catalysed demand of cloud

services with over 110 procurements of

close to $4M in cumulative value. This is

comparable to UK's publ ic sector

procurement of public cloud services of

over 200 procurements with cumulative

value of 6M.

Grid Services Bulk Tender

Government agencies, such as National

Library Board (NLB), are early adopters

of public cloud services in Singapore.

For Government users, public cloud

services can be procured under the

two-year Grid Services bulk tender,

which had four Grid Service Providers

(Alatum, NCS, nGrid and PTC). Examples

of users included IDA, Ministry of Law,

Ministry of Health, National Environment

Agency (NEA), NLB, Nanyang Techonolo-

gical University and Urban Redevelop-

ment Authority.

Cloud Services Bulk Tender

The Grid Services bulk tender has

been refreshed in April 2012 by a new

panel of six public Cloud Service

Providers or CSPs (Alatum, nGrid, PTC,

aZaaS, StarHub and Crimsonlogic) for

two years. Examples of users are

IDA, MCI, NEA, NLB, Singapore Land

Authority, Singapore Power and URA.

EnVision Bulk Tender

Another period bulk tender, known as

EnVision, was established for the

supply of video hosting and streaming

services using the utility pricing model

to Government ministries/departments,

statutory boards, organs of state

and participating entities. Such a

service is made possible by EnVision

contractors partnering with the local

CSPs.

Video portal using EnVision by Ministry of

Transport

Public agencies have been using EnVision

for hosting and streaming videos for

corporate events, public education and

information. As at end 2012, there are a

total of 23 Government agencies using

EnVision. Examples of public sector users

are the Central Provident Fund Board,

Civil Service College, Elections Dept, IDA,

IE Singapore, IPOS, MAS, MCI, MDA,

MICA, MINDEF - DSTA, MinLaw, MND,

MOF, MOM, MOT, NCCS, NEA, NSCS, PA,

PMO, PSD and SPRING Singapore.

Video portal using EnVision by Ministry of

Finance


St. Nicholas Girls' School video portal using EnVision

six-month support scheme under Envision

for the provision of cloud resources for

schools to develop and host their own

video sites. Students can use the video

sites as a platform to showcase their

creativity and efforts, as well as generate

publicity for their schools. In addition, IDA

launched the Cloud based school video

site competition in January 2013. Winners

were announced during CloudAsia 2013.

Several pioneering schools that have

adopted EnVision include Rafes Girls

Secondary School, St. Joseph's Institution,

St. Nicholas Girls' School, Rafes

Institution, Singapore Polytechnic, Nanyang

Polytechnic and Millennia Institute. The

schools use EnVision to host and stream

videos on e-learning and schools'

events and activities (such as schools

achievements, performances and overseas

trips). In May 2012, IDA announced a new

St. Joseph's Institution video portal using EnVision


- Creating Awareness & Industry Outreach


IDA-NLB Talk Series

The series of ten public talks on cloud

computing, co-organised by IDA, NLB,

Singapore Computer Society, and Imperial

College Alumni Association (Singapore),

was launched in March 2011 and suc-

cessfully concluded in January 2012.

Targeted at an audience apart from

infocomm professionals, the series aimed

to facilitate quality sharing on cloud

computing, promote awareness, education

and discussion on cloud computing related

issues. The intent was to increase

condence in adoption and to share on

various cloud applications.

Public Talk & Industry Sharing Series

2013

Building upon the success of the IDA-NLB

talk series, IDA will launch a new public

talk and industry sharing series in 2013 to

further enhance awareness of cloud

computing. The public talk series will

feature prominent cloud professionals

delivering talks on various aspects of cloud

computing, while the industry sharing

series provide avenues for cloud adopters

in the industry to share their experiences.

These sessions will commence in July 2013

and will be held at IDA's Infocomm

Experience Centre (iExperience) located at

the Esplanade Xchange.

Cloud Computing in Singapore Booklet

This 2013 edition of the Cloud Computing

in Singapore booklet provides an overview

of Singapore's cloud computing ecosystem

and consists a variety of cloud case studies

as well as a directory of cloud-related

companies and institutions.

Industry Outreach

Recent activities such as sharing on IDA's

Cloud Computing initiatives at SPETA

Networking Reception 2012 and AAIS Aero

Productivity Conference 2012 have been

under-taken with the Singapore Precision

Engineering & Tools Association (SPETA)

and the Association of Aerospace

Industries (Singapore) respectively.

IDA had inked a Memorandum of Intent

(MOI) with Informa Telecoms & Media

Asia in February 2011 to co-organise

CloudAsia for three years. The four-day

event is held annually to promote cloud

computing and adoption. This partner-

ship builds upon the brand name that

has been established over the last six

years, initially through 'GridAsia' and

subsequently 'CloudAsia'.

The inaugural CloudAsia was rst held in

May 2010. CloudAsia 2012 was attended

by more than 300 delegates from 146

organisations across 17 countries.

Mr Ronnie Tay (CEO, IDA) at CloudAsia

2012

CloudAsia 2012 session in progress

CloudAsia 2012


Cloud Adoption Benchmark

IDA commissions a cloud adoption survey

on a regular basis to gather pertinent

statistics on cloud computing adoption in

Singapore. This survey seeks to under-

stand the adoption status, drivers and

inhibitors of cloud computing in Singapore

across various industry verticals. The

results of this survey enable IDA to better

plan industry outreach activities and

support programmes to target industry

verticals that benet the most from cloud

adoption.

Business Continuity Management &

Cloud Conference

On 31 October 2012, the Singapore

Computer Society (SCS) organised a

Business Continuity Management (BCM) &

Cloud Conference: Innovative Practices in

BCM & Cloud. The conference provided

insights on the Government's roadmap in

business continuity, disaster recovery,

virtualisation and cloud. Also highlighted

were the innovation and best practices

that companies were adopting in these

areas.

Application Packaging Standard (APS)

On 28 September 2012, a seminar entitled

Driving SaaS Adoption through APS

Standard was held at IDA. The seminar

provided industry partners with the know-

how on delivering SaaS offerings using APS

for compatibility on different platform .

