IT Next September 2012

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GET,SET, CIO!

CXOs chalk out what they expect from IT managers as future CIOsPg 16

K VaitheeswaranCEO, India Plaza

Rostow RavananCFO, MindTree

Girish RaoHead-ITMarico Industries

51 06 44BOSS TALK:Security deficit in government

INTERVIEW:SAP Labs’ Neumann on customers’ innovation

BIG Q Private Cloud breakthroughs Pg 71

STRATEGY: Next100 Winners’ Dreams

Editorial

1S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | itnext

This is a grossly absurd statement. In fact, the CIO role is indeed evolving and opportunities for CIOs

to prove their mettle are only increasing. Why then do experts want to claim the opposite? How can something get outdated when technology is becoming all pervasive and influencing every individual, both professionally and personally?

That’s why a CIO will definitely not be a thing of past, but will blossom into a new personality, a new domain. The new avatar will primarily be influenced by the other Cs, such as CFOs, CEOs ; who are, in reality, increasingly depending on the CIO and IT teams to establish processes, to help in business expansion and growth.

And that’s why IT Next’s cover feature in this edition highlights various ways and paths for IT managers, leading to the CIO role. And to take a pragmatic view of the reality prevailing in the industry, the story attempted to gain insights from CEOs, Board of Directors and CFOs, along with CIOs about their expectations from IT managers, plus the professional, business and management skills future CIOs must imbibe to adorn the role of a CIO.

The study provides perspectives from all Cs on what the changes in the business world mean to future CIOs, what steps will help them take the reins at this ideal position--a position which elevates and empowers them to take business responsibility and control.

“It is about progressive minded upward-looking IT managers finding the right path to scale up to take up the C-Suite”

Road Map To The C-Suite

Blogs To Watch!The CXO in the Next-Generation Enterprise https://blogs.oracle.com/webcenter/entry/the_cxo_in_the_next

CXO Expectations Still Clouded on Virtualization http://meship.com/Blog/2011/06/14/cxo-expectations-still-clouded-on-virtualization/

The NEXT Quality professional http://nareshchoudhary.blogspot.in/

Information Optimized http://informationoptimized.com/blog/tag/cxo/

Professional Network for CIOs and IT Professionals ...

http://www.ciozone.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Open-Season-on-CIOs.html&Itemid=713

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

Wonder what that’s about? it is about progressive minded upward-looking it managers finding the right path to

move up the career ladder and take up the role of a Cio or CEO; - which I call the C-Suite.

You have all read various reports from industry experts and research groups saying the CIO career is getting over, outdated, obsolete; that it may cease to exist in future.

2 itnext | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2

Contents e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 V o l u m e 0 3 | I s s u e 0 8

16Page

For the l atest technology upDates go to itnext.in

Cover Story

19 Mind the Entire BusinessImbibing business and management skills are critical for IT managers to become the CEO of the IT department

22 Defining Personal SkillsChiefs emphasise the importance of personal skills which can help IT managers to tide over the challenges 24 Road map to CIO’s New AvatarFuture CIO will play the role of a functional expert 26 Future CIOs’ Take on Skilling FieldsVisualising a better path to scale up to CIO with necessary skills

28 14 Secrets to adorn a CIO RoleA 360 degree approach for moving up the ladder to take on the CIO role

06 Insecure Governance | Atul Khatavkar, VP-IT, AGC Net-works on security deficits in the government sector

boSS talk

44 Customers Inspire Innovation| Clas Neumann, Senior VP, Global Head SAP Labs talks about HANA development

IntervIew

Facebook:http ://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=195675030582

Twitter :http : //twitter.com/itnext

LinkedInhttp://www.l inkedin .com/groups?gid=2261770&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

phoTography: jiten gandhi & srivatsa shandilya desIgn: shigil ncover

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GET,SET, CIO!

CXOs chalk out what they expect from IT managers as future CIOsPg 16

K VaitheeswaranCEO, India Plaza

Rostow RavananCFO, MindTree

Girish RaoHead-ITMarico Industries

51 06 44BOSS TALK:Security deficit in government

INTERVIEW:SAP Labs’ Neumann on customers’ innovation

BIG Q Private Cloud breakthroughs Pg 71

STRATEGY: Next100 Winners’ Dreams

gET,SET, cio!cXos chalk out what they expect from IT

managers as future cIos

3s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | itnext

InSIGHt34 reverse Gear for High Cloud | Suresh Karra, Head of Consulting for Cloud, Infosys Ltd advises IT managers to work backwards to develop and determine what is needed under cloud strategy

