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TheFine- tunersIT managers learn the art of fine-tuning the datacentre

components to align with business expansion Pg 16

LALIT SHARMAHEAD-IT, ERNST & YOUNG

BALIGA B SAGM-IT&S, BHEL

RAJIV AGARWALHEAD-IT, HAL

62 06 31BOSS TALK:IT needs fool-proof business case

FEATURE:From the Next100 Winners’ Bosses

BIG QTransforming DC for Profit Pg 67

INTERVIEW: Raritan’s Frank Huang on Data Centre Consolidation

Editorial

1a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

The current edition of IT Next’s cover feature, ‘The Fine-Tuners,’ speaks about the change required in the data centre to make it more healthy and efficient. Most of the IT heads and IT managers that my team interacted with take cognisance of the fact that periodic fine-tuning of the data centre is imperative to extract the maximum value out of its ingredients.

The initiative or thought behind overhauling the data centre stems from the fact that the data centre is critical and is the bread and butter for all the industry players. Be it the vendor, customer or service provider -- each of them has to thrive on the success of data centre usage and its support to business growth. In the past, the data centre was treated more as hardware and the IT team’s role was associated with doing the mundane job of data centre maintenance in just keeping the lights on. Of late, however, there is a change in perception and it is indeed positive. It is just not the IT team but the business groups that also realise the dependency of the business and the company’s growth on the data centre’s performance. There has been sufficient push and investments planned around upgrading, fine-tuning and re-architecting the entire data centre and its components to bring in state-of-the-art technologies which could help business users. The CFOs are conscious of the RoI that a healthy data centre can bring in -- which is a positive change that you can reckon with.

“Most of the IT heads take cognisance of the fact that periodic fine-tuning of the datacentre is imperative toextract the value”

Change is Always Refreshing

Blogs To Watch!Views and Opinions on Green IT

http://www.greendatacenternews.org/

Scaling cloud service delivery with flatter data center architecture

http://searchcloudprovider.techtarget.com/news/1523446/Scaling-cloud-service-delivery-with-flatter-data-center-architecture

Facebook Future-Proofs Data Center With Revamped Network

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/06/facebook-nc-data-center/

Data Center Dynamics

http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/

Data Centre Journal

http://www.datacenterjournal.com/author/rdogra/page/3/

g e e t h a N a N d i k o t k u r

i am sure all of you agree that change is always welcome, and positive change is always stimulating. this applies to everyone and everything.You would be surprised why i am speaking about change. The current reference is to information technology which is influencing everyone’s lifestyle and bringing about a change in the basic culture. Then, why not change the heart of IT, which is the data centre -- and which is governing the entire IT play?

2 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

Contentaugust 2012 V o l u m e 0 3 | I s s u e 0 7

16Page

For the l atest technology uPDates go to itnext.in

Cover Story20 Business demands DC re-design |

IT managers compelled to fine-tune the data centres

24 Ingredients of a model data centre | Building smart plans to re-desing data centre for future

27 Data centre outsourcing seeing traction | Demystifying the DC outsourcing trend

21 Best DC management practices | Best practices that IT managers should adopt in designing, managing and maintaining the data centres

23 Best network management practices| Tips on how to manage the networks efficiently

06 It needs a strong business case | Shyam Pattabiraman, Principal Consulting, PWC, on the importance of IT for business

boSS talk

62 Commisioning smart DC tools | Frank Huang, DC Professional Technologist, Raritan recommends DC consolidation

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Fine- tunersIT managers learn the art of fine-tuning the data centre

ingredients to align with business expansion

3a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

opInIon08 Innovation gap in Health-care | Deepam Mishra, CEO I2 India talks about the importance of driving technology innovation in the Healthcare industry

tHe bIg Q67 transform to profit| Experts says that the IT man-agers should go for a periodic changes in the data centre to align with the business needs

Cube CHat72 loved It & got Married | Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager-IT, EIH Ltd., is facinated by IT and made a career of it

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Teamingto WinSome of the India’s top corporate IT teams along with the technology experts come out with appropriate technology solutions to business problems

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INBoX


I have been reading every issue of IT Next. The topics related to technology trends, views from industry experts under sections such as BigQ, topics on leadership and articles showcasing practical wisdom from IT are a great read.

Some stories I recall which have made a great impact and would help readers enormously are on project management, security trends and best practices, effective technology strategies built to absorb new technologies and so on.

Some areas that would add value to IT managers are around how to communicate better, how to deliver business benefits using technology, common technology implementation pitfalls, change management and so on. IT Next as a whole is very valuable to IT managers, and helps them in various ways to move up the career ladder.

BLV Rao,VP-It, Infotech Ltd.

(Note: Letters have been edited minimally, for brevity and clarity)

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BIG QCalculated cloud risks Pg 65

STRATEGY: Next100 Winners’Next Goal

I have been a regular reader of IT Next. I would like IT Next to write articles which can make senior management more responsible towards IT. I would be happy to read more industry-specific case studies, providing insights into post implementation benefits or any other fallouts. Stories which can give tips or recommendations around deploying branded ERP, BI and other such software applications will make a good read.

Topics around approach to taking up right certifications, processes and procedures to find placements in large firms and abroad for IT managers etc., are indeed hot topics. I would be glad to read interviews with the jury members of Next100 about their expectations from IT managers, their behavioural patterns, key areas IT managers need to focus on which can help them in moving up the value chain and so on. MaNIsh sINha, hEad-It, oN dot couRIERs & caRgo

I read It Next regularly and I am impressed with the format and package of the overall issue. I like the topics chosen for cover stories as they are very relevant to the current trend; and the features around personalities and personal profiles towards the end are very interest-ing, laying prime focus on the IT managers’ community.

I am also thrilled to read stories on information security and like the vast array of topics covered in the magazine, from compliance to Data Loss Prevention and other key security trends. These are the hot topics in the industry now. Going forward, I would like to read more topics pertaining to information security related case studies and success

stories. Content around insights into personality development and people management would be useful, too.

I think IT Next online should be completely revamped. Some observations I want to put forth: the search feature on the site is broken; there are several dead links which may not let a smooth navigation flow; the sponsored content by Naukri on the right panel doesn’t look very impressive, and can be removed if possible or re-located; the articles need to be appropriately categorised and put in a section to allow a quick search. I would be interested in contributing articles on most relevant topics for IT Next, based on your readers’ focus.

dhaNaNjay c RokdEhead-Information security, cox & kings

MORE ON WEB

Opportunity for InnovationAjay Bakshi - Global Head (Process Automation & Improvement), Hinduja Global Solutions, talks about how the tough economic environment offers his company opportunities to innovate, the changes being brought about by social media in the BPO business and other future trends in this exclusive interview. Excerpts:

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5A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 | ITNEXT

A D V E R T O R I A L

Q How is your business affected by the tough economic environment?A Actually, in our line of business, the toughness in the economic environment increases the opportunity for us to do more innovation. About 80 percent of the applica-tions that we use are client-driven and that has become

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

an opportunity for clients to move their applications into the cloud. We are also trying to move the 80-odd appli-cations that we created internally into a private cloud. Due to the nature of our business we can’t go in for the public cloud.

Q Is social media bringing about a change in the BPO business?A Social media is coming up in a big way. Many of our clients are already talking of how using social media can help resolve their queries. Traditionally, it has been email, chat and phone and now social media inputs are also coming into the whole envi-ronment. We also are gearing up in terms of employ-ment training and software automation and we are work with vendors to make suitable tools.

Q How much innovation do you need to do to serve your clients?A The opportunities for innovation are huge and more than just IT innovation, I would call it business process innovation…We often go back to our clients saying that we will do the end-to-end transactions. [For instance] If we do a tweaking to the system, a bit here and a bit there and the steps can be reduced, then the quality can be improved. Many of our customers are very happy with the way innovations are happening.

Q Which technologies are you looking to adopt in the next few months?A In terms of IT, some consolidation of IT is certainly going to happen within our organisation. Virtualization may also take place because we have so many inter-nal applications and they are scattered all over. Private cloud initiative will move into the big thing over the next 6 to 9 months. Private cloud would be a seri-ous initiative as we go forward which will be our major focus area. We would also try out new architectures which could help us in streamlining the data centre and help us in increaing the operational efficiency and business agility.

To watch the full interview video and interactions with other IT decision makers, visit http://bit.ly/MYMTpe

FUTURE OF ITwww.itnext.in/futureofit


“Just making certain investment and installing IT platforms is no indication of leapfrogging organisational performance”

Traditionally, IT managers have used basic financial management concepts for preparing the benefits and developing a business case for IT investment. However, these con-

cepts are not foolproof. The reason being there are no clear metrics worked out on RoI or payback revolving around the said investment or even the real value-add provided. The benefit factor of any technology is overlooked and it would be any-body’s guess what benefits it would entail.

Working out a Solid CaseIt is crucial to understand ways to provide a holistic view of the benefits that technologies bring for the benefit of the management and business groups. The business should understand that just making certain investment and installing IT platforms is no indication of leapfrogging organisational performance. IT should be perceived as an enabler to drive business performance, and the testimony to business growth is to see how best it has leveraged technological advancements. The expected value to the business (from the IT investment) should then be tied into these business initiatives for quantifying, monitoring and managing the benefits.

Perception ChangeRobust frameworks for capturing expected value to business from large scale IT investments are typically driven by shareholder value and focus, be it around return on capital employed or risk oriented. By identifying the key levers or value drivers of the chosen framework and mapping the degree of enablement by the proposed IT investment to one or more specific levers, IT managers can:

Identify respective business stakeholders who are responsible for those levers

IT needs fool-proof case

BuSIneSS ManageMenT

Define key metrics influenced and owners Baseline/ benchmark current performance

level Help business stakeholders create project

charters/action plans for possible change initiatives that will leverage the proposed IT solution

Set targets and milestones Appropriately integrate projects into corporate

planning & budgeting and central project portfolio

Track and monitor business performance/ benefits

Of course, there are a few underlying capabilities for the CTO’s office to build and execute such a comprehensive benefits management framework. These include close collaboration with business stakeholders and CFO’s office, advanced financial knowledge, in-depth business understanding and cross-functional change management skills. In summary, a holistic approach to IT and its benefits to management should be tracked through well defined programmes.

the author is a Principal Consultant, Business Consulting Practice,PWC. Co-contributor: aditi Rairikar, senior Consultant, BCP, PwC

“all I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”

suggestion BoX

title: the ten Command-ments for Business failure author: donald r Keough PuBlisher: Penguin grouP PriCe: us$9.98

Boss talk | shyam PattaBiraman

OpiniOn


OpiniOn

The Indian IT industry has been making concerted efforts to drive innova-tions across verticals. The pricing of innovative solu-

tions and services has been structured to suit Indian needs based on interna-tional standards. However, some IP driven product innovations have turned out to be an expensive proposition, despite technology vendors pushing them hard in the Indian market.

Health care is one sector experiencing shortcomings in the field of absorbing state-of-the-art technologies. Health care players find that the most vital reason for this is the exorbitant cost involved in conducting research--because technological support proves costly.

Where are the challenges?Historical data says that a wide range of equipment, technology and IT tools utilised in hospitals around the country were conceived for western-style health care systems. The spiralling costs of technology however were supported by the third party insurance provider and higher affordability by patients. The Indian situation is quite the opposite. Two vital challenges are access to quality providers and high out-of-pocket costs, which keep western-style solutions out of reach for a majority of the population. Lack of insurance coverage also pushes patients towards less-advanced-but-lower-cost treatment. While these are significant issues, they also present exciting innovation opportunities for innovators. Fundamentally, different ground conditions in India offer a huge

Some good examples in this direction are Shankar Netralaya’s eyecare services, Narayana Hriudayalaya’s low-cost cardiac surgeries, Thyrocare’s diagnostics service etc. What’s missing is highlighting how technology has complemented business innovations and breakthroughs. We need more innovations, such as the hearing aid revolution in Africa, where inventors profitably reduced the cost of hearing aids by making a novel one-size-fits-all design (advanced systems require fine tuning for individual users); and by freely licensing the product designs to franchisees at small profits. Similar examples must be emulated in India to use technology to make health care more popular. What is required is a multi-disciplinary and entrepreneurial approach towards addressing these challenges from the ground-up. Most breakthrough technical innovations take place only after a strong business context has been defined. Innovation must be a market-led activity, where we first need to evolve unique business and service models to address unique Indian conditions. Most successful Indian companies know that it is a lot easier to make a Re 1 margin over 500 million customers than a Rs 1,000 margin over 10 million.

Get over Innovation BottlenecksIt is critical for IT managers in health care to find ways to overcome innovation bottlenecks. IT investment planning is very crucial and can help business growth. Any IT deployment or implementation should enable medical professionals to treat a larger audience and expedite the treatment process. Any innovation would be successful if it absorbed a larger user base and made it more affordable. This calls for significant structural changes related to funding pattern.

Xxxxthe author is a journalist turned open source evangelist who works on policy issues like open standards and collaborative innovation

“Two vital challenges are access to quality providers and high out-of-pocket costs, which keep western-style solutions out of reach for a majority of the population”

Innovation gap in Health Care

opportunity for innovation for mass impact in health care.

An example would clarify this: let’s take the case of breast cancer screening. In India, less than 1 per cent of the target women population is screened, leading to over 80 per cent of cancers being detected in advanced stages.

Be more InnovativeWhile several successful business innovations already exist in India, the tragedy is that many of these have not been popularised to set as examples.

money wiseDeepam mishra, Ceo i2inDia anD TeChnovaTe inDia

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tECH tRENDs | The Zinnov study, titled “Public Cloud Opportunity in India”, estimates the overall Indian cloud market (both public and pri-vate) has grown steadily to reach US$860–912 million in 2011. Of the total pie, the study highlighted that the public cloud market comprises of 20-22 per cent of the share, and private cloud, 78-80 per cent.

The public cloud market has rapidly evolved in the last 2 years in India with significant traction across SaaS, PaaS & IaaS, added the study. With the current market of US$160-192 million in 2011, public

Indian Public Cloud Market is at $192 mn

cloud in India is at a very nascent state and may not have hit the inflection point yet, indicating significant future potential.

The SaaS market in India is largely dominated by email, collaboration tools, CRM/ERP. It has grown at a CAGR of 46 per cent from $56-67 million in 2009 to $123 – 143 million by 2011.

The PaaS and IaaS markets in India on the other hand are rapidly growing, though from a small base, highlighted the study.

The PaaS market, at $1.5-2.5 million in 2011, has grown at a CAGR of 75 per cent from $0.5-1.5 million in 2009. IaaS stands at $38-47 million as in 2011.

This segment has seen a promising growth of CAGR 84 per cent from a market share of $11-14 million in 2009.

Praveen Bhadada, Director-Market Expansion, Zinnov Management Consulting, said, “Public cloud market is expected to grow at 55 per cent CAGR in the near future and will become a default choice for new IT investments, especially in the SMB segment.

We will not be surprised if cloud takes up more than 20 per cent of the total Indian IT spend in the next couple of years.”

Besides, the huge global and domestic opportunity that exists in the cloud space, has excited several Indian start-ups and infact 20 per cent of the total public cloud market in India is currently being addressed by the Indian companies.

The recent study also highlighted that a multitude of trends are emerging in the Indian public cloud market.

As per a Zinnov study,

the public cloud market

makes up for 20-22 per

cent of the total cloud

market

Updatei n d u s t r y

source: chetan sharma consultIng

Messaging and commerce are the top two categories for the developing world while commerce and location based services invade the developed.

Messaging solution tops the list What will be the most popular consumer mobile applications in 2012?

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1 1a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

sOny’s sMartwatch Curiously similar to

the Kickstarter project

Peble. sony’s smart-

watch, among the most

affordable of luxuries,

promises to tell you the time, message alerts

and provides twitter and Facebook control.

sharp Lc-90Le745u sharp has recently

launched a 90-inch

behemoth LED tV. It has

smarttV system for surf-

ing the net and streaming

movies, built-in-skype and

above all, it’s 3D enabled.

tECH tIDINgs | Some good news for the technology sector. Research and advisory firm Gartner Inc has revised the information technology (IT) spending outlook up to three per cent for 2012 from 2.5 per cent projected last quarter.

Worldwide, IT spending is on pace to reach $3.6 trillion in 2012, a three per cent increase from the 2011 spending of $3.5 trillion, Gartner said in its latest outlook.