Conference on BCM and Cloud by the

Singapore Computer Society

(L-R) Mr Martin Yates (SIG Chairman, SCS),

Mr Raju Chellam (BCG President, SCS), Mr

Chak Kong Soon (President, SCS) and Mr

Khoong Hock Yun (Assistant Chief Executive,

IDA)

Presentation by APS Founding Member,

Parallels

Cloud Security Alliance signing ceremony of

corporate and afliate members


Call for Cloud Computing Proposals

IDA has launched six Calls for Cloud

Computing Proposals since 2010 as part of

its efforts to promote the adoption of cloud

computing. Depending on the impact and

scope, selected projects (from industry,

Government and R&D) receive support in

terms of compute and storage resources

based on the approved duration (of up to

six months) and quantum of cloud services

(compute core-hours and storage GB-

months) from one of the participating

CSPs which sponsors cloud resources.

In all, the six calls saw 75 projects

awarded cloud resources worth nearly $5M

to undertake test-bedding, proofs-of-

concept and research. Participating CSPs

have included Alatum, Amazon Web

Services, Chunghwa, IBM, nGrid, PTC/

ClearManage, Readyspace, Savvis,

StarHub, and Tata Communications.

Public brieng for Call 6

to nd the right balance of key features

and services for selected segments of

users.

- Mr Peter Rajnak, General Manager,

Guardtime Pte Ltd

The Calls provides an excellent platform

for Government agencies to gain practical

usage experience in cloud computing.

With the support, we conducted a

proof-of-concept to implement WDA's

SkillsConnect System on the cloud

platform. This had allowed us to perform

a feasibility study and ready ourselves to

migrate the system to the G-Cloud when

it is ready.

- Ms Jasmine Lim, Assistant Director,

Workforce Development Agency

With the help of cloud computing

resources made available by IDA, my

group has performed large-scale molecular

dynamics simulation studies on the

aggregation behaviour of A proteins.

Such protein has important functions in

the development of Alzheimer disease.

Our results have been published in

international scientic journals, such as

J.Phys. Chem. B and PLoS ONE.

- Assoc. Prof. Mu Yuguang, School of

Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technolo-

gical University

Using the cloud platform for our research

p r o j e c t h a s m a d e f e a s i b l e t h e

manipulation of large amounts of data,

which would otherwise have been

impossible to accomplish. With the

unprecedented availability of data from

data generation centres around the world,

I envision that cloud computing will

become the essential backbone for

healthcare and biomedical research.

- Prof. Greg Tucker-Kellogg, Department

of Biological Sciences, Faculty of

Science, National University of

Singapore


- Support Programmes

Quotes from past awardees

The Calls was an ideal platform to test

some of offerings for the market. It has

helped move our solution closer to

becoming an integral part in over-

coming the security and audibility

chasms related to data authenticity in

the cloud. In addition, it has enabled us


SaaS Solutions CFC

IDA launched a call-for-collaboration

(CFC) to solicit SaaS solutions for

potential SME target sectors such as:

private education institutions, pre-

schools, real estate agencies, security

agencies, cleaning companies, tourist

attractions, shipping agents and bunker

traders. Some examples of potential

enterprise user target sectors are oil

and gas, hospitality, nancial services

institutions and logistics.

The CFC sought to (a) spur the demand

for impactful SaaS solutions that will

address sector-specic requirements,

bring about mass adoption among SMEs

Q&A at public brieng Presentation at Call 6 brieng

Crowd at Call 6 brieng Call 6 Q & A session

and deliver productivity gains to various

sectors; (b) encourage ICT vendors to

develop innovative, high-growth SaaS

solutions with export potential by

leveraging the lead demand generated

from this CFC; and (c) promote user

condence in SaaS by inculcat ing

industry best practices in the areas of

data security, integrity, privacy, recovery

and portability.

The proposals submitted would enable

SMEs and enterprise users to achieve

increased productivity, increase customers

customers or improve customer engage-

ment, and develop new lines of busi-

nesses or alternative business models.


Increase SME Productivity with

Infocomm Adoption &

Transformation (iSPRINT)

The iSPRINT scheme addresses the

different areas of infocomm adoption for

SMEs, enabling these enterprises to seek

assistance to facilitate their infocomm

adoption journey for rst time adopters.

The scheme supports both packaged

solutions pre-qualied by IDA and

customised solutions, so long as the

project involves the use of infocomm

technology to improve company's

bus iness operat ions, resul t ing in

efciency/productivity and increased

revenue or value-add for the business. In

addition to pre-qualied packaged

solutions for basic business functions

such as Finance & Accounting, Payroll and

Point-of-Sales, SaaS also qualies under

iSPRINT with support for up to maximum

of 12 months of subscription, capped at

$20,000.

Productivity and Innovation Credit

for Cloud Computing (PIC)

Cloud computing is now allowed under

the PIC Scheme. The rst $400,000 in

costs incurred to acquire cloud computing

resources would qualify for a 400 per cent

tax deduction. Businesses are strongly

encouraged to make full use of the PIC

Scheme to invest in productivity and

innovation. To take advantage of this, no

application is required; businesses can

claim the tax benets as part of their tax

ling.

SaaS Enablement Programme (SEP)

On 25 October 2011, IDA launched SEP

to provide funding support for SaaS

enablement projects in specic industry

verticals in Singapore. SEP was launched

to (a) lower the barriers for traditional

model ISVs for SaaS enablement; (b)

expedite the SaaS enablement process;

and (c) upgrade the capability of ISVs in

SaaS enablement. Successful applicants

qualify for co-payment funding support

for the Qualifying Costs (QC), capped

at 30 per cent of total of all QC and up

to S$50,000. Hitherto, six awards have

been made for SaaS-enablement of

software in the construction and pre-

cision engineering sectors.

Attracting Cloud Players


Cloud computing requires signicant

investment in the underlying infrastructure

such as data centres, broadband con-

nectivity and servers, as well as in

manpower resources for research and

operations. Towards this end, IDA works

closely with other Government agencies to

attract cloud players into Singapore.