15-MInuteManaGer59 MDM for Mobility | Sunil Lalvani, Director Enterprise Technology, RIM India says IT managers find new ways to manage the increasing mobility trends 63 virtually real | Vijay Mhaskar, VP-Information Management Group, Symantec insists on being innovative to put business critical apps on a virtual platform

tHe bIG Q 71 breakthrough the Clouds |Experts’ views on what kind of cloud model is suitable and which applications should migrate to the cloud and the benefits to expect

Cube CHat 66 learning is living | Sharat M Airani, Chief-IT (Systems & Security), Forbes Marshall says his deep interest in the IT security space prompts him to do research, probably take up a PhD

off tHe SHelf 68 Samsung rolls Slim beam Smartphone Projector

51Page

InSIGHt | bIg daTa

3 0 itnext | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2

Big DataBig Dataspotting the

30Page

Dreams: What they mean to next100 Winners | The winners have dared to dream about their future roles, projects, education, etc

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INBoX


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.

The TPL event was very good and relevant to all IT heads and managers. All the arrangements were excellent including the location of the event. However, our team feels that some changes must be incor-porated next year which will make it a richer experience. Firstly, par-ticipants need more briefing and mentoring on how to present the case study. Even though they were briefed, many doubts cropped up while preparing the presentation. Moreover, the judges were not entirely from a technology background. They appeared to be into business than technology. We feel that the judges should be a mix of both busi-ness and technology, maybe in the ratio of 50:50. As far as IT Next is concerned, I feel it covers more of technology and less of subjects like

education. Everyone knows the importance of education and its future benefits. I request the edi-tor to include new technologies and developments in education in your future issues.

Hari KrisHna maram, Head-it, imperial Group

IT Next is an excellent plat-form for IT managers who are aspiring to become CIOs. I have read several issues, Ifeel the magazine focuses more on technology and less on India-centric case studies. For exam-ple, I participated in a webinar on enterprise mobility earlier today and one of the vendors showcased an Indian company implementing a mobile appli-cation to overcome challenges. I feel if such Indian case stud-ies are published in IT Next, it would help IT heads leverage technological initiatives better. With regard to the TPL event, the business situation given to the participants should be more rel-evant to technologies like BYOD, cloud, mobility, social networking etc. This would provide partici-pants good learning..

rajesH Verma,

Head-it, Cafe Coffee Day

In the article titled, ‘Smart Steps to Virtualisation’ in the July, 2012 edition of IT Next, Citrix’s spokesperson Nilesh’s designation has been incorrectly mentioned as Manager Systems Engineering-India Subcontinent, Citrix.

The correct designation is Nilesh Goradia, Head - Pre-Sales - India Subcontinent, Citrix.

Error Regretted. Editor

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

august 2012

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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

The just concluded TPL 2012 event was a good learning experience not just for me but also my team. It is one platform where CIOs and IT managers all worked together to win a competition. I especially liked the format of the competition and also the location of the event. However, when it came to the scoring pattern, there were some issues. We were expected to be among the top 5 teams and at least become runners up. But we did not. If we received some insights into our scores, it can help us understand where we went wrong. I hope that from the second year onwards, the scoring pattern would be different and shared with all participants. I would appreciate it if you could make it more transparent; that would make for an even better experience.raGHu Kumar paruCHuri, Head-erp & it, tata power (strategic electronics Division)

Register today!

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“The government sector fails to understand that information is money and that every department is responsible to protect it”

One key focus for government enti-ties is to enable all government bodies with adequate IT infra-structure to serve the public better. However, the roles of IT managers

are confined to just keeping the lights on. The new concept of IT aligning with business to drive growth is still not nurtured in the sector.

There is absolutely no doubt that government bodies including PSUs are aggressive about absorbing new technologies, focussed around network up-gradation, data security, building data centre across locations, increasing focus on building SWAN etc. When it comes to information security, the approach is lackadaisical.

CISO ChallengesAs long as there is no structured designate, CISO’s (chief information security officer) role in the government sector is not taken seriously. The tools deployed are not up to the mark and the technological advancements are not leveraged to the fullest extent. Also, the technological deployment process has to undergo multiple levels of verification and approval right from inception to post-delivery management. This, at times, takes very long. But, today, technology evolves at a very brisk pace: by the time a project reaches initiation of execution, the technology could be so advanced that the process could have to start from scratch again.

The government sector fails to understand that information is money and that every department or group is responsible for protecting information.