Within the total IT spending, worldwide IT services spending is forecast to reach $864 billion in 2012, a 2.3 per cent increase from 2011. The demand for consulting services is expected to remain high due to the complexity of

Gartner Raises Global 2012 IT Spend Forecast

least stabilised. There has been little change in either business confidence or consumer sentiment in the past quarter, so the short-term outlook is for continued caution in IT spending,” said Richard Gordon, research vice-president at Gartner.

There are some bright spots for IT providers. In contrast to the rather lacklustre growth outlook for overall IT spending, Gartner expects enterprise spending on public cloud services to grow from $91 billion world-wide in 2011 to $109 billion in 2012. By 2016, enterprise public cloud services spending will reach $207 billion.

Telecom services growth is expected to come not only from net connections, especially in emerging markets, but also in mature markets from the uptake of multiple connected devices.

IT spending outlook up to 3.5 per cent for 2012 from 2.5 per cent

According to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report from research firm IDC, vendors will ship a total of nearly 1.8 bn mobile phones this year, compared to 1.7 bn units shipped in 2011. That’s a mere 4 per cent growth year on year, and the lowest annual growth rate for the mobile handset sector in three years. IDC credits the expected slowdown to a projected 10 per cent decline in feature phone shipments in 2012. The smartphone will offset the feature-phone slump.

around the World

Global Mobile Market Slows with decline in shipments

steve BaLLMer, ceo, microsoft Inc

“Microsoft’s next-generation operating system--Windows 8 OS will be available in August for computer, tablet or smartphone makers to build into hardware”

environments for global business and technology leaders. Gartner analysts said consulting itself is becoming increasingly technology-based with the rise of analytics and big data. “While the challenges facing global economic growth persist — the Euro zone crisis, weaker US recovery, a slowdown in China—the outlook has at

quIck byte

nOkia 808 pureview Nokia has rolled out the

eagerly anticipated 808

Pureview, sporting the

world’s highest resolu-

tion camera at a rating of

41MP. then, there’s NFC, 1080p video, and

CD quality audio recording.

source: agencies

update

1 2 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 1 2 Ba u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

tECH tRENDs| Xchanging, the busi-ness process and technology services provider has announced the open-ing of a global delivery centre in a new SEZ (special economic zone) in Shimoga, Karnataka. One of the first multinational companies in the indus-try to establish business in a tier-3 location of India, Xchanging is making further commitments to its existing ITO and BPO service capabilities there with the new 1000-seater campus.

Xchanging was a part of the business delegation of the British Prime Minister David Cameron MP’s visit to India in 2010. During the tour, Xchanging signed an agreement with Karnataka State

Xchanging’s New Global Delivery Centre in Shimoga

Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS), a government of Karnataka enterprise, to lease and jointly develop the centre on six acres of land in the then-developing SEZ in Shimoga. The centre was inaugurated in the presence of British Deputy High Commissioner of Karnataka - Ian Felton, Vice Chancellor of Kuvempu University, Professor Syed Bari, Professors of various colleges, industrialists, and senior leadership of Xchanging including Ken Lever, CEO, and Nimish Soni, Executive Director Offshore, APAC. The British Deputy High Commissioner, Ian Felton, said, “The UK’s ambition is to be India’s partner of choice.”

Data centre transformation is one

of the three key trends driving It

growth in 2012, according to analyst

firm Canalys (the others being con-

sumerisation of It and enterprise

mobility). Its latest forecasts reveal

that the market for data centre It

infrastructure globally, including

servers, storage, networking, se-

curity and virtualisation, will reach

$128 billion this year, up 6 per cent

from $120 billion last year. the total

investment will grow 5 per cent on

an average per annum to reach $152

billion in 2016. Large data centers

will lead this expansion, posting an

average annual increase of 8 per

cent over the same period.

“On the consumer side, everything

from social networking platforms

to online banking services will

require resilient infrastructure on

which to run,” said alex smith,

senior analyst at Canalys. “this

is particularly evident in the asia

Pacific region, where businesses

in China and India are investing

heavily in infrastructure to provide

online services to their custom-

ers. the size of the populations

in these markets presents a huge

potential demand for data centre

infrastructure.”

tech tIdIngs

dc transfor-mation, a key trend in 2012A 1000-seater

BPO & ITO campus comes up in Shimoga

Google’s personalised homepage will no longer be available starting from November 2013. The official explanation is that “with modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time”. iGoogle started as a custom Google homepage that allowed you to add gadgets for weather, news, mail and more.

NeWS @

blOG

iGooGle will be DiscontinueD Modern Apps running on chroMe & Android has led to google’s decision

source: http://googlesystem.blogspot.in/

update

1 3a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

NExt CONNECt | IBM has announced that Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), a joint venture between the Aditya Birla Group has deployed IBM’s Cognos TM1 solution to radically transform the entire planning cycle, from forecasting and analysis processes to budgeting and profitability model-

ing. Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI) required a solution that would help it streamline its spreadsheet based plan-ning and budgeting process for data coming for more than 600 branches and multiple products. Birla Sun Life Insurance was looking at implementing a solution that would be managed by the internal team to do better planning and forecasting. IBM Cognos TM1 helped the company to integrate operational

and financial planning on demand, which can rapidly deter-mine resource requirements and forecast future business performance. With this, BSLI can make informed decisions and take action swiftly. Mayank Bathwal, CFO & Head - Institutional Sales said, “With IBM’s Cognos TM1, we are able plan better, monitor performance at a granular level.”

tECH tRENDs | Alten Group, the European technology consult-ing and engineering (TCE), has announced plans to strengthen its presence in India, through a ramp up in terms of headcount increase and strategic acquisitions in India.

The group will position its Indian design centres as a major hub for servicing customers in India and the APAC region, apart from helping global customers achieve greater R&D efficiency by leveraging engineering talent available in India. As a company focused on ER&D, Alten brings with it high-end engineering expertise in Aerospace, Automotive, Rail, Energy, Telecom and Healthcare, in areas like design of aero structures, avionics systems, low emission vehicles, HEVs, rolling stock, etc. Moving forward, Alten aims to make strategic acquisitions in India in areas such as wire-less communications, VLSI design, and big data analytics. Alten Group plans to increase its Indian headcount up from the current 800 plus engineers to 2,500 engineers by 2016.

These engineers will be engaged to service customers in high growth markets in India and overseas.

Birla Sun Life gets in Cognos

Alten India’s Headcount to reach 2500 by 2016

$3.22Billion

iS iNdiA’S reveNue ShAre fOr eNterpriSe

SOftWAre MArket, tO

GrOW At 13 %source: gartner

www.bryair.com

Backed byService

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0HV

CA

5

dossier

Sanjeet S Sandhu

VP-dC Centre of

Competence, APJ,

schneider electric

says it’s time to

evaluate data

centre operation

programs. He

offers an insight

into how iT

managers need to

clearly articulate

their data centre

operational

requirements

and design a

programme taking

cognisance of

various risk factors

by constant fine-tuning, a well defined IT process and consciously avoiding

big mistakes

IT managers can ensure

zero downtime in data centre

operations

1 4 ITnexT | a u g u s T 2 0 1 2

ASK THE EXPERTTop 10 misTakes in daTa cenTer operaTions

What are the big mistakes IT managers make while managing data centres? Too often, companies put immense amounts of capital and expertise into the design of their facilities. However, when construction is complete, data center critical facility operations are an afterthought and this puts the organisation at risk with its business continuity require-ments. now more than ever, companies must realise the importance of a sustainable operations program to meet the availability and uptime required for its busi-ness continuity. operational sustainability is a term used for data centre operations which is part of the data centre Life cycle and is key for business continuity and the total cost of ownership. To achieve operational sustainability, organisations must act quickly to assess their current programs and begin building an opera-tional methodology that avoids common mistakes. The majority of the common mistakes are addressed below.a) not including the operations team in the facility design often results with additional modification and repairs due to equipment sizing inaccuracy, stranded

capacity or even worse when the iT load has exhaust-ed the space.b) relying too much on data centre design; a serious error of believing that a high-level of redundancy justi-fies the lack of expenditure on a proper operations and maintenance programme. c) Failing to correctly address the staffing require-ment which results in a shortage of coverage in case of an emergency. d) Failure to train and develop in-house talent and not providing a positive working environment, which results in increasing employee attrition. e) Failing to consistently drill and test the skills of the employees which could result in unpreparedness to manage an emergency situation. f) Failing to overlay the operations programme with well-documented processes and procedures which pro-vide value by measuring an expected result. g) Failure to implement appropriate processes and procedures to assess systematic changes for better change management.

50 %of the electrical consumption in a DC is consumed by the cooling system (racks, critical plant rooms & cooling elements

SUPPORT SYSTEMSQUALITY SYSTEMS

DOCUMENTATION

PROCESSES & PROCEDURES

TRAINING

PERSONNEL

1 5a u g u s T 2 0 1 2 | ITnexT

ask THe expertC U S T O M P U B L I S H I N G

h) Failure to develop and implement quality systems to increase data centre efficiency, failure to use soft-ware management tools and assuming that one can build a best-in-breed programme as quickly as one can build a data centre.

What are the corrective measures that can be taken to ensure an efficiently-run data centre? The first step towards efficiently managing a data centre is to evaluate the data centre operations programs. They must be able to clearly articulate operational require-ments and design an operation’s programme based on the risk profile of the data centre. companies ill equipped to quickly design a program of this magnitude should seek the assistance of mission-critical subject matter experts. any other alternatives would invite unnecessary delay, risk and increase in expense. By implementing a best in breed program, the iT manag-ers can protect the capital investment and ensure stronger returns year on year. For instance, including the operations team in the design phase will help build the data centre with the end result in mind which is the key essence of a Tco as most often we do require an operations team for repair and maintenance. critical environments have special features and requirements that are not adequately addressed by traditional facility maintenance programme. These include: # performance: operational continuity is a core busi-

ness requirement. # availability: 100 per cent uptime without any plant

shutdowns. # system complexity: redundant systems, failover auto-

mation and emergency recovery procedures. # accountability: process documentation, change con-

trol and auditable records.The key to meeting these requirements is to lay the

operational foundation with the right methodology.implementing appropriate processes and proce-

dures are critical for better change management. For instance, the entire work that takes place within the data centre should be documented in writing, detailing standard operating procedures (sop) method of pro-cedures (mop) and emergency operating procedures (eop). These will cover the daily routine, step by step procedure when working around critical equipment that directly or indirectly impacts the critical load and failure mode scenarios and the procedures will help in restor-

“To achieve operational sustainability, organisations must act quickly to assess their current programs and begin building an operational methodology”

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

ing the system back to its normal mode. above diagram depicts the right operational methodology.

Could you share any more recommendations on how to effectively manage a data centre? The first advice is to have an effective data centre infrastructure management (dcim) system in place. in addition to managing the iT assets, the power and cool-ing systems should be tracked and trended. The power Usage effectiveness (pUe) metric can be measured to understand the efficiency of the dc and used as a benchmark when programs are undertaken to improve energy usage. Having the critical Facility operations program (operations and maintenance) up and running effectively would provide the data centre with the uptime required with its corresponding efficiency entitlement. some of the other aspects would be baffles and blanking panels, airflow management with respect to hot/cold aisle and hot/cold aisle separation, optimise perforated tiles, Vsd on cracs, increase set points on cracs and chiller plant, cabinet level controls, and selecting the right cooling technology for the density of the data centre. For example, closed coupled cooling for higher densities, bringing the cooling closer to the load, will offer significant efficiency gains, as 40 to 50 per cent of the electrical consumption in a data centre is consumed by the cooling system (rack space, critical plantrooms and cooling infrastructure). as per asHrae Tc 9.9 rec-ommendations, the operating temperatures in the dc can be increased with corresponding increase in the chilled water supply temperature. Though some thought has to be given to airflow management and the strategy for humidity control, this offers about 6 to 8 per cent improvement in electrical consumption of the cooling infrastructure. Broader possibilities with free cooling in varying climates should be taken advantage of.

B S Baliga AGM-IT&S, BHEL

From leFt

l aliT SHaRMa HEAD-IT, ERNST & YOUNG.

RaJiV agaRWal HEAD-IT, HAL

1 6 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

IT managers learn the art of fine-tuning the data centre ingredients to align with

business expansionBy manu sharma

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SRIvATSA SHANDILYA

IMAGING BY SHIGIL N | DESIGN BY PRASANTH TR

DATA cENTRE OvERHAULING | cover story

1 7a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | iTnexT

Any chAnge in the data centre, whether in the form of re-architecting its framework or bringing in strategic changes, to unleash the promise and potential of technological innovations, is going to be a herculean task. iT managers across enterprises have embarked on this journey to fine-tune the data centre to absorb future technological innovations which could help drive business, agility and growth.

The reason for this, most iT managers say, is the rapid expansion of the business besides rising expectations from various groups in the company regarding the increased performance of the data centre, and thus addressing these needs. All iT managers are of the opinion that the data centre is not just expected to ensure availability or keep the lights on, but drive more business flexibility and reduce capital investments and ensure higher utilisation.

The high level of dependency on the data centre suggests that changes are inevitable and this calls for regular fine-tuning.

iT next embarked on a study to gain an insight into how iT managers have been going about this fine-tuning process, and the challenges they face, along with the various options available.

areas of ConcernBalancing the act perfectly is a constant challenge iT managers have to face. This revolves around ensuring the quality of the user experience against the economics of building and operat-ing the data centre.

The iT heads are also in a constant dilemma with regard to the approach needed for bringing in the change; they are enveloped by several ambiguities. Most iT heads point that the vendors are ready to swarm in with their new and evolved integrated architecture for the data centres that can help the customer work out an efficient framework.

The iT managers are also confronted by the varied options that exist around the cloud and the

Acover story | DATA cENTRE OvERHAULING

1 8 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

data centre outsourcing models. They are pushed to increase operational efficiency and drive business growth, while the data centre resources remain underutilised and its cost of maintenance escalate.

A common aspect all iT heads must deal with is driving changes in the architecture. Sridhar Reddy, cMD of ctrlS Datacenters Ltd. says, “Data centres are a critical part of any organisation and it is essential that every 3 to 5 years a data centre is re-architected in terms of space, power, UPS, transformers, cooling etc., to offer better performance.”

The challenge that Manuhaar Agrawalla, Systems Manager-corporate iT, eih Ltd., faces is controlling the server volumes and re-architects of the company’s captive data centre, where the option of outsourcing looks bleak.

Agrawalla says that the need to implement technologies like grid computing and virtualisation has compelled the team to look at re-architecting the data centre set-up.

So Which Way is the Wind Blowing?Forbes Marshall Ltd. revamped its server applications recently. “Our company has made a significant invest-ment by adding new hardware layers that would take at least 3 to 5 years for payback,” states Sharat Airani, chief iT (System & Security), Forbes Marshall Ltd.

LaLit Sharma, Head-IT, ernsT &Young IndIa LTd.

“As a global financial conservative company, client data is very critical. So we have started our re-architecting with the virtualisation of our global data centres, which will be done in India by 2012”

10%Another global company, ernst & young india

Ltd., which has four data centres the world over, including one in Bengaluru, plans to consolidate the data centre and look at the hybrid data centre model option, going forward. “As a global financial conservative company, client data is very critical. So we have started our re-architecting with the virtualisation of our global data centres, which will be done in india by 2012. The consolidation of data is going on as well,” says Lalit Sharma, head iT, ernst &young india Ltd.

Berjes Shroff, Senior iT Manager, Tata Services Ltd says, “Long-standing companies like ours with traditional in-house enterprise data centres are under attack. We have our data centre located in our head office in the heart of South Mumbai. There are too many restrictions of height, Ac cooling, power,

flooring and ceiling, etc., for a data centre. Since we could not cope with the challenges, we decided to shift and host our servers with a third-party.”

As an ideal solution, iT heads have expressed their eagerness over the modular data centre system that is a portable method of deploying data centre capacity. Best practices on the cost front, industry experts say, when comparing the in-house data centre infrastructure with outsourcing, is that the customer should calculate all the costs of an internal facility and then compare these to the annual costs of external hosting.

growth in the IT infrastructure market by 2012, touching $2.05 billion in size —Gartner


1 9a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | iTnexT

Most industry experts unanimously agree that manag-ing data centres has become a more challenging task, given the fact that the businesses are getting more demanding and dependent. The reasons for this are attributed to the rapid expansion in the business, with the top management having set ambitious growth tar-gets, both around organic and inorganic growth.