CSPs that have established cloud data

centres in Singapore include Amazon Web

Services, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft Azure,

Savvis, and Tata Communications. Local

CSPs include Alatum (SingTel), Iconz-

Webvisions, M1, nGrid, PTC, ClearManage,

ReadySpace, and StarHub. Besides

catalysing and attracting CSPs to

Singapore, IDA has also been working

with cloud technology providers, telcos

and c loud enablement centres to

participate in the cloud ecosystem.

Apart from attracting cloud players into

Singapore, IDA has also init iated

programmes to attract and develop cloud

players from within the city-state, as part

of its multi-pronged approach to enhance

the vibrancy and variety of the cloud

landscape. One such programme is the

$46 million ve-year Infocomm Industry

Productivity Roadmap, approved by the

National Productivity and Continuing

Education Council.

The roadmap aims to facilitate local

infocomm enterprises transition towards a

cloud or product-based model, allowing

them to scale quickly and serve global

customers more efciently without the

need for manpower increase. In addition,

a longer term plan to develop necessary

skill set for local infocomm professionals

will also be put in place in anticipation of

the shift in job proles resulting from the

transformation.

Cloud Adoption Case Studies

Several examples of cloud adoption in Singapore have been documented as

case studies. They can be found in the previous and current edition of this

publication, and also at http://gsp.ngp.org.sg/users/

Cloud adoption is also boosted by other concurrent IDAs eorts described under

Providing Enabling Infrastructure.

Developing Competency for Industry


An important pre-requisite to a vibrant

cloud computing ecosystem is the

capab i l i ty o f the loca l in focomm

companies to develop innovative cloud

services. It is therefore vital to provide

tra in ing and courses to inculcate

infocomm professionals and students

with necessary knowledge and skills.

In March 2011, IDA launched The

Infocomm Manpower Development

Roadmap, Version Two Point Zero (or

MDEV 2.0). This four-year roadmap is

focused on developing high-end info-

comm experts and leaders with the aim

to achieve three outcomes; rst, to

develop talent with infocomm skills and

experience; second, to acquire a greater

share of infocomm talent and third, to

ensure that Singapore's manpower

prole is aligned to Singapore's role as a

global hub.

The important strategic thrust of MDEV

2.0 is to build professional capability and

enhance skills. Under this thrust, initia-

tives are in place enabling professionals

and students to acquire skills and

knowledge on emerging technologies

such as cloud computing. Specically,

IDA will launch four initiatives for

manpower development in collaboration

with key industry players, training

providers as well as various institutes of

higher learning. The initiatives are:

Developing Competency

Standards;

Enabling Professional Conversion;

Creating and Delivering Training

Capacities; and

Building Talent Pipeline.

Developing Competency Standards

An important rst step in professional

training is to develop the competency

standards governing job roles with

focus on cloud computing. In 2010, IDA

in collaboration with the Workforce

Development Agency (WDA) established

a technical committee comprising

representatives from leading cloud

computing industry companies under

the National Infocomm Competency

Framework (NICF). The cloud computing

technical committee developed a total of

22 new competency standards for 14

cloud computing job roles across four job

families, namely cloud architecture, cloud

engineering, cloud operations and cloud

services. The new cloud computing

competency standards were released to

the industry for adoption in July 2011.

Enabling Professional Conversion

Under this initiative, IDA will enable IT

professionals who are not familiar with

cloud computing technologies to acquire

essential skills and knowledge through

various platforms such as workshops and

practical, on-the-job training (OJT).

IDA had conducted two workshops for IT

professionals in July 2012 as part of the

programme for Infocomm Professional

Development Forum 2012. These work-

shops were delivered by industry leaders

EMC and Microsoft and provided in-depth

knowledge on a spectrum of cloud com-

puting topics, including data centre

transformation, big data storage process-

ing.

IDA encourages leading companies to

provide on the job training opportunities

for IT fresh graduates and young

professionals to acquire cloud computing

skills through hands-on, practical projects.

This programme is known as Company

Led Training (or CLT) programme. In

2012, IDA partnered with Dimension Data

and IBM to create OJT opportunities in

cloud computing for fresh graduates.


In 2012, IDA launched two Centres of

Attachments (COAs) with leading cloud

computing technology providers EMC and

Microsoft. These COAs will enable

infocomm professionals to acquire in-

depth cloud computing skills with use of

leading-edge EMC and Microsoft products.

In addition, IDA also partnered companies

embarking on cloud computing projects to

provide OJT for professionals with at least

three years of working experiences under

the Infocomm Leadership Development

Programme (or iLEAD). IDA has to-date

partnered with companies such as NCS,

SingTel, GigaSpaces Technologies,

JustLogin, and Inspire-Tech to enable

professionals to acquire skills at an

expert or management level.

Creating and Delivering Training

Capacities

Under this initiative, IDA has collaborated

with training providers to provide short

training courses for IT professionals to

acquire specic cloud computing skills. This

resulted in the courses delivered by

training providers in 2012: Microsoft; EMC;

Singapore Management University School

of Information Systems; Rapidstart;

Platform Computing; and Intalio.

To support professionals in taking up

these courses, IDA expanded its Critical

Infocomm Technology Resource Programme

(CITREP) to cover training in new and

emerging areas such as cloud computing.

The expanded CITREP programme

provides funding support for training

courses and certications with competency

units aligned with cloud computing

competency standards. Details of such

courses can be found at https://www.

nicf.sg.

Fostering Skills in Cloud Computing

IDA also collaborates with IT schools to

launch programmes enabling diploma and

undergraduate students to acquire cloud

computing skills.

In 2011, Microsoft Singapore and Nanyang

Polytechnic (NYP) signed a memorandum

of understanding to deploy c loud

curriculum on a large scale. The Poly-

technic also became the rst cloud-ready

institution in Singapore where students

will be trained beginning in the rst year

of enrolment. The program will train 4,000

students and 100 faculty members over

three years.

Building on this momentum, IDA facilitat-

ed for NYP and Temasek Polytechnic to

design and launch the Specialist Diploma

in Cloud Computing for professionals. Both

Specialist Diplomas will be available for

enrolment from April 2013.