Best Security PracticesIt is crucial for any IT manager in the

government to evangelise the importance of governance, risk and compliance within the company. The first step towards addressing security challenges is to align the solution

Insecure Governance

BuSIneSS ManaGeMent

delivery model to government requirements. This model would enable the partner to undertake quick and effective implementation of IT projects within the given timeline. Having an effective project management office is critical. The hygiene factor could be established by

Deploying a good IT Service management (ISMS) framework solutions based on ISO 20000 to measure as well as monitor the effectiveness of IT services

Establishing a Business Continuity management system to prepare and avoid disruptions in services

Adopting new security tools and technologies for cost saving, and building a transparent ecosystem which is the need of the hour

Active involvement of decision makers and faster processing of security project; this is important to secure the environmentSecurity heads in the government sector have to work out an effective RoI strategy. A matured security model to justify security investments and single integrated management systems which can address both business continuity and IT services need to be evolved. eriodic security audits will create a good hygiene factor.

the author is Vp-It Governance, risk & Compliance, AGC Networks

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

suGGestIoN boX

title: emotional intel-ligenceauthor: Daniel goleman impresseD with the con-cept of social anD emo-tional learning which is shaping human life. publisher: barnes & noble price: `850/-

Boss talk | atul KhatavKar

OpiniOn


OpiniOn

The cloud is becoming a real-ity in most organisations, and research groups such as Gartner, are endors-ing the prevailing trend--

indicating that the adoption of public cloud services has increased from 12 per cent to 27 per cent (private cloud from 19-26 per cent) in organisations. A report by consulting firm Zinnov Man-agement Consulting estimates that the cloud computing market will grow from US$400 million (currently) to US$4.5 billion by 2015.

What are the drivers? Obviously, a lower than estimated growth in the economy along with high inflation puts pressure on enterprises to reduce overall operations cost. IT managers of Indian enterprises today must optimise their IT budget to support growth initiatives without compromising the quality of the service, and find a solution in cloud.

More than CAPEX & OPEXCloud based services offers both challenges and opportunities for IT departments of organisations. Though these services are always associated with lower CAPEX and operations cost, IT departments still have to demonstrate how these can be achieved. Another challenge is to decide from where and how to start the cloud journey.

Approach from non-core to coreA suggested approach is to start with non-core services which are not absolutely critical for operations/business, and have less security related issues. Ideally, these services should be

an enterprise think of moving their core IT systems like ERP and other LOB applications to move to the cloud.

Preparing a business case–cal-culating TCOBefore starting, IT managers must prepare a business case for cloud adoption. They need to understand that it is not really only a CAPEX vs. OPEX story. To make a business case for cloud adoption, they must calculate TCO over three years, a typical period for hardware refresh.

TCO calculated over three years across three categories including internal IT, Managed Services and the Cloud. With an average capital investments of Rs 10 lakhs on internal IT, besides AMC charges going up to Rs 1.5 lakhs, monthly service charges amounting to Rs 500 and monthly labour charges accounting for Rs 1 lakh and other miscelleneous cost for three years accounting for Rs 50.68 lakhs, the savings that the IT managers would derive is nil. Against the same logic, with no upfront capital investment, if they opt for Managed Services or Cloud, the savings are relatively significant, except fo rthe monthy service charges that are incurred. As discussed above, enterprises can save around 25-30 per cent over three years by moving two applications and two database servers to cloud.

Cloudy Road AheadThe large enterprise segment in India is seen more inclined towards private cloud environments, while SMBs adopt public clouds to suit their requirements. BFSI and government verticals are seen as potential early adopters of cloud technology in India. As the market matures and services evolve, Indian enterprises will slowly start moving mission critical applications to cloud. By 2018, we will see ERP applications, or data intensive and core applications such as core banking software for banks moving towards a cloud model.

“IT managers must optimise their budget to support growth initiatives without compromising the quality of service, and find a solution in cloud”

Coping with Cloud

those where the IT department is the sole decision maker. Some of these are:

Mail and other collaboration applications like Intranet

Disaster Recover system--this is the fastest growing cloud services in India

Development, QA, and Staging environment

HRMS, Payroll, CRM, and other supporting process applications

Self service / internal support portalsOnly when these apps/services are

successfully migrated to cloud, should

money wisesomenath nag, Director in alten calsoft labs

update


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teCH treNDs | International Data Corporation (IDC) recently released a new research report, India IT Market Overview Report - 2012, which provides stakeholders in the IT ecosystem and related firms with a holistic understanding of the IT market scenario in India. Some of the key highlights of the report:

Despite economic volatility, IT spending will grow by 16.3% in 2012. Traditional verticals such as BFSI, Communication & Media,

Government, Manufacturing and IT/ITeS continued to be the

Indian IT spend will grow at 16% in 2012: IDC

highest spenders in 2011 with a moderate CAGR (2010-2015) of 14%-18%. Retail & Wholesale, Energy & Utilities, and Healthcare witnessed tremendous growth (23%) in IT spending. The trend is expected to continue.