The data centre operations are expected to do more with less. A series of technological innovations causing commercial disruptions and businesses becoming more capital-intensive have triggered the need to re-architect or re-design the data centre framework to absorb future technological innovations and as well as business growth.

Jayabalan Velayudhan, Director-Strategy and Business Development, iT Business india, APc

B. S. BaLiga, addITIonaL gM-IT&s, BHeL

“While working on a transformation strategy, I would recommend that IT managers opt for modular U PS solutions which have the capability to

scale up and absorb future requirements.”

ExpansionBusiness

Demands a

Ambitious business targets have compelled IT managers to fine-tune the data centre for enhanced performance

Mby Schneider electric, rightly points out, “A series of major technological innovations—coupled with significant external legislative, economic and market disruptions will increasingly dictate that iT managers rethink the way they plan, design and operate data centres.

iT managers at large do comply with the need to go in for a data centre overhaul considering the expectations from various groups around the data centre’s performance and its kickbacks. Of course, the changes that could be brought within the framework would spread across a rapid increase in demand for data centre capacity and services, implementing virtualisation technology, a dynamic provisioning of applications, data storage, etc., and evolving a strategy around adopting the cloud

cover story | DATA cENTRE OvERHAULING

2 0 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

computing model, and probably opt for modular and pre-configured data centres, those offered by the big technology vendors and perhaps a tighter integration of iT facilities within the data centre.

going by the standard notion that companies need a disruption in the way data centres are architected, the modern data centre has undergone a series of changes to impact business operations. The advent of Service-oriented Architectures (SoA) called for an increase in the number of servers, and then the introduction of virtualisation to reduce the server density have forever changed traffic patterns within the data centre.

The data centre fine-tuning trend has been endorsed by various research groups who are of the opinion that in order to optimise the data centre’s performance, the traditional structure needs to be

abandoned and the pattern of traffic flow needs to change. Research groups such as the iDc confirm that virtualisation as a technology forms a core component

Virtualisation and cloud are two popular It trends recommended

as a best practice to lower costs and make computing more secure

and efficient.

a research firm has found that companies are expecting their in-

house data centre capacity to decrease going forward, despite most

organisations moving their client server-based applications into the

cloud.

IDC thinks that the key reasons for expecting capacity to shrink

are It consolidation and the combined response of utility/cloud

computing or server virtualisation (with the need for less servers)

While there are various guidelines available from different entities

(IsO, IEEE, tIa, asHRaE, green grid, etc), it is very important to

have clear and well defined standard Operating Procedures (sOPs)

with respect to the particular organisation.

Matrix like PuE (Power usage Effectiveness) can be used to understand

the actual usage of It power vs actual power usage and thereby exploring

various methods to increase the efficiency of a data centre.

Data centres are rallying points of the green ICt movement

– central to establishing best practice for the nation’s carbon

management.

A Dig into BEStData Centre Management

PrActicES

of the new design element for iT managers.

The iDc survey indicated that more than half of all virtual machines are being used in production environments, and 22 per cent of installed servers currently are running virtualisation software. in addition, 45 per cent of planned server deployments are being eyed for virtualisation projects.

Re-architecting guidelinesTo re-architect a data centre, one needs to follow certain guidelines. Just as building a data centre cannot be done in a day or two, so does re-architecting, which is


2 1a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | iTnexT

an equally cumbersome process and most likely to take approximately three months or even more to be properly structured. This means you may need to consult a data centre expert to formulate a stan-dards-based design structure for your data centre according to your requirements.

Sridhar Reddy, cMD, ctrlS Datacenters Ltd., says, “it is critical to review a business case for consolidating and rationalising the existing iT infrastructure framework before making a decision to outsource to a third party and alongside compare the cost proposition with the outsourcing party’s proposal.”

citing an example, Reddy adds, “Recently two companies in the BFSi sector had outsourced the complete data centre transformation task to us to chalk out a 10-year roadmap. The entire planning and framework to bring in the best technologies in place lowered the customer’s cost of ownership by 30 per cent with a well-devised 10-year technology roadmap.”

As part of their re-architecting initiative, ernst & young felt the need to consolidate the data centre to reduce costs and enhance its performance. Virtualisation was the first step that Lalit Sharma, head-iT, ernst & young india initiated to carry out server consolidation to reduce server footprints globally from 1,000 servers to 300. “As a finance

“ It is critical to review a

business case for consolidating

and rationalising the existing IT infrastructure

framework before making a decision to

outsource”Sridhar reddy, CMd, CTrLs daTaCenTers LTd.

ComponentscovEr DAtA cEntrE

CenTraLIsed MonITorIng

PHYsICaL seCurITY

Power

redundanCY

CooLIng

IT

Building Management System

Network Management System

Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Equipments

Chilled Water

Computer Room Air Conditioning

Airflow

Humidification

Filtering

Building Fields & Conduits

Electrical Distribution

Power Monitoring & Metering

Uninterrupted Power Supply

Battery Monitoring

Power Distribution Unit

Generators

Fuel Tank

Site AccessBiometricsRooms and Cage AccessClosed Circuit TV (CCTV)Video ManagementRack AccessFire and Life Safety

Servers

* Blade Servers

* Rack Layout

Tier 1 to Tier 4

company, there was a need to regularly fine-tune the data centre deliverables to the business and finance. We had to segregate the data under varied categories and various applications were consolidated,” says Sharma.


2 2 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

Power & Cooling Hurdles-Reason for OverhaulPower and cooling are the critical components of any data centre and if these are not managed well, it could result in a severe bottleneck.

According to Baliga, the power and cooling systems require a sufficiently well-thought-out and a well-planned strategy taking into account the future needs.

he says that it would not be wrong to have a generous estimate in terms of power solutions as the need is going to grow as the business expands. “While working on a transformation strategy, i would recommend that iT managers opt for modular UPS solutions which have the capability to scale up and absorb future requirements.”

Today, even modular data centre systems are available and that is a portable method of

deploying data centre capacity. As an alternative to the

traditional data centre, the modular data

centre can be placed wherever

data capacity is needed.

Have a simplified architecture--the data centre fabric solution offers

a “3-2-1” data centre network architecture that reduces complexity

and improves performance, scale and data centre efficiencies, while

lowering operational and capital costs

shared networks and policies--Network virtualisation technologies

based on open standards and simplified policies dynamically partition

and leverage the network to achieve cloud-like data centre efficiency

and agility

Provide data security--Data centre solutions provides dynamic

security services, including application and user-aware policies,

helping enterprises efficiently to secure data flows

automate and avoid complexities--the data centre solutions should pro-

vides an open, extensible network automated software that helps eliminate

data centre complexities, streamline data centre operations, and improve

management controls for a better cloud-ready data centre solutionSource : Juniper

BEStNetwork Management

PrActicES in DAtA cEntrES

Real estate Constraints Drive the need established business houses such as the Tatas have old archival data related to the good old days of its founder, Jn Tata. They are outsourcing their sensi-tive data to a third-party data centre shortly, primar-ily due to a lack of space. An increased information flow and the overload of data was getting to be unmanageable for Berjes Shroff, Senior iT Manager, Tata Services Ltd. The company consciously decided to outsource the management of the data centre to a third party as part of its strategy. “We were very sceptical about using a third-party data centre, but after serious debate, we decided to host our data cen-tre with ctrlS for more convenience,” says Shroff.

But the reason why B. S. Baliga, ADM-iT&S, Bharat heavy electricals Ltd., thought of re-doing the data centre or outsourcing the data centre management was because of his team’s limited skilled resources with no expertise on data centre management.


2 3a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | iTnexT

Nnowadays, a company’s expectations regarding enhanced performance from data centres are soar-ing high. iT managers face immense pressure to completely overhaul data centres and bring in the best ingredients and best strategies which can help boost performance and meet business expectations.

As industry trends go, data centres can be typically classified into two categories:# enterprise (also called captive data centres) owned by a corporate for their internal use, and;

Ingredients

centre

of ModelData

IT managers are building smart plans to re-design data centres that absorb future business needs and technological innovations

rahuL mahajan, aVP-IT, K raHeja CorP.

“ IT managers should confidently opt for virtualisation of physical servers and select appropriate storage solutions based on blade environment”


“I feel an even mix of UNIX and Windows is right, but it depends entirely on the applications, if it supports both the operating systems, then it will be stable. But personally, I prefer Windows to open source”manuhaar agrawaLLa, sYsTeMs Manager (CorPoraTe IT), eIH LIMITed.

# commercial data centres operated by service provid-ers who build data centres on a large scale and offer data centre hosting services and managed services.

Against this backdrop, the design considerations for an enterprise data centre, which iT managers are re-building is usually based on the current and future business and iT needs. in addition, iT managers are also consciously working out ways to take corrective measures while setting up an ideal data centre.

Several ongoing debates between iT teams and business groups, focus around the issue of outsourcing the entire data centre re-design to third-party vendors or to even outsource it completely as a cloud-based or hybrid model. in most cases, it is found that the iT heads do not intend to be involved in the day-to-day operations and are simply keeping the lights on.

Specific ingredientsevery component such as server, application, stor-age, power systems, networking layer, physical and transactional layers form vital components of the data centre. A. S. Pillai, Senior Vice President-iT Services, Sify Technologies Ltd., observes, “The data centre design has to be based on the capacity of the iT power requirement and any change has to be made taking stock of the iT equipment used including the number of rack, the storage devices deployed, the quality of data, the net-working bandwidth along with the security framework.”

experts indicate that the operation and management of the data centre is the most challenging aspect, once the data centre is built. The ideal design would also depend upon the date centre’s location and what kind of operational expenditure it would involve.

The key parameters to be considered above all are the availability of the data centre, its scalability and finally its efficiency. efficiency is often the most-talked about issue as the operating expenditure of the data centre is found to be exponentially high month-on-month. The core issue Pillai points towards is evaluating and deciding upon the best possible data centre design to meet the availability in terms of uptime of the data centre, keeping efficiency in mind.

One of the key elements observed while re-architecting the data centre as Rahul Mahajan, AVP-iT, K Raheja corp points out is to create a public and private cloud after conducting a comprehensive study of existing applications.

Some of the guidelines while considering a public cloud would be to take into account applications with a low security requirement and applications accessed by external users like suppliers and


2 5a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | iTnexT

customers. Less and semi-critical applications with a minimal business impact can be put on the public cloud domain.

According to Mahajan, iT managers should confidently opt for virtualisation of physical servers and select appropriate storage solutions based on blade environment, considering the future growth and create heterogeneous environments with redundancy built in.

Another recommendation he offers is to remove the hVAc and place rack-based cooling solutions, work out the number of physical servers and calculate the appropriate rack capacity for the servers.

creating regional hubs of data centres, hosting various applications is also a good move. For instance, if there are 300 users of application A at location X and 50 users of the same application at location y, host this application in a data centre at location X. This will help optimise the network bandwidth.

DC Components to be watchedcost-control through energy management is the key. About 60 per cent of a data centre’s cost is incurred due to power consumption. Rising energy costs, combined with the increasing size, sophis-tication, and energy density of data centres, pres-ent new challenges for managers under pressure to continually improve performance and reduce operational expenses. “The way out is to ensure that companies have their own power backup system that includes generators and UPS, and to ensure that they are effectively used for maximum energy management,” says Jayabalan Velayudhan, Director, Strategy and Business Development, iT Business india, APc by Schneider electric. An ideal data centre location is one that offers many of the same qualities that a data centre itself provides a company—protection from hazards, easy accessi-bility, features that accommodate future growth and change, among other benefits.

“For a large enterprise, it means more risks and more power consumption. An ideally appropriate Tier configuration—architecture (Uptime institute) and the right git product, system and solution are the key,” adds Velayudhan.

Most iT heads have been looking at open source in a big way which could also drive the cost advantage. B S Baliga, AgM-iT&S, Bharat heavy electricals Ltd., says, “Unix, the open source software, as an Operating System (OS) is less prone to viruses than Windows. But if you can address the virus issue with appropriate tools, it is ideal to consider Windows that is cheaper.”

According to Manuhaar Agrawalla, Systems Manager (corporate iT), eih Limited an ideal data centre is blade server virtualisation for optimum usage of resources. “i feel an even mix of UniX and Windows is right, but it depends entirely on the applications, if it supports both the operating systems, then it will be stable. But personally, i prefer Windows to open source.”

From the vendor’s standpoint, Ashish Dhawan, country Director, enterprise, Juniper networks india says, “Technologies specially designed to flatten the data centre network by creating a single networking layer that is high in performance, provides greater scalability need to be looked at.”

iT managers have been thinking of redoing their application architecture layers, and the trend is mostly seen in the BFSi sector. The applications are moving from a client Server mode to an SOA where there more east-West traffic, as opposed to north-South traffic. This basically translates into the fact that organisations would need to have a more robust and scalable Dc ethernet infrastructure.

60%37%

of a data centre cost is due to power consumption —Industry Experts

of physical data centre is using cloud —Gogrid


2 6 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

OutsourcingData centre

tractionSeeing IT managers demystify

the trend of data centre outsourcing, while being aware of its shortcomings

I“Customers easily comply by the terms to pay a flat fee to the data centre service provider, oblivious of changing cost related to software, hardware, labour, administration and total maintenance, which is an advantage”rajiv agarwaL, Head-IT, HaL

initially, the iT budgets of most organisations were limited as iT was considered a mere support func-tion. The recent economic downturn has not helped and has put a further strain on the iT budgets of most companies.

Setting up an On-Premise computing environment or upgrading existing systems requires substantial investments. it is not an exaggeration to state that setting up one’s own data centre turns out to be expensive in terms of money, time and deployment of human resources, besides carrying the hassle of maintaining and managing the assets.

Most iT heads argue that outsourcing the management of the data centre to a third party or even complete outsourcing as a hosting model saves a lot of time, money, besides offering the iT teams


32 per cent to Rs 5,500 crore by 2017 with verticals such as banking and financial services, media and entertainment service, manufacturing, international telecom providers and retail accounting for 70 per cent of this growth.

The trend we observe is that most iT heads, who are struck by the data centre re-architecting bug, prefer a physical infrastructure outsourcing model. This, according to them, helps in significant cost savings as well as offers the flexibility to leverage the service providers’ expertise in achieving scalability.

Why the hype of data centre Tiers? Tier 1 to 4 data centre is nothing but a standardised methodology used to define uptime of data centre. This is useful for measuring: Data centre perfor-mance; investment and ROi (return on investment).

Tier 4 data centres are considered as most robust and less prone to failures. They are designed to host mission critical servers and computer systems, with fully redundant subsystems (cooling, power, network links, storage etc) and compartmentalised security zones controlled by biometric access controls methods.

“The need to cut costs, to lower the risks associated with investing in data centre

technologies and equipment, the growing need to focus on core business, lack and retention of skilled manpower for the in-house management of data centre operations, and real estate costs have remained the major drivers for the adoption of third-party DC services”JayaBalan Velayudhan, DIREcTOR-STRATEGY AND BUSINESS DEvELOPMENT, IT BUSINESS INDIA, APc BY ScHNEIDER ELEcTRIc

Drivers to outSourcing

“We decided to migrate some of our non-critical servers to the third party data centres run by iTi and Trimax going by

the advantages it offered” raJiV agarwal, HEAD-IT, HAL.

“One can experience operational expenses going down by 40 to 50 per cent with the outsourcing

model, besides other costs related to upgradation could be avoided”Baliga Bs, AGM-IT&S, BHEL

32%CAGR for third-party outsourced data centre market which is to reach Rs 5,500 crores by 2017—

McKinsey & Company

a lot of flexibility to focus on core competencies or business strategies.

McKinsey & company estimates that the third-party outsourced data centre market in india is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of


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Risk Factors in outSourcing

“Cost has been the major hindrance since vendors give a generic view, but not the inherent details” lalit sharma, HEAD-IT, ERNST & YOUNG.

“Most customers want a part-ner who is a flexible, innovative, having efficient processes and procedures, while being cost effective ensuring better RoI” harsha e, HEAD-IT cONSULTANT, HKM

“The transactional pro-cesses and procedures in the data outsourcing model is a challenge” sandeep singh walia, AGM-IT, HT MEDIA LTD.