Infocomm Professional Development Forum

(IPDF) 2012

Cloud Computing Workshop at IPDF 2012


Forging R&D Relationships and Building

Knowledge Capital Assets

Technology Evaluation Programme

(TEP)

IDA is partnering with the Agency for

Science, Technology and Research

(A*STAR), Nanyang Technolog ica l

University (NTU), and National University

of Singapore (NUS) on a technology

evaluation programme where companies

can enhance their business competitive

edge and further develop cloud computing

solutions based on technologies made

available by the Institute for High

Performance Computing (IHPC), Institute 2

for Infocomm Research (I R), NTU and

NUS. Companies can tap the intellectual

property and innovations from these

institutions through a short-term no-fee

evaluation license grant under the TEP, to

assess its business value through trial

deployment before exercising the option

for commercial license. In essence, this

scheme mitigates the risks in new

technology adoption, and helps companies

to deploy technologies on the cloud

environment.

Reacheld IT Solution Pte Ltd is one of the

companies which leveraged on TEP to

enhance its existing business and develop

new opportunities. Reacheld requested 2

an evaluation license for I R's Scalable

Multimedia Platform technology, and

applied for cloud resources in Call 4 to

develop a video-on-demand prototype

which enables the input video to be

encoded once and subsequently deliver to

heterogeneous devices in an on-demand

basis. Reacheld successfully engaged

NUS High School of Mathematics and

Science as its rst customer by using the

prototype as a proof-of-concept, to

illustrate the enablement of students in

accessing the online lectures through their

tablet, smart phone or PC, instead of the

deskbound platform previously. Currently

the solution is commercially available as

Net Video Cloud, a cloud-based video

repository and transcoding platform that

is powered by Starhub's Argonar cloud

infrastructure. Reacheld now adds digital

video online delivery to its existing

portfolio of digital assets management.

Quotes from TEP Participants

This programme reduced the nancial

risk and simplied the process in

a d o p t i n g l o c a l I C T t e c h n o l o g y .

Reacheld has successfully sourced

several technologies through this

programme and commercially licensed

one subsequently and able to generate

new business opportunities.

- Mr Winson Wee Hock Soon, VP of

Client Engagement and Projects,

Reacheld IT Solutions Pte Ltd

The Technology Evaluation Programme

allows Magicsoft to tap on NUS techno-

logy at no-cost, for prototyping new

services and explore new business

opportunity. This means a lot to us at

Magicsoft.

- Mr Kenny Tew, Managing Director,

Magicsoft Asia Pte Ltd

The programme reduced the nancial

risk in evaluating new technology and

b r i dged the gap i n t r ans fe r r i ng

technologies to a ready market space.

Through this programme, KAI Square

has successfully identied several

useful technologies needed by the

market. IDA's initiatives, such as this

programme, are very benecial to the

eco-system of our local ICT industry.

- Mr Victor Goh, Chief Technology

Director, KAI Square Pte Ltd

The initiatives had enable STELCOMMS

to leverage on the tertiary institutions

to nd and evaluate leading-edge

technologies that can be incorporated

into our new products and services.

- Mr Sam Chen, General Manager,

STELCOMMS Pte Ltd

Presentation of Technology Evaluation Program

Presentation of NUS technology Presentation by NTU

Technology Evalution Process


2

The partnership between I R and IDA

w i l l fu r ther ampl i fy S ingapore 's

competitiveness globally in the cloud

ecosystem by empowering companies

to develop a myriad of cutting edge and

innovative ICT solutions.

- Mr Steven Loh, Deputy Director,

Industry Development, Institute for

Infocomm Research, A*STAR

IBM Cloud Lab Singapore

This collaboration between IDA and IBM

seeks to promote and accelerate the

adopt ion of c loud computing and

associated business models through

conduct ing appl ied R&D to so lve

challenges and issues identied by users

from Government and industry. IBM Cloud

Lab provides an integrative capability that

creates and prototypes innovative and

useful real world repeatable innovative

solutions required by the industry,

hastening the harnessing of research

results and deployment, and shortening

the timeframe to adoption.

The IBM Cloud Lab in Singapore was

ofcially launched on 4 May 2010. The

Cloud Lab is hosted at IBM Changi

Business Park Building with required

hardware, software and resources. The

rst result of the IBM Cloud Lab is the

High Performance Computing (or HPC)

cloud platform at NTU a rst-of-its-

kind in the world which will offer a

combination of the best of high performance

computing from HPC infrastructure, and the

exibility, self-services, scalability and

virtualisation from cloud computing. This

is currently being developed as a production

pilot for use by NTU researchers. One of the

rst set of users to benet is from NTU's

School of Art, Design and Media which will

use the new HPC cloud platform for

rendering digital animation media to

create rich content for their media and

entertainment projects. After initial use cases

have been validated, this HPC cloud

environment will be opened up to the wider

pool of researchers and students at NTU,

and potentially to commercial users

as well.

Other projects undertaken include SaaS-

enablement of a Building Information

Modelling (BIM) design library for MEP

(mechanical, electrical & plumbing) with

HausLab D&B and Pandora Business Suite

for precision engineering SMEs with PBA

Solutions.

Singapore Centre of Excellence for

Open Cirrus Cloud Computing

On 30 July 2008, IDA joined hands with

three technology giants (HP, Intel and

Yahoo!) to set up a research initiative to

study cloud computing. As a Centre of

Excellence (COE) in this joint initiative,

IDA creates opportunities for research and

development in the area of cloud

computing, enhances local capabilities and

also lets users here have easy access to

this next generation service.

Researchers from HP Labs, Intel, Yahoo

Research and Singapore jointly identied

the research and development focus for

the testbed.

However, the main aim is to build up a

core group of people who have the skill set

to undertake and develop cloud computing

innovations. The objectives for the

Singapore COE are (a) promoting research

and development, and (b) building

competency.