India is witnessing a phenomenal increase in SME spending on IT. SME accounted for 38% of Enterprise IT spending in 2011. This is expected to grow to 43% by 2015.

Investments on emerging technologies such as Social Media, Cloud, Mobility and Big Data are on the rise.

The total IT market is expected to grow to US$43.57 billion in 2012, up from US$37.46 billion in 2011. Despite lesser than expected GDP growth figures in 2011-2012 followed by a similar trend in the quarter ending June 2012, India still commands a high growth rate, next only to China among the BRIC countries--and higher than several developing economies.

Rupee depreciation and high inflation have slowed down consumer spending, but this is expected to be temporary.

“Cautious optimism will continue with most enterprises. However, this is not expected to reduce IT investments. It merely indicates that future investments will undergo intense scrutiny and that effective financial and risk management will gain priority in the days to come,” said Ravi Sharma, Research Manager, Consulting Group, IDC India.

SMEs and emerging

technologies to drive

domestic IT investment;

social media, cloud,

mobility, big data on the

upswing

Updatei n d u s t r y

source: www.totaltele.com

In a survey by Alcatel-Lucent, the majority in Asian selected the local telecoms incumbent as the most likely player to win their cloud services business.

Focus on Asia for cloud servicesAsian telecoms operators can take advantage of the region’s burgeoning cloud services market.

Cloud

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nexus Q new roll out According to Google, this orb-shaped device is

the world’s first social streaming media player

at Google I/O, allowing multi-

ple Android devices to queue

and play content on the same

Nexus Q. It comes priced at

$299.

PAnAsoniC lumix dmC-lx7 panasonic has refreshed its Lumix line of cam-

eras and launched LX7 to succeed LX5. sport-

ing a 1/1.7-inch sensor,

the optics on the LX7

is crafted by Leica. It’s

capable of shooting in

rAW mode. price NA.

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teCH tIDINGs | India emerged as the second most risk ridden data centre location among the top 30 countries in a study con-ducted by Cushman & Wakefield and Hurleypalmerflatt. The ‘Data Centre Risk Index’ study evaluated the risks to global data centre facilities and international investment in business critical IT infrastructure.

In addition to water availability, India’s major risk factors are high energy costs, difficult business environment, high corporate taxes, high possibility of natural disasters, scarcity of educated workforce, energy insecurity, low GDP per capita and high inflation.

India Second Riskiest Country for Data Centres

the market, such as restrictions on foreign ownership, make India the world’s most difficult country to do business in, the report said. The main deterrent factors on which the country scored the lowest were ease of business, inflation, GDP per capita and corporation tax. India, however, ranked high on parameters of cost of labour and sustainability. Criteria such as quality of power and outages represent a challenge in India which is often exacerbated by increasing IT loads. Brazil is the riskiest country to operate a data centre in.

According to Arvind Nandan, ED, Consultancy, India Cushman & Wakefield, “India remains to be the preferred location for data centres and I have witnessed a growth in demand owing to certain advantages.”

Indian data centre market set for rapid growth over the next 5 yrs

Salesforce.com has recently completed its $689 million acquisition of social media marketing platform Buddy Media, the company said. The acquisition, announced in June, was rooted in the social synergy between the two companies. The duo claimed that the addition of Buddy Media’s service will vastly improve Radian 6, a social media listening platform. Founded in 2007, Buddy Media has expanded to social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

around the world

Salesforce.com closes deal for Buddy Media

s d shibulAl, ceo of Infosys

“Infosys will stick to its target of hiring 35,000 people this fiscal but is not looking at wage hikes for now. The hiring plan includes 13,000 jobs for its BPO operations”.