“Third-party data centres are still expensive globally in terms of storage service and cloud providers charge Rs 20,000 for 500GB of space in a hosted environment which is huge”lalit sharma, HEAD-IT, ERNST & YOUNG.

Outsourced data centre costing models help customers

allocate their budget as per their usage which offers the

flexibility to monitor their consumption pattern.

Varied services ranging from co-location, dedicated

server services, robust messaging and collaboration, RIM,

BCP and DR, Cloud Computing pay-per-use model are key

offerings in an outsourcing model

Robust infrastructure, including high bandwidth access

links, branded hardware, air-conditioning units, among

others.

Primary backup solutions for all critical resilience com-

ponents (power, fire suppressions, etc.,) plus secondary

backup in case of a primary backup failure

High uptime is guaranteed as tier 4 data centre service

providers offer 99.99% uptime, which is less than 35 min-

utes downtime in a year or less.

“Our data centre team has been involved in setting up

IT infrastructure from the very beginning. We strongly believe that customers wants Tier IV data centre and not the Tier III that are currently available” sridhar reddy, cMD, cTRLS DATAcENTERS LTD.

ESSEntiAl Attributescover story | DATA cENTRE OvERHAULING

3 0 iTnexT | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

From the Bosses’ Mouth—About Next100 WinnersThe bosses of the Next100 winners are delighted with their teams’ increased confidence levels and are now confidently entrusting them with higher tasks

These bosses are a happy lot! They are the CIOs of the winning teams of Next100 winners who are delighted with their teams’ increased levels of confidence. They say these team members are completely

different personalities, and are now super enthusiastic about taking up challenges at the workplace.

The CIOs attribute this evolution to the Next100’s rigorous and intensive evaluation process. Most bosses said that the process was an excellent way to judge which candidate had all the capabilities to don the mantle of a CIO.

Some of them stated that the awards were instituted at the right time, when the management of their companies were mulling over the decision of entrusting higher responsibilities to the IT teams. These bosses are not only seeing a more confident and matured co-worker in their Next100 award winner, but also witnessing the growth of an individual who is now working towards driving better business efficiency and contributing to the overall business growth.

What is interesting to note is that each of the Next 100 winners’ bosses that IT Next interacted with candidly attributed this success to the awards’ process and its effort to unlock the potential of each of the IT teams, which hitherto had been overlooked.

Vilas Pujari & Prajwal Kumar

A M Amit Madan & Manish Sinha

Vijay Sethi & Ram Yadav

G S Ravi Kumar & U Arun Kumar Sheth

LEADERSHIP | NEXT 100

3 1A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 | itNext

On the Next100 Award ProcessThe process is very well-designed and covers large areas of skills required to be assessed for deserving

candidates for the award. The jury selection (of CIOs), from various parts of the country, spread across different industry verticals, is a good initiative. Besides, the methodology followed with regard to scrutiny of applications and jury discussions with the prospective awardees, reflects the fair evaluation criteria in the process. As a whole, the process has been well-conceived and positioned appropriately and all the awardees stand to benefit profesionally.

I will ensure more team members are ready in the future to face the Next100 award evaluation process.

How the Next100 Award has changed the WinnerPrajwal Kumar, DGM-IT from ACG Worldwide was the winner of the Next100 award in 2011, and the entire process, right from filling the application, has stimulated his thought-process and enabled him to think and raise several questions. The jury interaction in particular, inspired him, which in turn helped him in taking his role more seriously and also look at it from a wider perspective. I have seen him taking a systematic approach when it comes to handling issues and addressing them in a professional manner. His team management skills have improved and he interacts with the internal and business teams with far more ease. There are several positive changes observed in Prajwal which are definitely going to help him as an individual and benefit the organisation too.

At ACG, IT is closely involved in business strategies on a regular

basis. We hold meetings with the directors and business heads during which Prajwal puts across his ideas, laying an emphasis on using technology as a business enabler

while also reiterating the fact that technology can be part of business strategy.

While Prajwal has been handling IT infrastructure for some time now, he has been striding ahead

on the maturity curve and taking up higher responsibilities.

Suggestions for Changes in the Process

I do not see a need for a change in the process. It is a well-established

process and is working well. May be, IT Next could look at creating

more categories. The role of IT is extending beyond computers and

systems and involved in telephony, communication convergence.

VilAs PujAriCIO, ACG WORLDWIDE

“i have seen him taking a systematic and professional approach to handling issues”

Prajwal KumarDGM-IT, ACG Worldwide

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On Next100 Awards ProcessThe Next100 Awards is an

excellent way to motivate the unsung heroes of an organisation, i.e., the IT department. The unique approach has reiterated the fact that without their support, organisations cannot succeed. The process indirectly showcased the importance of IT for business, as the two primary elements which make businesses work are human beings and machines. The process reinforced the importance of evolving a technological vision for the company to help business growth. According to me, Next 100 has created this platform for our IT managers and it serves as a link between the CEO and CIO.

The IT head of my company has nominated two managers to participate in the Next100 award this year.

How the Next100 Award has changed the WinnerManish Sinha, Head-IT, On Dot Couriers & Cargo, Next100, 2010 winner, gained a better understanding of business goals and its need to align with the IT process. This is the key to success in every business.

Often, we see a conflict between IT and business over technological investments. Sinha is now able to understand the business point of view and has a clear understanding about the budgeting and flow of CAPEX and OPEX models, and is far more confident about choosing the right technology.

Sinha is now willing to contribute to the business strategy framework by shouldering various responsibilities in the organisation. He is entrusted with the task of handling the nationwide billing department and carry-out process re-engineering. This helped him get involved in the finance recovery cycle and payment collection in order to reduce manpower, and use technology as a monitoring and vigilance tool. The initiative to make Sinha responsible for nationwide billing gave a boost to

A M AMit MAdAN | CMD, ON DOT COuRIERS & CARGO LTD

“the initiative to make him responsible for billing gave a boost to our business”

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our business as we cut down our recovery cycle from 90 days to 32 days, since March 2012.

The most noticeable and positive change I see in Sinha is that he now works closely with the operation floor of our

organisation, and very often, confidently offers his inputs to the members of the development team for better

system creation.

Suggestions for Changes in the ProcessThe Next100 award should include a case

study option as that offers a clear view of the participant’s capabilities in providing

a solution to the business within limited resources, and making sure that

business goals are met without much stress around the spend. A platform

that can allow previous winners to interact with other seniors in the

industry is essential as it can help boost their confidence.

Winner’s Boss

3 3A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 | itNext

LEADERSHIP | NEXT 100

On Next100 Awards ProcessIn my view, IT Next’s Next 100 Award is a

fantastic tool to motivate and groom an individual IT manager. It helps both the individual and the organisation. I found the selection process very fair, transparent and rather innovative. The introduction of the jury interview this year was a nice addition; this increases their confidence levels. In addition, self -evaluations and the feedback system help individuals identify potential strengths and areas of improvement.

A couple of my team members will be applying for this year’s award.

How the Next100 Award has changed the WinnerAs a recipient of the Next100 award, Ram Yadav started approaching things differently; like how a future CIO should consider projects, teams, users, among other things. I see an increased level of confidence and a more positive attitude in his day-to-day working. In view of his performance, the company promoted him to the post of General Manager last month. Yadav is now involved in strategic planning for IT and Operations.

After his promotion, Yadav has the additional responsibility of conceptualisation and the execution of new systems development for the two new plants we recently announced. He has also been given an additional role related to IT at the current plants.

I think the Next 100 Award came at the right time for Yadav—

he got good feedback from the self-evaluations and his confidence levels improved just as we were considering him for larger role. I now see him progressing from being

a ‘doer’ to a ‘manager’; he has also improved his focus on delegation and coaching/mentoring his team members.

Suggestions for Changes in the ProcessI feel the eligibility criteria for the ITNext 100

awards should be stricter, if one has to build a good image for the awards.

There could be some additional grooming/coaching/mentoring even after receiving

the Next 100 award. CIOs could for instance, hold webinars or host sessions

with Next 100 winners to share their experiences or it could be general

Q&A sessions/interactive sessions or panel discussions.

VijAy sethi | VP&CIO, HERO MOTOCORP LTD

“in view of his performance, the company promoted ram yadav to the post of General Manager last month”

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(Next100 winner, 2011)

Winner’s Boss

3 4 itNext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

On Next 100 Awards ProcessAt the first instance, I

would like to congratulate IT Next on this great initiative. Next100 is a good platform to identify the right candidates for the next level in the IT function in companies. The processes involving online tests and interviews with the jury to shortlist the final candidates are very good.

We do not have a suitable candidate to nominate for the Next100 award this year.

How the Next100 Award has changed the WinnerThe major difference I see in Arun Kumar Sheth, Head-Software Development and recipient of the Next100, 2011 award, is his increased level of confidence. While he is not involved in business and strategy meetings at this juncture, he has been given the additional responsibility of handling all the IT requirements of a subsidiary company, which was not the case earlier.

Suggestions for Changes in the ProcessWhile the process is very good, I would like to make a suggestion…to ensure more stringent control while selecting the candidates, such as, those who have the right experience in terms of years. Besides, exercising deeper scrutiny around the role they are playing currently, examining the company size, IT set-up and spend,

G s rAVi KuMAr | CIO, GATI LIMITED

“the major difference i see in Arun Kumar sheth is his increased level of confidence”

etc., would be an added advantage.It is critical to look at candidates with all-

round knowledge (and not necessarily expertise in certain areas) in different areas such as

software, hardware, network and security, among others.

It would be ideal if IT Next could explore the case study methodology

to test candidates in various areas of understanding, handling

situations, presentations to the management, etc., in addition to the current online tests and other

parameters. It will help judge the candidate more effectively.

u Arun Kumar shethHead-Software Development, Gati Ltd

(Next100 winner, 2010)

Winner’s Boss

3 6 itNext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

NEXT 100 | LEADERSHIP

THE PROBLEM | Big Data

Big data techniques help in unlocking value from the enterprise information

Build social connectors to derive right data

Build social connectors to derive right data

3 8 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2

TPL EvEnT | Tech Problem & SoluTionC U S T O M P U B L I S H I N G

A llied bank has a pan-india network of branches, ATms and associates. With a total of 1,342 branches and 4,537 ATms, the bank compares well with the leaders in the indus-try. To support its core merchant and trading community, the bank also has a branch

presence in 15 overseas locations. The bank runs a mix of systems, both legacy and modern, on a variety of systems and platforms supplied by multiple vendors. The bank’s group cio held a meeting of senior iT managers to review the entire infrastructure of the bank. This group concluded that. Dramatically improve the analytics and ‘big data’ capabilities of the bank to add value to the business.

What would be the one specific Big Data project that can be taken up in the organization and what could be the challenges? What key implementation steps for the project should be undertaken, stating certain assumptions? What kind of benefits will the organisation reap through this big data project?

Yagnesh ParikhSenior VP - IT, ICICI Securities Ltd

Mangalam GaneshVP - IT, ICICI Securities Ltd

Sangeet Kumar Sinha VP - IT, ICICI Securities Ltd

CaPTain’S ViEw POinT TEaM SPEaKS

A gainst the given backdrop and assumptions that the bank is keen on driving business growth and expansion,

i think the project around enabling the bank to cross-sell its products would help in meeting the said expectations. it is true to a certain extent that use of analytics would definitely help in this cross-selling initiative.

This would obviously relate to big data. most enter-prises, including banks, depend hugely on the intel-ligence they derive from data which is then translated to business growth.

like any other large enterprise, data is generated through millions of customer interactions daily. in this case, it is most relevant to cross-selling where the iT teams are responsible to extract strategic business value through data that is derived and use appropriate solutions to struc-ture it for business benefit.

it would then depend upon how the groups leverage the structured data to their business advantage. look-ing at big data as an extension of existing information architecture would also help the bank in the process of structuring the data.

A s the big data phenomenon gains momentum and the

bank initiates a project on cross-selling, it would be critical to build social site connectors to extract the right kind of data.

While it is important to derive better business value out of the data extracted, i would think it crucial to capitalise the huge existing data including the pay-ment gateway information to cross-sell the products. it would be ideal to use analytics as a business operations tool to dig out real-time data from the niche customer segments and used on a daily basis by product teams and customer services teams to enhance their offerings around the project.

There are varied analytical tools available in the market, which is going beyond the traditional business intelligence (bi) tools. big data techniques complement business intelligence tools to unlock value from the enterprise information.

More than the benefit, the iT team is keen on bringing

in certain innovations in the big data project related to cross-selling, which would drive better business benefits. For instance, just-in-time analytics for cross-selling, leveraging the customer data generated through the social site platform to cross-sell and up-sell. The platform will enable the teams to tap new custom-ers and understand their buying patterns. Streamlining the work flow using analytical tools would ease the payment procedures with the help payment gateway solutions. The use of analytical tools to analyse this big data is enabling iT systems to optimize themselves using m2m and cus-tomer interaction data. These tools are enabling the teams to provide an internal feedback mechanism while analyzing data patterns, creating the ability to self-optimise and providing the business agility which can result in enhanced growth.

Big Data: An opportunity to stay ahead

TECH ExPERTAkbar Ladak | Senior Consultant & Innovation EvangelistCTO Office, Wipro Limited.

Here is how a senior IT manager of a large manufacturing firm can use big data to his business advantage in staying ahead


Problem:big data is a monumental challenge for iT managers, as data grows in geometrical progression and fairly transforms into a data tsunami. Given that data runs into hundreds of terabytes of databases, Amit Khanna, Senior iT manager of a large global manufacturing firm is completely overwhelmed. The reason--his employees, in particular, the sales team generate _ an amazing amount of customer insights daily, including thousands of comments from web surveys, emails and text mes-sages. Khanna wants to leverage this insight at both the strategic and the local level to drive operational efficiency. Khanna’s intentions are clear: to help the employees understand customers better and build stronger customer relationships.

All the business units in the organisation think that they can use analytics and busi-ness intelligence to increase revenues, improve customer service or cut costs. Response:big data is an opportunity for data-driven businesses in a competitive marketplace. The value that big data can create dwarfs the challenges it brings in its wake. Tech-nologies that Khanna can opt for would be hadoop Distributed File System: for data-intensive, distributed-processing at scale; distributed noSQl databases: to provide the ability to deal with huge quanti-ties of data that traditional rDbmS solu-tions cannot cope with. noSQl database systems are developed to manage large

volumes of data that do not necessarily follow a fixed schema, data collection tools such as Splunk that allow search, moni-toring and analysis of machine-generated data at scale and visualisation engines that process large amounts of structured and unstructured data to provide action-able intelligence to business users. The key steps that Khanna should take while implementing the big data project will be to understand business users’ require-ments, carry out small pilot iterations with self-optimisation capabilities to ensure that the project outcome meets the busi-ness needs, estimate business value that will be derived from an enterprise-scale implementation. benefits are around per-sonalisation, business agility, etc.

4 1A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 | ITNEXT

How can these two

disparate realities be

reconciled? What is it

that secret sauce that

successful Internet-scale enterprises

have mastered that is eluding other

enterprises? How is it that some

companies can build their entire

revenue base around analytics while

others struggle to get a consolidated

single view of the customer or

provide up-to-date, actionable

intelligence to their workforce when

and where they need it?

What is the learning that

successful Internet-scale

enterprises offer and how

can enterprises implement it

successfully?

Data driven Decision Making

Internet-scale enterprises live

and die on the intelligence they

derive from data. Like any other

large enterprise, data is generated

through millions of customer

interactions daily. Business

Operations rely on the data for

decision-making insight and

keeping ahead of the competition.

Is your enterprise just as

dedicated to extracting strategic

business value through data that

you collect?

Operation oriented Analytics

Rather than relying on monthly

or quarterly reports of stale data

generated for managers in the

corner office, Internet-scale

enterprises use analytics as a

business operations tool. Terabytes

of real-time data are mined for

gleaning insights for each offering

& niche customer segments and

used on a daily basis by product

operations & customer service

teams to enhance their offerings.

Does your enterprise

democratize real-time data to be

used by people who can use it

best in the field?

Go beyond the traditional

Fact 2 above shows that trying

to fit into the straightjacket of a

traditional BI solution is a losing

proposition. Fortunately, enterprises

today have the opportunity to use

the tools that the web trailblazers

have created and use it for their

requirements.

Hadoop, an open-source

distributed framework that is

purpose-built for data-intensive

analytics applications, was

invented by Yahoo and others

in order to perform large scale

analytics at a value that allowed

them to remain viable businesses.