Progress was made in promoting cloud

computing and Internet-scale data

intensive research and applications among

the local research and developer com-

munities. This has heightened interest

among the academic research community

in undertaking cloud R&D, a vast contrast

to earlier sentiments that cloud computing

addressed no new research areas and was

purely an implementation approach that

was the purview of the ICT industry.

IDA's participation in Open Cirrus was

made possible by tapping on the cloud

resources made available by Alatum.

The three-year MOU expired in July

2011, with over 23 projects completed

by universities, research institutes and

industry.


Providing Enabling Infrastructure


Grid Services Provisioning CFC

IDA launched a CFC in November 2007,

with the purpose of seeding the

development of necessary infrastructure

and to provide infocomm resources on a

pay-per-use basis. This is so that more

rms can leverage on cloud services to

develop new, innovative business models

and infocomm services. In November

2008, three providers (Alatum, nGrid and

PTC) started offering commercial cloud

services. Since then, more public CSPs

including Amazon Web Services, Fujitsu,

Savvis, Tata Communications, Microsoft,

and IBM, started to offer cloud services in

Singapore. To date, Singapore is home to

a vibrant community of approximately 25

CSPs.

Data-as-a-Service (DaaS)

Companies increasingly see that having

access to useful data can play a signicant

economic role. The DaaS programme

seeks to catalyse the development of a

nationwide platform by taking advantage

of availability of data. Such a platform

seeks to allow efcient discovery of data

via a federated namespace registry

mechanism, together with data quality

metrics to help interested buyers make

better-informed purchases. This is

DaaS API Working Group

expected to give rise to new uses that

are data intensive in nature, enabling

applications which are previously difcult to

implement. The Government has made

public sector data available to the public

(e.g.,data.gov.sg). Outside the public

sector, datasets are available from data

owners in disparate and non-uniform

manners. The programme, to be launched

in 2013, will complement the Government's

effort by focusing on datasets from the

private and people sectors.

DaaS API Standards Development

The development of DaaS API Standards

aims to streamline the data access by

application developers and end-users, in

order to reduce complexities in multiple

protocols and access mechanism across

multiple DaaS operators. The IT Standards

Committee, in recognition of such needs,

formed a Data Access Working Group

comprising infocomm professionals with

extensive knowledge and experience in

using these technologies to look at

establishing a Technical Reference with

well dened set of guidelines and best

practices in the implementation of

data access APIs.

Building a Trusted Environment through

Policy and Legislation


Data Protection Legislation

The Ministry of Communications and

Information's framework for data protection

is a signicant move in strengthening the

soft enablers to establish a trusted

environment for cloud computing in

Singapore. Until then, the lack of an

overarching law on data protection has

often invited queries from potential cloud

users from Asia Pacic on whether

Singapore-based cloud data centres are

able to provide adequate protection for

them. CSPs will denitely welcome the

removal of ambiguity when servicing cloud

users from within and outside Singapore.

The legislation was passed by the

Singapore Parliament in October 2012 and

became law in 2013.

Development of Cloud Security

Guidelines & Standards

According to all the surveys on cloud

adoption conducted in recent years, cloud

security has been the topmost concern

cited by IT managers when they consider

cloud deployments. To foster a trusted

environment, IDA has worked with

Singapore's IT Standards Committee (ITSC)

to set up a cloud computing standards

coordinating task force in February 2011.

The task force, which comprises repre-

sentatives from IDA, ITSC, Singapore

Computer Society, Singapore Infocomm

Technology Federation, Information

Technology Management Association as well

as industry verticals, work on guidelines for

issues with inputs from the industry.

Best Practices for Virtualization

Security (TR 30)

The objective of this Technical Reference

(TR) is to identify potential security risks in

virtualisation of servers which is widely

used by CSPs to offer cloud services and by

enterprise infocomm personnel when

consolidating servers in their data centres.

It comprises a checklist of security controls,

processes and governance that can be

referenced during design, implementation

and maintenance of virtualised computing

resources. The TR does not cover desktop,

network or storage virtualization.

End users or cloud service buyers can also

refer to the TR when assessing a

CSP's ability to maintain information

condentiality, integrity and availability of

their data. Ten risks grouped into four

categories are identied, namely, Risks

and controls on using virtual machine;

Risks and controls on using hypervisor;

Risks and control due to changes in

operation procedures and Other

considerations. For each risk, the

associated security impact and mitigating

controls are described. For example, in

embarking upon server virtualisation,

infocomm personnel can undertake risk

assessment to consider:

- what applications and systems should

be migrated to the new virtualised

environment;

- how applications and systems with

different risk proles should be

segregated;

- what changes to current development,

deployment and backup processes

including commissioning and decom-

missioning of servers are needed

under the new virtualized environment

to ensure current established controls

IT governance are not breached;

- how computing resources requests

should be handled; and

- who should be given the access to

hypervisors and how access should be

appropriately controlled.

Guidelines for Cloud Security and

Service Level Agreement for End

Users (TR 31)

This TR provides security guidance on the

usage of public cloud services. It covers

the service level guidelines that public

cloud users should consider when seeking

public computing services. Public CSPs

can also use the TR to demonstrate their


security best practices. The document

explains security threats and risks

associated as well as mitigation measures

with the use of SaaS and IaaS offered by

public CSPs.

Multi-Tier Cloud Security

This initiative aims to develop the

Standards and Guidelines for Cloud

Security for certication of CSPs in

order to provide transparency for their

security provisions to the cloud users. As

security needs of different cloud users

vary across industries and sectors, the

Standards and Guidelines cater for such

varying needs. The multi-tier cloud

security model covers a wide range of

security requirements, from users

(including SMEs) with basic requirements

to those that require high condentiality,

integrity and availability such as the

nancia l serv ices industry. These

Standards and Guidelines will highlight the

key security areas and associated controls

to be addressed by CSPs in providing

public cloud services. Mr Robert Chew (far right), Chairman of

Cloud Computing Standards Coordi-

nating Task Force, with members

Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief Executive, IDA giving the keynote address

at CSA CISO Asia Pacic Summit 2012

Cloud Organisations

AkSaaS Incubation Centre

Cloud Security Alliance (APAC)

Cloud Security Alliance,

Singapore Chapter

HP Labs Singapore


ITSC Coordinating Task Force for

Cloud Computing Standards

SCS Enterprise Cloud Computing

and Virtualisation SIG

Singapore Cloud Forum

SiTF Cloud Computing Chapter &

SiTF-NYP Cloud Enablement Centre

29

30

31

33

34

35

36

37

32

29

AkSaaS Incubation

Centre

CLOUD COMPUTING IN SINGAPORE

The Cloud represents a shift in traditional

application development from a client

server approach to a multi-homed, multi-

tenanted paradigm. To ensure that

aspiring independent software vendors

(ISVs) have access to help in offering their

solutions through the Software-as-a-

Service (SaaS) model, SaaS incubation

centres (SICs) are needed to render

business and technical consultancy

services to these ISVs.

