You do not necessarily have to stick with academia after you complete PHD. For instace you can have your own office and provide consultancy. The hardest part is getting admission. In my experience, first you have to decide on topic or the other way to find is find some university website and look under faculties. Find out what kind of research they are doing if you are interest in any, sent them email you are interested. If you have published any paper in MS that will significantly help you. I believe you are interested in Software Engg and Distributed Computting, find out in any university if faculties are doing research on particular topic. It would be good idea to write research proposal as well on topic. Normally PHD is free and you get some assistantship as well. Any way good luck