Now that technology is available

for other enterprises to drive value

from their data.

Why get into an traditional

straightjacketed platforms when

Hadoop-based technologies

provide the ability to do large-scale

analytics?

Self-optimizing Systems

Internet-scale enterprises use

machine learning to enable IT

systems to optimize themselves

using M2M & customer interaction

data. Machines are better & faster

at analyzing and detecting patterns

from large volumes of data than

humans. Providing an internal

feedback loop for machines to

analyze data patterns and have the

ability to self-optimize provides the

business agility that can propel an

enterprise to market domination.

It’s time for enterprises to

lose the traditional way of doing

business intelligence and take a

point or two from Intenet-scale

pioneers.

Akbar Ladak is a Senior Consultant & Innovation Evangelist, CTO Office at Wipro Limited.

WHAT CAN ENTERPRISES LEARN ABOUT DATA ANALYTICS FROM INTERNET-SCALE PIONEERS?

A D V E R T O R I A L

FACT 1:

GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN & TWITTER – ALL MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESSES, WHO GIVE AWAY THEIR SERVICE TO HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF CUSTOMERS FOR FREE, YET HAVE LUCRATIVE, PROFITABLE BUSINESS MODELS BUILT AROUND ANALYTICS.

FACT 2:

ACCORDING TO GARTNER, 70% TO 80% OF BI & ANALYTICS PROJECTS FAIL. EVEN WHEN A BI PROJECT IS TERMED A SUCCESS, HALF OF BUSINESS USERS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THE BI FUNCTIONALITY PROVIDED.

THE PROBLEM | Business Service Management

For a smooth flightFor a smooth flightBSM can smoothen operations without any service disruption by providing greater visibility to the IT infrastrucuture

4 2 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2


Problem StatementSkyking Airlines, with a fleet of about 50 well-maintained aircraft, operates on all busy routes in india and serves around 2 million passengers annually. Given the highly competitive nature of the airline business, an operator requires a very efficient iT infrastructure to connect its airport operations, contact centres and data centres in a manner that can meet customers’ as well as internal users’ expectations. needless to say, it is essential for Skyking that all business-critical applications run smoothly, including those run by its outsourced partners. recently, however, Skyking faced issues with the poor visibility of its iT infrastructure prob-lems, lower satisfaction rating by customers and higher levels of service disruption, often caused by an errant help desk management system. Gagan mathur, the data centre head, has set of challenges to address and fix these issues:his challenges:

a) How to manage the entire infrastructure and applications proactively?b) How to generate a centralised system for its outsourced service providers?c) How to improve the levels of satisfaction for IT services across the entire organisation?

Shankar KrishnamoorthyCTO- Aspire Systems India Pvt. Ltd

Binu K JohnProject Manager, Aspire Systems

India Pvt. Ltd

Senthil Kumar MManager, Systems

Administration, Aspire Systems India Pvt. Ltd

CAPTAIN’S VIEW POINT TEAM SPEAKS

In a highly competitive business such as that of an airline, it is very critical to proactively address customer needs

and all service-related issues and Skyking Airlines is no dif-ferent. here is how Skyking can do it:

Helpdesk: Set up a 24x7 helpdesk environment and cat-egorise the queries into customer specific, travel agents-specific and operations/employees-specific.

Customer support process: For this, they should build end-to-end customer-centric processes; ensure seamless application integration so as to get a singular view; and implement new technology and services that cre-ate impact in the business (mobile and social media).

IT Infrastructure and applications: Proactive monitoring, making sure all the applications are monitored for perfor-mance (up and running, faster response, etc.). Tools like bmc will help to monitor all the systems and do health check-ups. Skyking should also consolidate applica-tions and servers using virtualisation, in addition to estab-lishing an SlA-based incident management system and governance and reporting mechanisms.

Skyking will need to take certain measures and steps in order

to achieve this. These include: establish a vendor manage-

ment system identify the parameters and

metrics for the iT infrastructure management and performance

outsourced services and sys-tems, their performance and ven-dor management system should be integrated.

if the system is perform-ing well, it should reflect on the vendor/contract management system.

if the system is not perform-ing well (e.g. the iSP going down frequently), the downtime should reflect on the vendor/contract management system.

use the metrics and work with the vendors. reward the vendors who are performing very well and also penalise the ven-dors who are not meeting SlAs.

Formulate change/configura-tion management systems and identify tools to manage cmDb.

The key to improving satisfaction levels lies in:

Setting up SlAs for iT infra-structure support team (out-sourcing providers) and olAs (operation level agreements) for internal support team (system admin and facilities)

establishing an efficient reporting mechanism

conducting surveys and put-ting in place continual improve-ment plans

Taking periodic customer feedback through email, say monthly, with colour coding such as red, amber and green. People should just need to spend 20 seconds (i.e. a small amount of time) to give feedback. Should be able to so using everyday tools such as outlook. These should be analysed and Skyking should make sure that all the reds and Ambers are addressed ASAP.

Setting up a collaborative portal for discussing areas of improvement and repeat issues.

Ensuring a Smooth Run

TECH EXPERTSubrato Bandhu | Country Manager, BMC Software

On how BSM can help in managing the IT landscape efficiently


Skyking Airlines, a major domestic air-line that serves around 2 million pas-

sengers annually, has been facing some issues in running its iT infrastructure, which is critical to its business opera-tions. These include poor visibility of its iT infrastructure problems, lower satisfac-tion rating by customers and higher levels of service disruption, often caused by an errant help desk management system. The challenges before Gagan mathur, the data centre head of Skyking:

a)how to manage the entire infrastruc-ture and applications proactively?

b)how to generate a centralised system for its outsourced service providers and link the problems with its configuration management database?

c)how to improve the levels of satis-faction for iT services across the entire organisation?

Responsea) bmc Software’s bSm for Proactive operations solution will help in manage-ment of the complete iT landscape of Skyking. The solution will help avoid out-ages (increase mTbF–mean time between failures) with behaviour learning and proactive management of performance and availability of the business critical ser-vices. This requires a shift to proactive and predictive technologies with efficient and automated processes to drive preventa-tive resolution. Fewer outages and faster recovery means less chance of negative impact on users and the business.

b) remedy, the flagship solution from bmc Software, would help Skyking in providing a customer-facing centralised solution that is essential and keeps the business running and at competitive edge. Some of the benefits that Skyking can expect to see:

Accuracy of information in the configu-ration management Database Accountability for assets decreasing liability and risk mitigating/eliminating risk during change elimination of reliance on tribal knowl-edge to resolve issues lower maintenance cost iT support no longer perceived as a cost centre but a profit centre with proof of value to the business

c) by deploying and adapting bmc Soft-ware’s business Service management solutions, Skyking will optimise the service-intensive infrastructure and appli-cations which are usually more complex. it will also be able to accommodate incon-sistent and uncertain demand by estab-lishing more advanced information.

BMC_Cloud_ad_CMYK_8.5x11.pdf 1 1/30/12 3:40 PM

Unified Advantage

THE PROBLEM | Business Productivity

Unified AdvantageUC tools ensure enhanced customer experience and employee productivity

4 6 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2


Magnum retail operates a wide variety of retail store formats that include department stores, hypermarts and specialty retail outlets. currently, magnum retail employs about 7,000 people across its 139 store locations and 20 warehouses/distribution cen-

tres. Another 3,000 people are provided by contractors and consignment vendors for activities such as sales promotions, housekeeping, security, warehouse tasks, customer relations, and technology support. in its five-year strategic plan, the company’s board of Directors has drawn up an ambitious growth plan, including the launch of at least five new stores each year. At the same time, since retailing is a low-margin industry, the cio of the company is under pressure from the ceo to find ways to reduce costs without compromising the customer experience. The company’s employees use email, chat, instant messaging and collabora-tion software to collaborate with each other, partners, vendors and customers. Since many employees often work at out-of-office locations, including customer premises, the use of mobile solutions is increasing.

The IT team needs to identify:a) An appropriate unified communication (Business Productivity) project b) Key implementation steps for the project, stating certain assumptionsc) Innovation and benefits that will accrue to the organization due to this project

Yash Pal SyngalIndia Technology Leader, AON Hewitt India

Vineet KapoorHead of Technology Solutions &

Services, AON Hewitt India

Lalit JaitlyDirector-Technology Solutions &

Services, AON Hewitt India

CAPTAin’S ViEw POinT TEAM SPEAKS

The primary objective of the company is to streamline the communication flow and carry out the integration of

multiple end user platforms. Against this backdrop, its goal and key iT priority is to enhance online shopping experi-ence using unified communication integration with the call centre.

Given that the future of communications revolves around on-Premise, hybrid and in the cloud, as most vendors believe, creating user experience around instant messag-ing, voice mail, video conferencing, telephone, web con-ferencing, email and calendaring and audio conferencing, amongst others, magnum has a huge focus on reduction of cost. A clear mandate from the top management is to use collaborative tools and technology to streamline the communication flow within the company so as to achieve maximum customer satisfaction and empower the employ-ees to be proactive to customer demands. having a good unified communication strategy will help the company meet its goals given that the board of magnum has drawn as ambitious growth plan for five years, besides aspiring to expand its retail outlets.

Even before jumping into finding a right mix of technologies and

tools, it is essential to define the scope of the project and imple-mentation techniques. The key initiative is to integrate the call centres with unified communications platform which would enable magnum to improve customer experience by a certain percentage. it is important to initi-ate a web-based calling model and implement lync-based inter office collaboration, including voice, video and chat. The iT team could also think of deploying SharePoint based col-laboration rooms and portals. one of the key necessities for ensuring a smooth collaboration and communication flow would be integration of email, voice, chat and video as a single plat-form framework to speed up the employee-to-employee commu-nication by implementing office 365 solution.

There are several benefits that implementation of uc would

bring in as part of the business productivity tools, given that the call centres are integrated and supported. The uc tools can enable magnum retail to enhance end user productivity by 10 per cent.

other benefits to the company include a shift from capex to opex if it chooses to go for the pay-per-use model; the latter can provide a low-cost solution, say, about rs 300 per month per employee for an integrated suite. converged communications can signifi-cantly reduce cost for the retail company. For instance, there is reduction in terms of travel as most of the employees leverage video conferencing tools. With the use of business productivity tools, magnum can not only enhanced customer experience, but also improve its employee productivity by 10 per cent.

Unified Success

TECH ExPERTSukhvinder Ahuja | Director -Unified Communications, Microsoft

Streamline the chaotic communication pattern using Unified Communication tools


In discharging his responsibility of bring-ing in the best tools that would enable

his company, an infrastructure firm, to perform better and achieve uninterrupted growth targets, Anant Sinha, the com-pany’s iT head, has realized this: lack of proper communications and collaboration within the company can lead to chaos. For Sinha, the key is to make the workflows and processes that create revenues and profits as smooth as possible.Sinha has decided to deploy solutions that combine all the communications channels into a single, manageable interface, besides simplifying the way the company shares information. now he needs to identify or specify:a) one unified communication (business Productivity) project and the tools required to address the projectb) Key implementation steps for the projectc) benefits that will accrue to the organization.

Responsea) The basic premise of a unified com-munication project is that the disparate communication tools used in business today—be it email, voice calls, videocon-ferencing, messaging, etc—work together for each user in a single, smooth way. no more struggling with the tools rather than working on what needs to be communi-cated. So Sinha needs to bring together all that chaos in communication and opera-tions that can put his company on a nimble footing. microsoft lync 2010 can do that for him through a unified inbox and presence solution. lync works across platforms and devices: from the Pc and mac to the browser and the mobile.

b) lync works on the principles of simplicity and ease of use. it follows a quick-to-implement path: beginning from deployment, migration, interoper-ability (with existing systems and tools)

and extensibility. Sinha can embed communications capabilities right into the apps as well as extend them to his company’s core business processes. For voice networking, it works with Direct SiP, SiP Trunking, SiP/PSTn Gateways; it is compatible with various iP phones and devices; and it can integrate with third-party video systems such as VTc endpoints, multipoint videoconferencing bridges, and gateway systems.

c) lync can bring benefits to Sinha’s organisation by connecting its people in new ways. it can help the company reduce costs through consistent communications and consistent management across the data centre. Through quick deployment and adoption (it is integrated very well with office), the company gets other benefits like reduced deployment time and wider adoption by users.

Data centre overhauling could bring in business agility, scalability, reduction in usage of space and efficient usage of power

Transform to make the data centre efficient

THE PROBLEM | Data Centre Transformation

Transform to make the data centre efficient

Business-wise, Future-driven.

Now align your datacenter architecture to your business needs in just seconds with Schneider Electric's Infrastruxure solutions.

For further details

Call: 1800 4254 877.

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5 0 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2


IT next tried to seek a solution to Vijay Kumar’s problem of ensuring optimal use of the data centre and drive efficiency. rapid growth and expansion have resulted in organisations having multiple data centres across various locations. These data centres themselves have

been expanded or enhanced at various points in time, and operations are a mix of infrastruc-ture, technology, cooling and power solutions. A few data centres are loaded to capacity, while others are underutilised. Vijay Kumar, Senior iT manager of a large manufacturing company, faces a similar situation. being a large manufacturing set up, the management has projected an ambitious growth plan. With this, the focus on iT will be enormous as the management expects the iT teams to perform miracles in terms of supporting the company’s growth initia-tives. his main concern is whether he must think of a big data centre transformation project, which would be a herculean task at this juncture.

a) Is there a need to re-architect the data centre framework?b) What kind of business benefits and assumptions should he make before starting the process? c) What kind of innovations does he need to bring in to drive better benefits?

Rahul V MahajanAVP-IT, K Raheja Corp

Rajendra RautSr. Manager-IT (Infra)

K Raheja Corp

Tabrez Shaikh Asst Manager-IT K Raheja Corp

CaPTain’S ViEw POinT TEaM SPEaKS

Cut Your Datacenter Costs By 15%Choose InfraStruxure solutions and its triple-promise of:• 24x7x365 availability • Fast deployment • Energy efficiency

For further details call: 1800 4254 877.Make your datacenter Business-wise, Future-driven.

Where is the big problem for Kumar and how does he need to look at it is critical.

Growth, organic and inorganic, brings with it a complex-ity of disparate systems, heterogeneous networks, multiple applications etc. This makes it imperative for the organisa-tion to reconsider the iT set up. having a perfect iT set up is key to data centre performance. Probable solutions that Vijay Kumar can try out would revolve around creating pub-lic and private cloud, once he conducts a comprehensive study of existing applications. With regard to public cloud, he must host the applications that could go on the public cloud such as applications with low security requirements, applications accessed by external users and less and semi critical applications which have minimal business impact. With regard to private cloud strategy, he could opt for virtu-alisation of physical servers, tap appropriate storage solu-tion including blades based on the future growth, to be able to work in a heterogeneous environment. it is critical to find an outsourced managed service provider for maintaining the cloud environment. Also, create regional hubs of data centre for hosting various applications, based on the need.

T he Primary Data centre would be located at the corporate

office and Secondary Data cen-tres at the various manufacturing branch locations of the company. each data centre would service the location specific users. it can have a replica of the applications that are hosted in the primary data centre that would get rep-licated in real time / schedule based. Thus the users at each location would connect to the data centre of their specific location.This would reduce to-and-fro communication with the primary data centre. The secondary data centres will have a single link-age with the primary data centre which acts as single line of com-munication between the two data centres to replicate data. benefits would include reducing band-width utilisation, enhanced secu-rity as only servers talk to each other. Also, users at each loca-tion can seamlessly continue to work irrespective of linkage loss between the datacentres.

The fundamental assumption and consideration he should

keep in mind while going through data centre transformation is the fact that iT is a cost centre and therefore budgets would be limited. Secondly, any kind of iT transformation should not disrupt the business. The assumption he could make are in terms of roi and cost saving in real estate, cooling, power and uPS etc; easy scalability required for business growth and expansion; redundan-cy in Dcs, Drs and network.

once the data centre transfor-mation is planned and executed with the above set of assump-tions and considerations, it can assure certain benefits such as reduction in number of servers, lower power usage, reduced floor space, minimised risk by use of public cloud, high performance, optimal resource pooling and utilisation reduced provisioning time for new servers and applica-tion, quick recovery from point of failure and green iT initiative.