While the Indian data centre market is poised for rapid growth over the next five years, power security is a significant consideration there, the report reads. High barriers to entry into

quIck byte

motorolA Atrix hd It is perhaps the most power-

ful handheld gaming device

available today. powered by

an Arm Cortex and A9 quad-

core chip, it allows nearly

every form of input. price: rs

19,990.

source: agencies

update


sify technologies Limited, a global

player in the managed enterprise,

Network and It services in India,

with growing global delivery

capabilities, announced the ap-

pointment of Kamal Nath as Chief

executive Officer. raju Vegesna,

CmD said, “Kamal has led various

transformational engagements

with large enterprises, incubated

business lines, created innovative

business models and promoted

entrepreneurial decision-making.

His knowledge of systems Inte-

gration services, It Infrastructure

management services, technology

Integration services & strate-

gic Outsourcing will be vital for

achieving growth.” Kamal will lead

the team that will work to realise

sify 3.0, the vision to make sify

technologies a services and solu-

tions leader. Kamal was a Founder

member of HCL Comnet, the Infra-

structure services division of HCL

tech and has been a key member

of HCL tech’s growth story over

the years. In his 17-year career

at HCL tech, he had front-ended

engagements with customers of

various verticals like bFsI, energy

& Utilities, Large enterprises,

manufacturing and retail.

tech trends

sify appoints Kamal nath as Ceo

teCH pArtNerING| Netmagic Solu-tions became India’s first managed IT hosting services provider to offer true Disaster Recovery (DR)-as-a-Service to support business continuity and IT disaster recovery needs for enterprises.

DRaaS will use Sanovi’s CloudDRM software and Netmagic’s multi-location Datacentres and Infrastructure Management Services for end-to-end management of DR Operations. Customers can deploy their DR infrastructure either on physical and/or on virtual environment to meet their business requirements. The model provides built-in data replication, customisable DR SLAs that are monitored in real-

Netmagic & Sanovi Partner to Bring DRaaS in India

time, automated DR drills and tamper-proof audit and compliance reports.

With this joint offering, Netmagic and Sanovi help customers deploy a comprehensive DR strategy without incurring huge upfront investment, provide assured DR SLAs, and reduce the business exposure to IT outages in a pay-as-you-grow model. It is an end-to-end DR Solution bundled as a service. It can be availed not only by customers whose Primary Data centre is hosted with Netmagic, but also by others providers. This service is ideal for organisations evaluating the hybrid strategy and is a natural best fit DR solution for the SMB sector.

Customers can deploy their DR infrastructure either on physical and or on virtual environment to meet their business re-quirements.

Google Inc said it acquired marketing start-up Wildfire to help the world’s largest Internet search company expand further into social media. Wildfire provides software that links to Facebook Inc, Twitter, LinkedIn Corp and other social networks, allowing customers to manage their online brand and presence. Clients include Sony Corp and Amazon.com Inc.

NewS @

BlOg

GooGle acquires start-up WildfireBlogs report that Wildfire will help the internet search company expand further into social media

source: agencies

update


teCH-CONNeCtION| IBM has announced that HMEL, a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd, Singapore, has adopted a new IBM analytics-based solution to trans-form the way the company manages its financial and opera-tions data.

HMEL has built the 9 MMTPA (million metric tonne per annum) Guru Gobind Singh Refinery in Bathinda, Punjab. HMEL had earlier engaged IBM as its strategic partner for the design and implementation of manufacturing execution systems (MES).

The new IBM solution integrates information from various components of the MES, (ERP), and control systems within the refinery and delivers a consolidated, single view of the data. It will enable HMEL to analyse key corporate business processes. “As a green-field project, we wanted to leverage the best of technology. We needed a solution that would provide a centralised view of all our assets and IBM’s framework, built for our industry, addressed our requirement,” said Moiz Tankiwala, COO, HMEL.

IBM Analytics Solution for More Operation Efficiency

teCH treNDs | Indian Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) are also finding cloud application a secure and cost effective way to improve their customer relationship man-agement, while Oracle has been making headway in attract-ing numerous customers. Some of the new cloud customers

that Oracle has added include: Flipkart, Idea, 3M, Make My Trip, Schneider, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra Satyam and Tech Nova, among many others. Oracle offers over 100 different Oracle applications on the cloud that include: ERP, HCM, Talent Management and CRM experience. “Our cloud platform, gives an option to port codes to and from cloud to the premises and the functionality of hybrid that lets the organisation have the best of private and

public cloud,” said Atul Tuli, Sales, CRM On-Demand (Appli-cations), Oracle India. Venky Vijay, Principal Consultant, Virtous, says that now Flipkart has the ability to have a 360 degree view communication which was not possible before; this has raised its customer portfolio by leaps and bounds.