In doing so, SICs equip industry and

consumers with on-demand and pay-per-

use access to grid/cloud services to deliver

new and innovative business models as

well as Go-To-Market opportunities on a

case by case basis.

The SICs provide training and hand-

holding in SaaS-enablement. Software

that has been successfully ported is

hosted by cloud service providers.

At each SIC, a staging platform is

available for aspiring SaaS ISVs for:

The AkSaaS Incubation Centre was

appointed by IDA as a SIC in September

2008 and developed the Cloud Enablement

Program. This SIC is operated by AkSaaS

Pte Ltd, which successfully graduated as

an incubatee of Exploit Pte Ltd. By the end

of 2011, more than 50 ISVs have been

SaaS-enabled at this SIC. These SaaS

offerings include:

For more details, please visit http://www.

aksaas.com or contact us at

Tel: +65 6100 6227

Evvo Labs Group of Companies

Testing & initial commercialisa-

tion for new SaaS providers

Integration with SaaS provisioning

portal & billing system

Technology augmentation

Enterprise Resource Planning

Supply Chain

Business Intelligence

Document Management

Property Management

Finance

Workow

Performance Management

Inventory

Marketing

Medical Diagnosis

Maps and Helpdesk

Implementing proof-of-concepts

Demonstration to end users

Channels to deploy SaaS applica-

tions with various Cloud Service

Providers


Khoong Hock Yun (Assistant Chief Executive, IDA)

giving the welcome keynote address at CSA CISO

APAC Summit

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) took

a major step forward in building a global

trusted cloud eco-system with the

selection of Singapore as the site of the

organization's corporate headquarters

(HQ) on 20 July 2012. This is in line with

CSA's global expansion plans to operate

in 3 major regions/time-zones to diversify

out of a US-centric focus to become a

truly worldwide presence in inuencing

cloud security research, bringing trust to

cloud computing and thus accelerating

adoption of the cloud. Singapore beat off

challenges from competitors in the region

to bring the CSA Asia Pacic (APAC) HQ

which also doubles up as the Alliance's

corporate headquarters.

The private-public partnership between

CSA and the Singapore government

represented by IDA and Economic

Development Board of Singapore (EDB)

was rat ied with a publ ic s ign ing

ceremony on 15 August 2012 at the

CLOUDSEC conference witnessed by over

700 attendees, an event organized by

CSA corporate HQ founding sponsor,

Trend Micro. Singapore will be the site to

host CSA's global research centre,

standards secretariat as well as the global

centre of excellence for CCSK training and

education.

The new APAC headquarters is under the

leadership of Aloysius Cheang, Managing

Director of CSA APAC. Cheang also serves

as the Standards Secretariat for the

Alliance overseeing all standardization

efforts within CSA and owning the

relationships with other standards develop-

ing organizations.

Partnership signing (L-R): Aloysius Cheang

(Managing Director, CSA APAC), Gian Yi-Hsen

(Director, Safety & Security Industry Programme

Ofce, EDB), Jim Reavis (Executive Director, CSA),

Andrew Khaw (Sen io r D i rec to r , Indus t ry

Development Group, IDA), Mahendra Negi (COO &

CFO, Trend Micro) & Ken Low (Director Enterprise

Security APAC, Trend Micro & Chair, CSA APAC

Executive Council)

Following the August announcement, CSA

signed a Memorandum of Understanding

with the Hong Kong Applied Science and

Technology Research Institute on 5

September to set up another APAC hub

focusing on CloudCERT operational

activities in an effort to advance cloud

computing security and build capabilities

that will accelerate the development of

the cloud ecosystem in Hong Kong.

CSA also organized the rst CSA CISO

APAC Summit on 1 2 November 2012

with the objective to build awareness of

cloud security among the senior IT

leadership in APAC. As a prelude to

forming sector specic working groups

and a CISO roundtable, the summit

featured Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief

Executive (Infrastructure and Services

Development Group), IDA providing the

welcome keynote to an audience of 120

CIO/CISO, who came from as far as Abu

Dhabi and from neighbouring countries

such as Philippines, Hong Kong and

Malaysia, with many of which having a

regional remit.

31

Singapore Chapter


The CSA Singapore chapter had a

relatively quiet year in 2012. Efforts were

spent supporting Singapore's competitive

bid to host the CSA's APAC headquarters

in Singapore in competition from other

Asian countries.

Nonetheless, the chapter managed to

host the annual CSA Singapore Summit in

conjunction with CloudSEC Singapore

Conference 2012 on 15 August 2012 with

the Singapore chapter contributing an

afternoon track to CloudSEC. The

Singapore chapter elded a stellar cast

comprising both local and international

CSA leaders such as Aloysius Cheang

(Managing Director, CSA APAC), Ken Low

(Chair of CSA Asia Pacic Executive

Council), Philip Sy (Vice-Chair of CSA

Singapore chapter) and Dr. Said Tabet

(Co-Chair, CSA SME Council).

Ken Low (Chair, CSA APAC Executive Council)

Aloysius Cheang (Managing Director, CSA

APAC)

about by the establishment of CSA's

corporate HQ in Singapore, the chapter

had to step up and lead by example.