3-pronged approach to build efficient DC

TECH ExPERTMayank Srivastav | GM-Solutions Engineering & Sales, Schneider Electric

Tackling the challenges of data centre growth through data centre transformation

Cut Your Datacenter Costs By 15%Choose InfraStruxure solutions and its triple-promise of:• 24x7x365 availability • Fast deployment • Energy efficiency

For further details call: 1800 4254 877.Make your datacenter Business-wise, Future-driven.


Vijay Kumar, Senior iT manager of a large manufacturing company, faces a

situation in which some of the data centres are loaded to capacity, while others are underutilized. Given the ambitious growth projections of the company, he has to look at the entire data centre architecture and streamline the organisational data flow for operational efficiency. The challenges before Kumar:

a) is there is a need to re-architect the data centre framework; if so, what kind of solutions should he think of and what should the primary steps be to increase data centre utilisation?

b) What kind of business benefits and assumptions should he keep in mind before going through the data centre transformation process?

c) What kind of innovations can he look at in this Dc project to drive better busi-ness benefits?

Vendor Responsea) The key lies in the methodology you use to design and build your data centre facilities. All too often, companies base their plans on watts per square foot, cost to build per square foot, and tier level--criteria that may be misaligned with their overall buisness goals and risk profile. Poor planning leads to poor use of value-able capital and can increase operational expense. Kumar must refrain from mak-ing the following mistakes:

Failure to take total cost of ownership (Tco) into account

Poor cost-to-build estimating Setting design criteria and performance

characteristics incorrectly Selecting a site before design criteria

are in place misunderstanding Pue misunderstanding leeD certification overcomplicated designs

b) Focusing solely on capital cost is an easy trap; the dollars required to build or expand a business critical data centre can be staggered. Kumar’s best approach is to focus on three basic Tco parameters: 1) capital expense, 2) operations and mainte-nance expense, and 3) energy costs. if he leaves any component out, he runs the risk of creating a model that does not correctly align with his organisation’s risk profile and business expenditure profile.

c) ensuring high availability-Kumar should have redundant modular, Scalable, redundant and online hot swappable power back up. capacity planning-server consolidation and virtualisation are effec-tive ways to combat issues of capacity planning. cost control through energy management-60 per cent of a data centre cost is due to power consumption, com-panies must have their own power backup system that is effectively used.

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to-day responsibilities. It’s faster and easier to deploy, and it’s just as simple

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to room to building. And, most important, it’s agile enough to adapt to your

business needs — today and tomorrow.

APC™ by Schneider Electric is the pioneer of modular data centre infrastructure and innovative cooling technology. Its products and solutions, including InfraStruxure™, are an integral part of the Schneider Electric IT portfolio.

©2012 Schneider Electric. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS or its affiliated companies.Schneider Electric India Pvt. Ltd., 9th Floor, DLF Building No. 10, Tower C, DLF Cyber City, Phase II, Gurgaon - 122 002, Haryana, India. Tel. 1800-4254-877/272*Terms & conditions apply

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Tender care services

THE PROBLEM | M2M Communications

Tender care servicesBridging the communication gap using M2M communication’s best practices

5 4 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2


Jayanti Wasan is a senior iT manager with a hospital chain, Tender care Services, which has general as well as speciality hospitals in all the metros. Put together, Tender’s hos-pitals can admit around 8,000 patients at any given time and its out Patient Departments

(oPDs) typically attend to over 50,000 patients each day. owing to its highly qualified and experienced doctors and excellent customer service, Tender has a lot of returning patients and referrals.

While the hospital chain has modern medical facilities, its computing infrastructure is quite basic and many of the processes such as monitoring the health of patients, maintaining records, etc are done manually. This is coming in the way of meeting heightened expectations from patients, who often have to wait a lot for appointments, diagnostic reports and other routine things. manual processes are also impeding Tender’s growth ambitions.

Jayanti is leading an effort by the iT team to automate as many processes as possible in a quick and smooth manner. however, her cio has briefed her that given that doctors are going to be increasingly time-starved, the focus should be on saving time for them. budget is not a constraint, but all expenses must have clear roi. The challenges before Jayanti:

1. What are the options available in the market to automate processes for a hospital chain such as Tender? What kind of M2M tools can she go in for which can address her problem?2. How can she leverage M2M (machine-to-machine communication) to enable doctors to spend more time examining patients and less on monitoring or administrative tasks?3. What kind of RoI or business benefits will Wasan observe using these tools?

Ashish MathurSr VP, WNS Global Services

Amit KhannaSr GM-IT, WNS Global Services

Anand KapoorGM-IT, WNS Global Services

CAPTAin’s ViEw POinT TEAM sPEAKs

First and foremost, Tender needs to establish the base iT infrastructure to operate a fully integrated hospital

management system. This system should support at least 5 key databases: a) patients b) doctors c) technicians and attending staff d) medicines, therapies and other laboratory services, and e) reports.

These need to be linked to a work-flow application, inte-grated with their staff email and calendaring systems.

m2m tools can then be put in place to establish direct communication between the various hospital systems, link-ing to mobile devices of doctors, patients etc.

infact, as part of the m2m communication trend, tele-medicine for elderly patients or patients who are remote. There are several m2m tools and services available in the market today that can be deployed to minimise manual processes and automate them, especially for highly valued and busy people such as doctors. They can then focus more on core issues of healthcare and spend less time on admin-istrative or repetitive/routine tasks.

M2m can be leveraged in all almost all aspects of patient-

care life-cycle. Some examples are as follows:

Patient registration and appointment should be auto-mated. Doctors’ calendars will be automatically blocked Ambulance Automation (GPS based Tracking, remote case Services, Traffic/route manage-ment) APiS (Advanced Patient infor-mation System): For inbound patients, scheduled as well as emergency cases, information around past history, allergies, current status, blood-group type etc. can be updated to the hospital prior to the patient arriving Digitisation of reports: historic as well as current data can be digitised saving paper, space for paper and time/resource spent in moving these files around. remote Data capture, from hospital bed to a central moni-toring/alert station and also for out-patients.

Jayanti can expect several key benefits arising out of the

automation of processes through the use of machine-to-machine tools.

These include tangible as well as intangible benefits. Some of the key benefits are listed below:

Scalability to meet the growing hospital and patient network optimisation of hospital resources enabling the health-care professionals to provide patients to receive better and faster treatment remote services Speed and timeliness of patient care and support, especially to deal with life-threatening situ-ations ease of providing services to end consumers (patients) – e.g. Action based on automated alerts on mobile devices opportunity to enhance and expand business–through auto-mation, consolidation and cen-tralisation where possible.

Automating the communication flow

TECH ExPERTNitin Bhandari | AVP-NPD & Partnerships, Vodafone India Ltd

M2M can help in automating patient care for better customer satisfaction


Jayanti Wasan, the senior iT manager with a hospital chain, Tender care

Services, is facing the pressure of meeting the growing demands of iT infrastructure while keeping patients satisfied. Given the basic iT infrastructure at present, her mandate is to automate as many functions as possible so that doctors’ time required for routine tasks is minimised. her challenges:

1. What are the options available in the market to automate processes for a hospital chain such as Tender? What kind of M2M tools can she go in for which can address her problem?

2. How can she leverage M2M to enable doctors to spend more time examining patients and less on monitoring or admin-istrative tasks?

3. What kind of RoI or business benefits will Jayanti observe using these tools?

1. machine-to-machine communication

(m2m) would be an effective way for Tender care to connect a lot of medical devices and thus automate a number of things they would otherwise require human beings, including doctors, to do.

m2m allows key information to be exchanged automatically without human intervention and covers a broad range of technologies and applications which connect the physical world—whether machines or monitored physical condi-tions—to a back-end iT infrastructure. The physical conditions that can be monitored include temperature, location, consump-tion, heart rate, stress levels, light, move-ment, altitude and speed—so healthcare is obviously a big and potential beneficiary of m2m technologies.

m2m communications are made pos-sible by the use of intelligent sensors or microprocessors that are embedded in the remote asset. These sensors include

a Sim card that’s slightly different from the one used in a mobile phone. Through this card, the devices are able to receive and transmit data wirelessly to a central server where it can be analysed and acted upon.

2. After the medical devices such as X-ray machines, cT Scanners, tablets with healthcare applications, etc are embedded with these special Sim cards, data about patients’ condition, diagnostics, reports and prior visits can be automatically made available to doctors and nurses. Devices used for remote monitoring of patients also bring down the number of visits to the hospital, thus improving customer satisfaction.

3. The widespread availability and decreasing cost of wireless communica-tions, economies of scale and improve-ments in bandwidth have redefined what is now cost-effective to connect. remote monitoring results in being cost-effective.

Optimise your IT infrastructure using Cloud

THE PROBLEM | Private Cloud

Optimise your IT infrastructure using Cloud Private Cloud enhances infrastructure capabilities and give a competitive edge

5 8 itnext | A U G U S T 2 0 1 2


Bhaskar rajan, senior iT manager of a large pharmaceutical company, faces the chal-lenge of leveraging technology to the maximum to drive better business results, while lowering the total cost of ownership. The obvious challenge is that his organisation wit-

nesses a rapid expansion process and the need for iT resources and services is increasing. rajan and his team think it is time to consider deploying a private cloud that can put a layer

of abstraction over iT resources and offer users managed application services. There are umpteen challenges that the team faces and rajan, as the head of the iT team, will have to work out a private cloud project plan. he needs to ponder over what kind of cloud model he needs to work out, which of the critical applications he needs to put on the private cloud and who would be the stakeholders in the private cloud group.

He needs to identify:a) What would be the ideal private cloud model b) Key implementation steps for the private cloud project (state assumptions, if any)c) What kind of benefits will the organisation accrue having initiated this project

PVJ PrasadAGM- IT, Hamilton Housewares (P) Ltd

Ruchira PookulangaraDy Mgr-IT, Hamilton Housewares

(P) Ltd

Rahul ChaudhariExecutive-IT, Hamilton

Housewares (P) Ltd

CaPTaIn’s VIEw POInT TEaM sPEaks

Given that the challenge for bhaskar rajan is to drive down the cost while ensuring optimal utilisation of infra-

structure and various application services, microsoft Pri-vate cloud (System center 2012) would be the ideal model. rajan’s primary task would be to evolve a project around office on cloud on microsoft platform. his objective when it comes to private cloud momentum, would be to consoli-date infrastructure and applications, while aiming to make it scalable and agile, and adhering to certain security and regulatory compliance.

besides, rajan has to understand the scope of the pri-vate cloud project before building one and do a thorough evaluation of existing applications based on the criticality. Another crucial practice would be to analyse virtualised computing and storage environment before embarking upon the project.

it would be necessary to integrate all the branches with the private cloud project and consolidate network infra-structure, besides having a strong backup strategy. The project should be outsourced to the external team, but the internal iT team should also be part of the project.

The key is in implementing the project smoothly and the inter-

nal team should be thoroughly trained to manage in-house post implementation. There are key implementation steps which include identifying the correct solution from available options--Vm Ware, microsoft System cen-tre 2012 etc.

Downloading the trial version and doing a Poc is important and acquiring quotes before putting it up to the board is mandatory to get approval.

highlight key differentiators and benefits in terms of cost, ease of management etc, and identify and appoint the right partner with sufficient expertise in a similar project.

Draw up a list of core applica-tions that are cloud ready to be hosted on the private cloud, like erP, crm, hrmS, bi etc., besides a project plan with all stakeholders and take sign off. Finally, execute the plan with a periodic review till completion.

The key innovation and advan-tage that the private cloud

project could bring is optimisa-tion of the iT infrastructure. All applications can be managed and deployed faster with limited resources; this will lead to saving on manpower cost. implementa-tion of the private cloud would give a competitive edge to the business. Private cloud allows data centres to offer true infra-structure service capability along with optimally managed applica-tion services. The cloud strategy would result in reduction in cost, making the maintenance of the infrastructure and applications very easy. The shift from capex to opex model is the big advantage that the organisation observes. cloud will enable the iT team to do effective and faster provi-sioning of resources and absorb newer technologies quicker. The intangible benefits that the team would see are doing away with the hassles of licensing cost and vendor management issues.

Beyond Virtualization

TECH ExPERTPradyumn Lavaniya | Director - Private Cloud at Microsoft India Private Ltd.

RoI in a cloud is directly proportional to increase in work load density


Bhaskar rajan, the senior iT manager of a large pharmaceutical company,

faces the challenge of leveraging technol-ogy to the maximum to drive better busi-ness results while lowering the total cost of ownership. Another challenge is that he must satisfy the growing need for iT resources and services in his organisation, which is on a rapid expansion.

rajan and his team think it is time to consider deploying a private cloud that can put a layer of abstraction over iT resources and offer users managed application ser-vices. he needs to identify:

a) What would be the ideal private cloud model b) Key implementation steps for private cloudc) Whether the private cloud team should be part of the in-house team or a cloud service provider?

d) What kind of benefits will accrue to the organisation due to this project?

Response:a) & b) Given that it is a large pharmaceu-tical company, it might be reasonable to assume that one of the primary concerns of the company would be data privacy and control of its data. So going in for a private cloud would be a preferred choice for them. one of the most effective pri-vate cloud models could be deploying a microsoft private cloud. The solutions are licensed on a per processor basis, so the pharma company can get the cloud com-puting benefits of scale. With microsoft solutions, the private cloud roi increases as the company’s private cloud workload density increases. The private cloud solu-tions involve these well-integrated compo-nents: microsoft office, microsoft Dynam-ics, microsoft SQl Server, Windows Server

and microsoft System center. microsoft suggests a three-stage implementa-tion process: optimise (iT resources), Standardise (processes) and Automate (processes).

c) While the implementation team could be an external vendor, service provider or channel partner, he should have at least a few iT managers and professionals who are certified or trained in cloud technologies.

d) The benefits include: All About the App: Application centric cloud platform that helps you focus on business value.Cross-Platform from the Metal Up: cross-platform support for multi-hypervisor environments, oS and apps.Foundation for the Future: microsoft Pri-vate cloud lets you go beyond virtualization to a true cloud platform.

6 2 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

Frank Huang | interview

6 3a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

Consolidate to Commission smart tools

What are the data centre related challenges it

heads and teams face with regard to power, space, resource allocations and optimisation?IT heads and teams are now more focused on the consolidation and centralised management of data centres. They are deploying exclusive and individual management tools to manage power, space, and other components. However, the challenge is to bring all the solutions under a single framework or roof, which can be managed through a single portal.

The toughest of all challenges is to handle data growth amongst the hardware, where research groups like Gartner have predicted a rampant growth. Gartner’s survey indicated that data growth is the biggest data centre hardware infrastructure challenge for large enterprises. Besides, most enterprises have reported that the investment on data archiving solutions would increase.

What are the best practices that you would recommend it managers follow to drive data centre efficiency?As per industry reports, data centre space can consume about 100 to 200 times more electricity as compared to standard office spaces. As such, they are prime targets for energy-efficient design or solutions that can save money and reduce use of electricity. However, the critical nature of data centre loads elevates many design criteria — chiefly reliability and high power density capacity — far above energy efficiency. Short design cycles often leave little time to fully assess efficient design opportunities or consider cost versus life-cycle-cost issues. This can lead to designs that are simply scaled up versions of standard office space approaches. Though past strategies worked well, they may not suit current requirements of energy efficiency.

The four key trends nowadays for IT managers to follow to drive data centre more efficiently are:

Create energy — efficient data centres

Consolidation — Fuse programs so that all servers are run from a central location, or can be managed by a singular data centre operating system.

Private Cloud — There is a shift towards private cloud solutions which are cheaper and provide easier management of data capacity.

Storage Tiering -- To manage more data while minimising costs, follow the tiering process to archive inactive to less-active data, while reserving top tiers for data that is used constantly.

What are some software tools and technologies that you recommend to enhance data centre efficiency? Could you elaborate on effective ways to implement it?I wcould recommend IT manag-ers to opt for intelligent PDUs along with appropriate sen-sors and Power IQ tools to anal-yse the garnered raw data. The

Frank Huang, Data Centre Professional Technologist, raritan Inc., finds that the most difficult part of the data centre management is to bring all components under a single framework. In conversation with Manu Sharma, Huang says it is critical to align with business needs and growth

interview | Frank Huang

6 4 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

“IT managers can request for ROI calculators from solution providers—which is very common in the current scenario — that can be used to determine which solution best suits the company and budget”

analysis would help in bringing out effective management solu-tions. For, it would enhance data centre efficiency in the areas of power management, environ-ment management and energy management. Besides, data cen-tre tracking tools would help IT managers to address change man-agement, capacity management and asset management needs.

What kind of innovations are happening in the data centre which will help it managers transform their it environment?Asset management solutions and tools are making an impact on the data centre efficiency. They help in tracking assets remotely and give information in real time about the changes made dynamically.

explain effective strategy around increasing the roi within a data centre and lowering total cost of operations?Based on the premise that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” data centres are undertaking steps to measure IT device-level power consump-tion and rack environments in an effort to minimise power use. Using PUE as a driver, and there-after measuring the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) metrics (which factor in the cost of the server plus total cost of the energy that it will consume while running a specific workload over its lifespan) is one strategy which can help monitor and hence manage the ROI better.

IT managers can request for ROI calculators from solution providers — which is very common in the current scenario — that can be used to determine which solution best suits the company and budget accordingly.

is there a data centre matu-rity model that it managers

can adapt to? elaborate with examples.The Green Grid released the Data Center Maturity Model (DCMM) in March of 2011 to provide a road map for data centre designers and operators on current best prac-tices and the path to best prac-tices, five years into the future. The Model’s “Level 2” documents industry best practices and “Level 5” serves as a target for organisa-tions to reach in the future.

One example is eBay’s Project Mercury which incorporates many current and future best practices documented in the DCMM. This provides a real world example of how companies can save resources and money by using the model from the beginning of design through the

operations of their facilities and IT infrastructure.

Another example: assessing its current data centre portfolio, eBay determined that the existing model was unsustainable. An inventory audit showed that hundreds of different hardware configurations (SKUs) were still being ordered and deployed in

Frank Huang | interview

6 5a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

Find other inter-views online on

the website www.itnext.

in/resources/interviews

data centres, broadly conforming to the Uptime Institute’s Tier IV data centre specification. Further investigation showed that 15 of these SKUs made up 80 per cent of the hardware in the data centres and a majority of application servers did not require Tier IV. This over-provisioning of resiliency resulted in an infrastructure that was far more costly and complex than necessary. eBay used measures including total cost of ownership (TCO) and The Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) to highlight the inefficiency of housing servers in expensive, high resiliency space unnecessarily.

One of the principles of The Green Grid’s DCMM is to align

business needs with the most appropriate level of data centre resilience and efficiency. A frank assessment of eBay’s application needs, as recommended by the DCMM section 3.2.2, determined that 80 per cent of the application portfolio required only Tier II reliability. By aligning these applications to the appropriate level of redundancy, eBay freed capacity in its Tier IV data centres, effectively extending their lives. Moreover, eBay also was able to augment its portfolio by adding new high-density, low-cost, and highly efficient Tier II space. Another core benefit was that the total cost of ownership for the data centres plummeted, supported by a reduction in capital investments and operating expenses of the new Tier II data centres by more than 50 per cent. Looking at the DCMM, the right sizing of individual applications to the most appropriate level of resilience is a five-year-out best practice. By implementing this best practice now, eBay is on the leading edge when compared to most typical IT organisations.

amidst the hype around cloud, what challenges are data centres throwing up? Please elaborate on the effective ways to address these challenges.The heart of all IT operations is the data centre with its complex infrastructure – space, power, cooling, cables, servers, storage and communications. It is capital intensive, energy intensive and technology intensive.

The challenges for both the data centre operations management and the organisation’s executive management responsible for the IT function come from all directions. For example, minimise risk of downtime; satisfy demand for new applications to facilitate business/revenue growth;

satisfy internal user needs as overall organisation grows and changes; comply with audits both internal and government regulatory; reduce/control energy usage/costs; maximise utilisation of current resources; improve staff productivity; incorporate processes to address green initiatives; deal with the rate of technological change; live within tighter budget constraints; finance major capital investments.

Simply stated, the challenge is to properly align the IT function operation with the organisation’s overall business plan and operational requirements.

Devices are getting power hungry and assets need to be monitored and measured more to optimise use of power. This is a high priority among many IT managers across the world, while at the same time, they balance this need for increasing reliability and security for its mission critical solutions.

In the area of Data Centre Infrastructure, the total Data Centre Infrastructure Management solutions will help IT managers to manage smarter and more productively to meet these challenges:

IT Infrastructure Access and Control

Secure access solutions meet-ing corporate and government standards

Multi vendor management Energy and Environment Man-

agement Power distribution and Man-

agement Asset Management Capacity Management Change Management

However, customers can avoid the hassle of handling these challenges by opting for a cloud model, where the service provider could carry the overheads and ease the work of IT managers.

6 7a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

thebig

Your responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition.

The SiTuaTion...“How will Amit Sinha ensure optimal use of the data centre and drive business growth?” Rapid growth and expansion have resulted in organisations having multiple data centres across various locations. These data centres themselves have been expanded or enhanced at various points in time, and operations are a mix of infrastructure, technology, cooling and power solutions. A few data centres are loaded to capacity, while others are underutilised.

Amit Sinha, Senior IT Manager of a large manufacturing company is facing a similar situ-ation. Being a large manufacturing set up, the management has projected an ambitious growth plan. With this, the focus on IT will be enormous as the management expects the IT teams to perform miracles in terms of supporting the company’s growth initiatives.

Sinha is not just challenged by one aspect, but is swamped by the varied questions and assumptions that he has to take into account before finding the

right solution. His main concern is whether he has to think of a big data centre transformation project, which would be a Herculean task at this juncture. If so, another question that arises is whether he has to think of implementing a big project and re-design the data centre architecture that can ad-dress the challenges of data centre optimisation.

Another component that needs to be factored in is what sort of innovations does he need to plan for while overhauling the data centre framework? His key cause of concern revolves around addressing challenges related to storage and data which are growing with geometrical progression. Streamlin-ing the organisational data flow, along with op-erational efficiency with robust IT frameworks is also a big worry. Sinha attempted to get feedback from his peers in the industry to gain an insight into the trends and understand the immediate steps he needs to take to address all of this. He realised that it is purely a strategic initiative. Amidst the chaos, he wants these two questions answered from experts, which he feels, will lead him in the right direction.

DAYA PRAKASH HEAD-IT LG ELECTRONICS INDIA

SANJEEV KUMARGROUP CIO & GROUP PRESIDENT-BUSINESS EXCELLENCE ADHUNIK GROUP OF INDUSTRIES

RAHUL MAHAJAN AVP-IT K RAHEJA CORP

EXPERt PaNEL

NeXt

DATA CENTRE TRANSFORMATION

tRANSFORM tO PROFit

CU

T I

T

FR

OM

HE

RE

the big q

6 8 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

FiRSt AnSWeRSinha must re-architect the data centre framework to get rid of multiple data centres at various locations. Multiple data centres are also run-ning a mix of infrastructure, technology, cooling and power solutions. A simplified and consolidated data centre would ensure high availabil-ity and business continuity. This would also become a building block for supporting the company’s growth. Some broad areas that he must keep in mind while designing the overall architecture are:

Data Centre Consolidation: Zero in on only two data centres after consolidation, i.e., primary and secondary. Keep the primary data centre where the main business centre manufacturing unit is located and the secondary as a disaster recovery site at the remote site, which can help optimise the infrastructure resources, while ensuring high availability in terms of servers and network infrastructure.

Virtualised Infrastructure: Virtualisation of servers and storage could help Sinha better utilise resources with reduced space.

Data Warehousing: To manage structured and unstructured data and evaluation of trends using BI tools helps in long-term archiving or data retention, which is one way to enhance efficiency.

Intelligent and Predictable Systems: Using smart or intelligent software which is capable of controlling Power to Rack, PDU using SNMP alerts and proactive monitoring and alerts on any change to the infrastructure could be considered.

Scalable: The data centre design should have a scalability option and the right-sized UPS/PDU delivering highest efficiency.

Cooling and Energy Efficiency: Structured cabling, fully managed close-coupled cooling that neutralises hot-spots and delivers the highest availability and efficiency.

SeCOnD AnSWeRSinha can look at business benefits and expect a better RoI using various technologies and tools as part of the data centre transformation. The re-design would definitely bring in energy efficiency and keep the cost of power and cooling low, while reducing the car-bon footprint.. The automation of operations, along with virtualisation and modernisa-tion of IT infrastructure will drive higher resource utilisation at lower operating costs.

Compliance risk and governance is a key factor where virtualisation comes to the rescue, as it helps reduce the law-compliance risk, while improving agility and governance. Another advantage is operational excellence and easy manageability issues that are addressed with data centre transformation initiatives. With consolidation, managing multiple data centres becomes easy, particularly the virtualised infrastructure, because most solutions come with good manageability tools.

The big queSTionS...? DOEs aMIt sINHa NEED tO RE-aRCHItECt tHE Data CENtRE FRaMEWORK aND IF

sO, WHat sOLutIONs sHOuLD HE aPPLY aND WHat sHOuLD HIs PRIMaRY stEPs BE tO INCREasE Data CENtRE utILIsatION

? WHat sORt OF BusINEss BENEFIts aND assuMPtIONs sHOuLD HE HaVE IN MIND BEFORE gOINg tHROugH tHE Data CENtRE tRaNsFORMatION PROCEss?

here are The anSwerS...

DAYA PRAKASH

CIO, Lg Electronics India

About me: as the head of

applications at Lg Electronics, he has been instrumental in rolling

out big projects.

DC ConSoLiDaTion iS neeDeD

the big q

6 9a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

FiRSt AnSWeRAs a primary step, Sinha should take stock of the existing data cen-tres, various applications running, various users accessing these applications and available business processes.

Before re-architecting the data centre, he needs to segregate his data centre components, including the data and applications and other infrastructure into three categories: vital, essential and desirable. The most important one should be within his control which will be accessed in-house.

The essential data or application layers could be virtualised. While the desirable ones could be outsourced to a third party. This process could help him increase the data centre efficiency and utilise the resources optimally. For direction, he could experiment with the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) model for some application such as collaboration services or infrastructure. I also recommend that he outsource to big technology vendors who have the capability to do a detailed study, and re-design as per the need of the company and provide the aforesaid services.

SeCOnD AnSWeRMost often the benefits that the company gains from any technology initiative or over-hauling process are relative to the growth path it has set. Sinha’s company is undoubt-edly on a growth path and has set ambitious growth targets, amidst tough competition.

Since the growth plan is aggressive, re-architecting the data centre is necessary. He should lay out steps for the growth phases and decide how he should revamp the IT infrastructure to suit each phase of growth. He should remember that the life of a data centre can be stretched to a maximum of 5 to 7 years with frequent refreshes. But beyond this, a complete overhaul or transformation is a necessity, if a suitable RoI has to be generated.

With the buzz around the cloud, which IaaS and PaaS are also a part of, a good cloud strategy for the desirable and some essential components would be a good move. However, Sinha should consider the scalability factor when re-designing the data centre, besides addressing the compliance needs.

SANJEEV KUMAR

group CIO & group President-Business Excellence, adhunik group of Industries

About me: Been an It strategist, innovator, evangelist,

contributing to the company’s profitable

growth through process innovation, progressive

change management and through convergence of

business and technology.

PrioriTiSe Your DC CoMPonenTS

NeXt

Server capacity utilization expectationsDAtA

CentRe

SOURCE: GCN.COM

as per the survey, the estimated average capacity rate of respondents’ server depends on the extent of their adoption of server virtualization

Not Interested Investigating

Now

46%

57% 58%52% 54%

71% 71% 70%

Pilot Program Fully Adopted

In Two Years

NOTES

the big q

7 0 itnext | a u g u s t 2 0 1 2

FiRSt AnSWeRSinha’s company has aggressive growth plans. Whether it is organic or inorganic growth, it is mandatory for any IT manager to review data centre strategy periodically. I strongly feel that he has to opt for re-architecting his data centre.

The first step towards its transformation would be carrying out the virtualisation of physical servers, if he has still not done so. Implementing some effective virtualisation tools would help him consolidate his servers; he should consider using the public cloud infrastructure for non-critical applications.

Some of the critical applications could be placed on virtual servers. Besides, the creation of regional hubs of data centres would help him host various applications and enable him to build redundancy, which will also enhance network bandwidth optimisation.

SeCOnD AnSWeRSinha should make his decisions around the data centre re-architecture based on cer-tain assumptions. If properly initiated, there could be enormous benefits. For instance, assumptions made around RoI and cost saving in terms of floor space, cooling cost, power cost, UPS, etc., could be achieved through a systematic approach.

Entirely overhauling the data centre infrastructure would also help in easy scalability during the business expansion process, as the design is based on the future organisational road map. Another key factor is that redundancy in DCs, DRs and network would ensure optimal response time for users.

More resourcesVirtual Storage Platform anniversary: http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2011/09/happy-birthday-vsp.htmlHow to avoid information overload: http://marksblog.emc.com/2011/09/episode-108-.html

Take a MuLTiPLe TeCh aPProaCh

RAHUL MAHAJAN

aVP-It, K Raheja Corp

About me:Clarity in business

processes, a passion for innovative solutions, rich

industry engineering experience

nOteS

update

World’s first 7 inch quad-core tablet, featuring Android 4.1, Jelly Bean

off the shelf A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

TABleT | Nexus 7 is the first tablet in Google’s Nexus line of devices and the lead device for Android 4.1, Jelly Bean. Nexus 7 combines premium hardware designed by ASUS with the latest version of Android and all of the entertainment from Google Play. Jointly developed between ASUS and Google, Nexus 7 is built to bring consum-ers the best of Google in a slim and portable package that fits perfectly in the hand.

“We wanted to build a tablet that was light and portable enough for you to take your favourite entertainment wherever you go, but still didn’t compromise at all on power and performance,” said Andy Rubin, SVP of Mobile and Digital Content at Google. “Together with ASUS, we were able to accomplish that in Nexus 7. And starting at $199, it will be something everyone can enjoy,” he says.

Nexus 7 comes with a NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, meaning everything is faster--pages load quickly, gameplay is smooth and responsive, and running multiple apps is a breeze. Nexus 7 8GB is available for $199, while the 16GB version is $249 and enables consumers to keep even more of their content close at hand, when not online.

The product delivers the easiest setup,

one-click backup and the ability to save

and share your content on Facebook

and Flickr.

Seagate Backup Plus hard drives are

newly designed external storage that

work interchangeably with both Win-

dows and Apple computers and deliver

new features to protect, share and save

nearly every aspect of one’s digital life.

These products come loaded with the

new hassle-free Seagate Dashboard

software for one-click local backup

making it easier than ever to elimi-

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backing up one’s most valuable digital

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it provides peace of mind--that every

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Seagate Re-invents Backup

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* Top Google Apps — Gmail, Chrome,

Google+ and YouTube.

* Made for Google Play

* light and convenient protective

cover

* 9.5 hours battery life

ASUS and Google Announce Nexus 7 Tablet

7 1A u G u S T 2 0 1 2 | itnext

cube chat | Ashish KhAnnA

“I was so fascinated by IBM’s PC AT system that I decided to get married to IT and make a career of it,” says Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager IT, EIH Limited

Married to It

It’s interesting to note that Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager-IT, EIH Ltd., was never influenced by the family business, as he had always aspired to get into the IT domain. The IT love bug bit Khanna when

he saw an IBM’s PC AT (Advanced Technology) machine in 1996 for the first time. “I was so fasci-nated by the system that I decided to get married to IT and make a career of it,” says Khanna.

So, after completing his bachelor’s degree in commerce, Khanna decided to kick-start his goal with a GNIIT course from NIIT in Lucknow. His career took off when he joined Mahindra & Mahindra as a Customer Support Engineer in Lucknow after his NIIT course. “The journey of my passion for IT took off in 2000 (the Y2K year) when M&M wanted me to integrate all dealer platforms nationallywith its backend ERP and facilitate online transactions for its dealers.”

“I was involved in the installation of new application and work on the process of migration of the existing data to the new platform and ensuring its stability,” says Khanna.

The project was successfully completed and on its completion, Khanna was made the pan-India head and was responsible for integrating the same software across the country. However, after a stint of 18 months, and a pan-India deployment, he decided to join Taj Hotels & Resorts in Lucknow as IT in-charge. Among the 13-odd departments, IT was one. His primary role was to manage the IT needs of the internal and external customer at the hotel, right from framing budgets, vendor management, maintaining uptime of IT infrastructure etc. “Working in the service industry requires lot of dedication--24x7 and 365 availability of an individual with a smile on his face. “Athithi devo

“God is great. Always be

Positive”

My sucessMantra

By MAnu shArMA

7 2 ITnexT | A u G u s T 2 0 1 2

bhava” or “The guest is God” is engraved in everyone’s blood at the time of joining.”