Hence, before Christmas of 2012, the

leadership of the Singapore chapter

decided to re-elect a new board and

adopt the CSA APAC enab lement

programme, a new initiative that sees

the chapter given greater autonomy to

grow and expand. Under this pro-

gramme, chapters are given focus where

more localized activities that lead CSA to

build feelers into the ground and

accelerate localized adoption of CSA best

practices and guidelines that will lead to

a trusted cloud eco-system in APAC.

To provide guidance to the edging

chapter leadership in APAC, Freddy Tan

(outgoing chapter chair), graciously

accepted a volunteer leadership position to

lend his expertise as the APAC Strategy

Advisor. The new chapter board is headed

by Wong Onn Chee.In response to the challenges brought

HP Labs Singapore


HP Labs Singapore was established in

February 2010 as HP Labs' third research

site in the Asia Pacic region and seventh

worldwide. Representing a signicant

milestone in the company's innovation

strategy, the opening of the facility at

Fusionopolis Singapore expands HP's

overall global footprint and reach in APAC.

It serves as a hub for open innovation in

the region, foster ing col laborat ion

amongst HP's customer and partner

communities to introduce advancements

that tackle complex challenges facing

customers and society. The research

agenda at HP Labs is thus deeply

connected to Singapore and other

economies in APAC, seeking to contribute

relevant and applicable innovations to

specically address local issues while

i n t r oduc i ng cu l t u ra l i n s i gh t s and

technology applications from a global

perspective.

HP Labs Singapore is strategically located

in a regional hub for business and

innovation. With the support of a govern-

ment keen to build up its knowledge

capability, Singapore has emerged as a

living lab with a vibrant research and

development capability, attracting top

engineering talents from around the

world. Singapore is also the regional

headquarters for Fortune 500 companies,

including many of HP's biggest customers.

Leverag ing the advantages of the

location, HP Labs Singapore adopts a

co l laborat ive approach to deve lop

relevant and applicable innovations that

address today's complex challenges. In

exploratory research, the team benets

f rom the ava i lab i l i ty o f numerous

research and academic institutions to

push the frontiers of computer science

and engineering. It is also well-placed to

co l laborate wi th HP customer and

partners for applied research to innovate

further and transform research projects

into viable commercial solutions.

HP Labs Singapore carries out exploratory

and applied research in the areas of cloud

computing. Its research pushes the

frontiers of computer science and

engineering by creating game-changing

disruptive innovations in areas intersecting

mob i l i ty, soc ia l med ia and c loud

computing.

Monsoon, one of the projects developed

by HP Labs Singapore, is to provide

the capability to manage various cloud

resources across multiple providers em-

powered by a multi-tenanted infrastruc-

ture management portal with featured tools

to meet the requirements of enterprise

operations. Monsoon debuted in Singapore

Government Cloud (G-Cloud) following the

award of a tender by IDA to HP and Singtel

in 2012. When completed, G-Cloud will be

one of the rst government-wide cloud

systems in the world, used by government

agencies in Singapore. HP Lab Singapore,

which undertook research work on

Monsoon, will translate the innovation into

a multi-tenanted user-facing system that

takes orders from the user and provides a

complete interface for agencies to

provision, manage and monitor their cloud

resources and services.

Having garnered several key achievements

in terms of research and technology

transfer impact, the team continues to

build on its initial success and collaborative

partnerships to develop more outstanding

innovations that address today's complex

challenges.


hpl.hp.com/singapore/ or contact us at

+65-6419 1236/1384 in Singapore.

33



The IBM Cloud Lab in Singapore was

established as a collaborative effort

between IDA and IBM to help businesses,

government, and research institutions/

institutes of higher learning design, adopt

and reap benets of cloud technologies; for

newer, faster, more efcient ways to

compete and grow. The lab aims to nurture

a vibrant cloud computing ecosystem and

position Singapore as a center for cloud

computing services in the region and

beyond.

As part of IBM's investment of billions of

US dollars globally and housing concept

proofs, cloud development projects and

custom pilots, the lab focuses on creating

innovative prototypes and useful real-

world repeatable solutions required by the

industry, thereby hastening the adoption of

cloud technology and quicker harnessing of

research results.

An extension of IBM's globally-integrated

cloud delivery network that includes cloud

computing data centers in Singapore,

Germany, Canada and the United States;

and 13 cloud labs, of which 7 are based in

APAC, the lab provides access to key cloud

technologies, deep process knowledge,

and a broad portfolio of cloud solutions

that IBM is unique in bringing together. It

also makes available state-of-the-art IBM

hardware and software infrastructure to

familiarise clients and early adopters with

cloud technologies and, in partnership with

the lab, create technology demonstrations

and build proofs of concepts/technologies.

Through br iengs and technology

development partnerships, the lab also

supports cloud adopters who are looking

to deploy cloud technologies for new

workloads and business scenarios. In the

early stages of their cloud adoption

roadmap, the lab can play the role of a

subject matter expert, and provide the

required guidance in taking their cloud

mission forward. The lab also partners

with external research institutes on

conducting translational research in key

cloud computing areas with a view to

bridge gaps between existing technologies

and new requirements from the industry.

Areas of focus

Promote the adoption of cloud in

Singapore with focus on secured cloud

computing as the enabler of Business

Agility, Big Data analytics, Social Network

and Systems of Engagement for the next

gen Data Centers.

For more details, please visit http://

www.ibm.com.sg or contact Quek Khor

Ping at [email protected]

ITSC Cloud Computing Standards

Coordinating Task Force


The IT Standards Committee (ITSC) Cloud

Computing Standards Coordinating Task

Force was setup in February 2011 to

address the industry demands for cloud

computing standard and to lead as well as

coordinate the cloud computing standard-

isation efforts across the Technical Com-

mittees in ITSC.

The Task Force comprises industry

partners, ITSC members, tertiary institutes

and cloud user organisations. The Task

Force works closely with the industry to

develop relevant Singapore or international

standards for cloud computing to facilitate

Singapore companies' adoption of cloud

computing services. In April 2012, the

Task Force coordinated and developed two

technical references (TR) on virtualisation

security for servers and security and

service level guidelines for usage of public

cloud computing services.