He was also instrumental in setting up the Central Reservation System and Central Email System at the Taj in Lucknow, besides initiating a VoIP project at the hotel that connected all the Taj properties. He also formulated a cross-department team which further enhanced IT systems for improving customer satisfaction. This initiative fetched him an award during the Taj’s annual awards ceremony for the best practices used for enhancing guest satisfaction. “Receiving the award during the Taj annual awards ceremony for successful implementation of customer-focused project gave me a sense of satisfaction,” remarks Khanna.

As a Head of IT Infrastructure of EIH Group, Khanna says the first challenge

was to start the consolidation of group-wide IT infrastructure which was till then running in silos. “I spearheaded the whole project from conceptualisation, architecture, deployment to UAT (user acceptance testing).” he says. Currently, his focus is to virtualise the data centre to have less server density and make IT more agile along with building a DR strategy and deploy a pay-as-you-use model.His major stress buster while handling such a demanding and stressful job? To think of his daughter and her pranks: “I always imagine her smiling face--that gives me much needed relief from stress.” The individuals he admires and draws inspiration from are E Sreedharan, MD, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of UIDAI.

Fact FIle

nAME Ashish KhAnnA

CURREnT DEsiGnATiOn CORPORATE MAnAGER iT inFRAsTRUCTURE

CURREnT ROLE hEADinG iT inFRAsTRUCTURE FOR ThE OBEROi GROUP

EXPERTisE iT sTRATEGY BUiLDinG, PEOPLE MAnAGEMEnT; MAnAGinG GREEn FiELD hOTEL PROJECTs; MAnAGinG GLOBAL 24X7 DATA CEnTREs; innOVATiOn

ACADEMiCs AnD CERTiFiCATiOns * sEniOR MAnAGEMEnT PROGRAM (sMP07) FROM iiM CALCUTTA

* MAnAGEMEnT DEVELOPMEnT PROGRAM FROM MDi GURGAOn * GARTnER ACADEMY FOR LEADERshiP DEVELOPMEnT FOR AsPiRinG CiOs * MAnAGinG PEOPLE MORE EFFECTiVELY FROM CORnELL UniVERsiT Y, nEW YORK * iTiL V3 CERTiFiED * MCsE (MiCROsOFT CERTiFiED sYsTEMs EnGinEER MAssAGinG) in Win2000 & EXChAnGE 2000 sPECiALiZATiOn in MEssAGinG * GniiT (sOFT WARE EnGinEERinG COURsE) , niiT

FAVOURiTE DEsTinATiOn EGYPT, MAURiTiUs

FAVOURiTE BOOK: sTAY hUnGRY sTAY FOOLis

FAVOURiTE GADGETs Ps3 AnD PsP

“Receiving the award during the Taj annual awards ceremony for successful

implementation of customer-focused project gave me a sense of satisfaction”

cube chat

7 3A u G u s T 2 0 1 2 | ITnexT

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update

7 4 itnext | A u G u S T 2 0 1 2

the hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next-generation gadgets and devices for you.Here is a preview of some tech toys &trends

Like something? Want to share your objects of desire? Send us your wish-list or feedback to [email protected]

inDulGe The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next generation gadgets and devices for you

update

7 5a u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

A platform to air your views on latest developments and issues that impact you

Rajesh Ranjan ProgrAm Director minDtree LtDsmartphones and tablets

are fuelling the demand for

analytics. the rise in cloud

based services is making

analytics available for

sMB. the earlier concept

of Business Intelligence

and Business analytics

being server-based

centralised operations is

giving way to self-service

and managed entitlements

in today’s recurring

business model. sMBs

who have more clout in

demand generation than

ever before and affordable

business analytics,

available on-demand, is the

future. I believe by 2015,

50 per cent of business

analytics functionalities

will be available on mobile

devices.

haRsha e HeAD-it consuLtAntHKm it soLutionsYes, Business analytics

is going to take off very

soon. the ultimate audi-

ence of the product and

service depends on quality

and stability. Hence, Ba

plays a vital role–it is

required for enhanced

customer service, product

analysis, selling opportu-

nities, efficient inven-

tory management, pricing

competition, etc. Data

retrieved from various

markets can indicate how

well a product is received

by the target audience

and what crucial changes

must be made to maxim-

ise revenue. this not only

helps make minor altera-

tions possible for specific

locations but also helps in

studying trends.

Ranganathan nmAnAger-Bits, mAHinDrA & mAHinDrA FinAnciAL services LtDanalytics means

business. Yes, Ba will

definitely take off in the

near future by help-

ing businesses take

better decisions and

actually change the way

companies do business.

Organisations today face

diverse challenges with

fierce global competition

and stringent regulatory

requirements. Customer

acquisitions, retention

and profitability are

key concerns. addition-

ally, reduced margins,

risk management, new

product initiatives have

put tremendous pressure

on traditional decision

making tools.

Will Business Analytics take off in the near future?

open Debate

Your views and opinion matter to us. send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the Editor at [email protected]

book FoR you

The Intention Economy

STar ValuE:

IT NEXT VERDICTthe book offers useful insights into the future of marketing, especially in the web and social media.

tItLE: tHE IntEntIOn ECOnOMY: WHEn CustOMErs takE CHargEautHOr: DOC sEarLsPuBLIsHEr: HarvarD BusInEss rEvIEW PrEssPagEs: 320PrICE: rs 750

WELL, customers have hardly taken charge (not in India by any stretch) but that is the direction we are all headed. a point made emphatically and interest-ingly in the Intention Economy. the author, a widely regarded blogger, journalist and advocate of the Internet, argues that consumers will soon be able to do a whole lot of things that may not look very appetising to many a marketing managers today: control how their data is used; build their own loyalty programmes; dictate their own “terms of service” to companies; and tell market-ers what they want, how and at what price. appetising or not, marketers who want to stay relevant should sit up and take notice. For, increasingly, the onus will be on them to sense and respond to consumers’ intentions. the book may not offer the ultimate solutions to market-ers (or enterprise architects who devise systems to deliver their messages) but it presents ample discussion points for a continued multi-log .

my log

7 6 itnext | A u g u s t 2 0 1 2

From the Bosses’ Mouth—About next100 Winnersthe bosses of the next100 winners are delighted with their teams’ increased confi dence levels and are now confi dently entrusting them with higher tasks

These bosses are a happy lot! They are the CIOs of the winning teams of Next100 winners who are delighted with their teams’ increased levels of confidence. They say these team members are completely

different personalities, and are now super enthusiastic about taking up challenges at the workplace.

The CIOs attribute this evolution to the Next100’s rigorous and intensive evaluation process. Most bosses said that the process was an excellent way to judge which candidate had all the capabilities to don the mantle of a CIO.

Some of them stated that the awards were instituted at the right time, when the management of their companies were mulling over the decision of entrusting higher responsibilities to the IT teams. These bosses are not only seeing a more confident and matured co-worker in their Next100 award winner, but also witnessing the growth of an individual who is now working towards driving better business efficiency and contributing to the overall business growth.

What is interesting to note is that each of the Next 100 winners’ bosses that IT Next interacted with candidly attributed this success to the awards’ process and its effort to unlock the potential of each of the IT teams, which hitherto had been overlooked.

Vilas Pujari & Prajwal Kumar

A M Amit Madan & Manish Sinha

Vijay Sethi & Ram Yadav

G S Ravi Kumar & U Arun Kumar Sheth

lEaDErShIp | NEXT 100

3 1A u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

On the Next100 Award ProcessThe process is very well-designed and covers large areas of skills required to be assessed for deserving

candidates for the award. The jury selection (of CIOs), from various parts of the country, spread across different industry verticals, is a good initiative. Besides, the methodology followed with regard to scrutiny of applications and jury discussions with the prospective awardees, reflects the fair evaluation criteria in the process. As a whole, the process has been well-conceived and positioned appropriately and all the awardees stand to benefit profesionally.

I will ensure more team members are ready in the future to face the Next100 award evaluation process.

How the Next100 Award has changed the WinnerPrajwal Kumar, DGM-IT from ACG Worldwide was the winner of the Next100 award in 2011, and the entire process, right from filling the application, has stimulated his thought-process and enabled him to think and raise several questions. The jury interaction in particular, inspired him, which in turn helped him in taking his role more seriously and also look at it from a wider perspective. I have seen him taking a systematic approach when it comes to handling issues and addressing them in a professional manner. His team management skills have improved and he interacts with the internal and business teams with far more ease. There are several positive changes observed in Prajwal which are definitely going to help him as an individual and benefit the organisation too.

At ACG, IT is closely involved in business strategies on a regular

basis. We hold meetings with the directors and business heads during which Prajwal puts across his ideas, laying an emphasis on using technology as a business enabler

while also reiterating the fact that technology can be part of business strategy.

While Prajwal has been handling IT infrastructure for some time now, he has been striding ahead

on the maturity curve and taking up higher responsibilities.

Suggestions for Changes in the Process

I do not see a need for a change in the process. It is a well-established

process and is working well. May be, IT Next could look at creating

more categories. The role of IT is extending beyond computers and

systems and involved in telephony, communication convergence.

ViLAS PUJARiCIO, aCG WOrlDWIDE

“i have seen him taking a systematic and professional approach to handling issues”

Prajwal KumarDgM-It, ACg Worldwide

(next100 winner, 2011)ph

Ot

OG

ra

ph

By

jI

tE

n G

an

Dh

I

Winner’s Boss

CUBE CHAT | aShISh Khanna

“i was so fascinated by iBM’s PC At system that i decided to get married to it and make a career of it,” says Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager It, EIH Limited

married to IT

It’s interesting to note that Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager-IT, EIH Ltd., was never influenced by the family business, as he had always aspired to get into the IT domain. The IT love bug bit Khanna when

he saw an IBM’s PC AT (Advanced Technology) machine in 1996 for the first time. “I was so fasci-nated by the system that I decided to get married to IT and make a career of it,” says Khanna.

So, after completing his bachelor’s degree in commerce, Khanna decided to kick-start his goal with a GNIIT course from NIIT in Lucknow. His career took off when he joined Mahindra & Mahindra as a Customer Support Engineer in Lucknow after his NIIT course. “The journey of my passion for IT took off in 2000 (the Y2K year) when M&M wanted me to integrate all dealer platforms nationallywith its backend ERP and facilitate online transactions for its dealers.”

“I was involved in the installation of new application and work on the process of migration of the existing data to the new platform and ensuring its stability,” says Khanna.

The project was successfully completed and on its completion, Khanna was made the pan-India head and was responsible for integrating the same software across the country. However, after a stint of 18 months, and a pan-India deployment, he decided to join Taj Hotels & Resorts in Lucknow as IT in-charge. Among the 13-odd departments, IT was one. His primary role was to manage the IT needs of the internal and external customer at the hotel, right from framing budgets, vendor management, maintaining uptime of IT infrastructure etc. “Working in the service industry requires lot of dedication--24x7 and 365 availability of an individual with a smile on his face. “Athithi devo

“god is great. Always be

Positive”

MY SUCESSMANTRA

BY MANU SHARMA

7 2 itnext | A u g u s t 2 0 1 2

bhava” or “The guest is God” is engraved in everyone’s blood at the time of joining.”

He was also instrumental in setting up the Central Reservation System and Central Email System at the Taj in Lucknow, besides initiating a VoIP project at the hotel that connected all the Taj properties. He also formulated a cross-department team which further enhanced IT systems for improving customer satisfaction. This initiative fetched him an award during the Taj’s annual awards ceremony for the best practices used for enhancing guest satisfaction. “Receiving the award during the Taj annual awards ceremony for successful implementation of customer-focused project gave me a sense of satisfaction,” remarks Khanna.

As a Head of IT Infrastructure of EIH Group, Khanna says the first challenge

was to start the consolidation of group-wide IT infrastructure which was till then running in silos. “I spearheaded the whole project from conceptualisation, architecture, deployment to UAT (user acceptance testing).” he says.Currently, his focus is to virtualise the data centre to have less server density and make IT more agile along with building a DR strategy and deploy a pay-as-you-use model.His major stress buster while handling such a demanding and stressful job? To think of his daughter and her pranks: “I always imagine her smiling face--that gives me much needed relief from stress.”The individuals he admires and draws inspiration from are E Sreedharan, MD, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of UIDAI.

FACT FIlE

namE aShISh Khanna

CurrEnt DESIGnatIOn COrpOratE manaGEr It InFraStruCturE

CurrEnt rOlE hEaDInG It InFraStruCturE FOr thE OBErOI GrOup

EXpErtISE It StratEGy BuIlDInG, pEOplE manaGEmEnt; manaGInG GrEEn FIElD hOtEl prOjECtS; manaGInG GlOBal 24X7 Data CEntrES; InnOVatIOn

aCaDEmICS anD CErtIFICatIOnS* SEnIOr manaGEmEnt prOGram (Smp07) FrOm IIm CalCutta

* manaGEmEnt DEVElOpmEnt prOGram FrOm mDI GurGaOn* GartnEr aCaDEmy FOr lEaDErShIp DEVElOpmEnt FOr aSpIrInG CIOS* manaGInG pEOplE mOrE EFFECtIVEly FrOm COrnEll unIVErSIt y, nEW yOrK* ItIl V3 CErtIFIED* mCSE (mICrOSOFt CErtIFIED SyStEmS EnGInEEr maSSaGInG) In WIn2000 & EXChanGE 2000 SpECIalIZatIOn In mESSaGInG* GnIIt (SOFt WarE EnGInEErInG COurSE) , nIIt

FaVOurItE DEStInatIOnEGypt, maurItIuS

FaVOurItE BOOK: Stay hunGry Stay FOOlIS

FaVOurItE GaDGEtS pS3 anD pSp

“Receiving the award during the Taj annual awards ceremony for successful

implementation of customer-focused project gave me a sense of satisfaction”

CUBE CHAT

7 3A u g u s t 2 0 1 2 | itnext

The Tech Springtechnology heads and architects can indeed be the enablers of positive change we now see around us

Sanjay GuptaConsulting Editor—It next (Online)

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In the past few weeks, actor Aamir Khan’s debut TV programme, Satyamev Jayate, has sent a ripple of renewed enthusiasm for positive change in a country that has been marred by poverty, lack of education and, of late, a long list of corruption scan-dals. Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are abuzz with the issues raised on the show, which have included female foeticide, alcoholism and food contamina-tion, among others. Such shows have been telecast before and people have been resent-ing poor governance, corruption and a lack of a decent life (for the majority, not just the elite) for several years. Yet something has changed in the recent past that, combined with the collective angst, can make a big dif-ference—unlike earlier, when the televised shows fizzled out after the initial emotive outburst.

What has happened is that technology, media and content are coming together in multiple ways—through blogs, social networks and devices such as tablets and smartphones—enabling large numbers of people to share views, comment on current events and give feedback to other people, organisations and government authorities. And all of this in real or near-real time.

I would like to call this phenomenon the Tech Spring. Something that is sprouting seeds of change all over the world. The Tech Spring can be viewed as a global movement in which the world’s citizens, many of

who are increasingly travelling for work or pleasure, are growing more and more sensitive towards individual rights and displaying an increasing intolerance for oppression and lack of transparency.

I remember reading an article that related how people in hostile domains used Twitter effectively to reach out to and alert their friends just in time to avoid perilous situations (such as illegal or forced captivity). Government authorities are known to have been forced to do about-turns on decisions that were ripped apart by people on social media. (I don’t know how Mamata Banerjee took all the outpouring of criticism in the aftermath of her excessive remark about a political cartoon recently, though I’m sure she must have felt the weight of public opinion against her own.)

In this vortex of change, where do the architects and decision makers of technology fit in? It is my belief that, contrary to their popular geeky and rather aloof image, IT folks are as much impacted by the social, cultural and technological changes around them as any other group of people. In fact, they have the opportunity and the capability to build systems that can further up the ante on transparency, knowledge-sharing, governance and liberty. When technology is coming to the forefront the role of IT managers and CIOs is more significant than ever. They are the pivot on which Tech Spring can be built.

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IT Next August 2012

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