The Task Force continues to look into the

needs of the local industry for cloud

computing and is overseeing the develop-

ment of the following in 2013:

a) TR for Data as a Service (DaaS) API

Design and Implementation

b) Singapore Standard for Multi-Tiered

Cloud Security

The TR for DaaS API Design and

Implementation denes a set of best

practices in the design and implementation

of APIs to enable DaaS operators to

effectively share, monetise, commoditise

data as on-demand services.

The Singapore Standard for Multi-Tiered

Cloud Security aims at providing visibility

and clarity of security requirements so

that the public cloud service providers

(CSPs) can be certied against. As

security needs of different cloud users are

different, especially across different

industries and sectors, the standard must

be able to cater for such varying needs.

The standard will highlight the key

security areas and associated controls to

be addressed arising from the new cloud

computing environment.


itsc.org.sg or contact Kong Pei Wee at

[email protected]

35

SCS Enterprise Cloud Computing

and Virtualisation SIG


Established in 1967 with membership

of over 26,000

The largest IT professional body in

Singapore

Provides a wide range of events such

as seminars & conferences, publica-

tions and access to an invaluable

network of specialists

Administers the National IT Skills

Certication Programme that offers

individuals the avenue to gain

recognition and career development

Alastair Welsh and

Daniel Mar (SIG exco

members) at Cloud

Computing Seminar

by SCS and InfoPier

Dr. Hing-Yan Lee (SIG deputy chair) and Martin

Yates (SIG chair) at SCS SIG Cloud Information

Sharing event

The many Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

are a vital part of the SCS organization

focusing on critical industry and techno-

logy topics. Within SIG's like-minded

individuals are drawn together by a

common interest in technology or skills

development activity where sharing

experiences and ideas is common practice.

Cloud computing services and virtualisa-

tion technologies underpin the un-

precedented changes in business IT

delivery, social networks and in the

workplace environment. Business organisa-

tions are increasingly turning to

advanced virtual isat ion and cloud

computing as they realize the value to

create more exible IT services with

greater cost efciencies.

The SIG invite specialists from ICT

industries and end users to join us, share

knowledge and build their personal

professional network. Our SIG group

supports important ICT agencies to

promote Singapore's development within

cloud computing such as the WDA-IDA

NICF program and ITSC Cloud Computing

Standards Coordinating Task Force. In

addition members also support Singapore

economic interests in professional

development and education forums.

The Executive Committee comprises:

For more details, please visit http:

//www.scs.org.sg/SIG.php or contact

Camilla Khaw at [email protected].

sg

Martin Yates (Chairman)

Dr. Hing-Yan Lee (Deputy Chairman)

Alastair Welsh (Cloud Evangelist)

Daniel Mar (Group Secretary &

Technology Specialist)

About Singapore Computer Society

(SCS)

Singapore Cloud Forum


The Singapore Grid Forum was ofcially

launched on 8 June 2007 at the GridAsia

2007 event. SGF was formed to promote

the growth and development of grid

computing in Singapore and to foster

closer ties with other Grid associations

around the world.

We renamed Singapore Grid Forum to

Singapore Cloud Forum (SCF) in 2011 to

reect the new cloud economy and to

ensure we continue to stay relevant to

the Singapore IT industry.

The SCF objectives are:

To address the immediate concerns of

the cloud computing industry, we will

select major themes each year to focus

on, and thereby provide our members

and the Singapore IT industry with

relevant and timely information for

decisions to be made.

For the work year 2013, the theme will

be Big Data Analytics in the Cloud.

SCF will engage the community of cloud

computing including enterprise users,

vendors, the scientic and research

community as well as regulators. This

is reected in the leadership team which

hopes to represent as many interests

and diverse talents.

The Executive Committee comprises:

Laurence Liew as President (Re-

volution Analytics)

John Berns as Vice President (NCS

and Bigdata.SG)

Ahbishek Parolkar as Hon. Secret-

ary (Bigdata.SG)

Julian Lee as Hon. Treasurer (Re-

volut ion Analyt ics and R User

Group Singapore)

Ahbishek Sinha as Council Member

(Amazon AWS)

Dr. Terence Hung as Council Mem-

ber (Institute of High Performance

Computing, A*STAR)

Lau Shih Hor as Council Member

(Elixir Technologies)

To promote the growth and develop-

ment of cloud computing and its

related subjects through partnerships

with the industry, the scientic

and research community, and pro-

fessionals;

To organize training workshops for

users, ISVs and start-ups on how to

leverage on cloud computing to lower

their operating costs; and

To foster close links with other

bodies with similar aims.

1.

2.

3.

Professionals and members of the

industry interested in jo in ing or

sponsoring the activities of SCF may

contact any of the above Exco members

or visit www.cloud.org.sg

37

Singapore Infocomm

Technology Federation (SiTF)


SiTF comprises corporate members

ranging from local start-ups to established

MNCs. It works with various stakeholders

in the ICT industry to promote emerging

technologies and ICT-related issues. There

are ve chapters: Digital Media & Wireless,

Cloud Computing, GreenIT, Singapore

Enterprise and Security & Governance.

SiTF Cloud Computing Chapter

The Cloud Computing Chapter aims to

address the key issues in moving Cloud

Computing to the next level of adoption by

the industry and businesses; and serve as

the voice of industry for this dynamic area.

The chapter achieves this through the

SiTF-NYP Cloud Enablement Centre and its

regular awareness and networking events.

These initiatives bring together like-

minded enterprises, solution providers and

government agencies to share their

experiences in cloud computing imple-

mentation; and serves as a business

development platform for SiTF members.

The chapter also organises events such as

Vertical's Day and Cloud Practitioner's Day

to educate the industry.

SiTF-NYP Cloud Enablement Centre

The S i TF -NYP C l oud Enab l ement

Centre was established with the aim to

foster adoption of Cloud Computing in the

enterprise, especially among Small and

Medium-sized Enterprises for improved

productivity, increased revenue and value-

add to the business. It achieves this by

showcasing Cloud Computing solutions and

organising regular topical workshops in

the foll

Documents

Cloud Computing in Singapore 2013 Edition