SMEs Opt for Oracle Cloud

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update

dossier

aniket Patange

director–

datacenter

Lifecycle services,

schneider electric,

says that assigning

a standard energy

cost per server

is an effective

approximation for

data centres with a

relatively uniform

server population

Simple, no-cost model,

with few measurements and

modelling capabilities is recommended for

effective Data Centre energy use and carbon

allocation


ASK THE EXPERTALLOCATING DC ENERGY COSTS AND CARBON TO IT USERS

Can you describe the sources of data centre carbon emissions?With regard to carbon allocation, the carbon impacts of data centres are indirect, coming from three sources:• Carbon emissions created during the fabrication of the data centre and its IT equipment (embedded carbon)• Local carbon emissions from heating systems, emer-gency generators, or co-generation systems• Carbon emissions created during the creation of elec-trical power necessary to power the data centreIn general, most discussions, benchmarking, or report-ing of carbon are limited to those due to emissions caused by operations.

How do you define the goals of a system for assessment of energy efficiency or carbon impact of a data centre?If the objective is to bring in an overall reduction in ener-gy use and carbon impact, one has to set a combination of goals with reduced focus on benchmarking.There are three different goals to consider:• One-time or periodic benchmarking of performance

• Pass-through allocation of energy or carbon to users• Use of information to reduce infrastructure energy use or carbon impacts

The first goal can be useful to determine if an ongoing energy management programme should be investi-gated or started. If benchmarking reveals performance that is comparable or better than other similar data centres, then perhaps the whole issue can be ignored. Conversely, if benchmarking reveals performance that is below par, an ongoing energy management programme is likely to have good returns. However, for impact, one or both of the two goals must be implemented.

The second goal indicates that some data centres act like a data centre utility provider to other organisations - supplying either physical data centre infrastructure or providing IT infrastructure on a per-compute or per-server basis. However, the opportunity to save energy and reduce carbon impacts in a data centre is enor-mous, ranging from 10 per cent to 80 per cent reduc-tions, depending on the existing level of maturity and virtualisation. The third goal uses a metric to bench-mark data centre infrastructure energy use through

20 %

90 %tosavings in energy and carbon usage can be evolved with effective IT behaviour and physical infrastructure managementSource: Schneider Electric-Data Center Science Center


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

Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE and DCiE. In many data centres, the power consumed by the physical infra-structure is greater than the power used by the IT loads (PUE). Therefore, the reduction of energy use in physi-cal infrastructure, on a percentage basis, is nearly as important as reducing the IT load.

Effective physical infrastructure management can reduce the energy use and carbon impacts from 10 per cent to 40 per cent based on the condition, settings, configuration, and loading of the data centre.

What would be the appropriate measurement protocol to manage the systems effectively?If a perfect model of a data centre could be created, there would be no need for any measurements. The model should have complete information about the nature, quantify the operating conditions of the IT load, contain the characteristics and operating conditions of all of the infrastructure equipment, and should be capable of accepting inputs from historical data. It could simply compute all energy flows. A perfect model of a data centre might require a huge amount of custom programming and maintenance. But a good model can be created using only a rough inventory of the infrastructure and IT devices deployed, information about their configuration (N+1, 2N, etc) and some basic knowledge of the electrical characteristics of the IT and infrastructure devices. Such a model, with very few measurements, can provide acceptable accuracy for an energy management program.

Can you explain the process of measuring and allocating IT capacity to users?IT capacity can be measured and allocated in a variety of ways, including compute cycles, servers, cores, tera-bytes, rack cabinets, square feet, virtual servers, etc. An ideal model of IT use might include all of these fac-tors in assigning costs, energy, or carbon. However, to start with a simple model, measuring IT capacity in number of servers can be evolved to map other mea-sures too. If an IT user can be allocated a number of servers, then to assign energy and carbon to that user, all we need to do is assign energy to a server; in which case the total energy use of an IT user is simply the number of servers assigned times the energy use allo-cated per server. The total energy allocation of a server becomes a sum of the server’s own energy use, plus

“An effective model of how the data centre works needs to be evolved before using measurement to identify and quantify improvements”

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allocations of energy use for storage, networking, power and cooling, lighting, and auxiliary loads.

For those data centres that have a relatively uniform server population, assigning a standard energy cost per server is an effective approximation.

What are the strategies that DC operators should evolve for better RoI and benefits?

Any discussion on energy management focuses on two factors—measurement, metering of energy. A ratio-nal approach to energy management requires some interpretation to measure the energy use. A model of how the data centre works must be evolved before using measurement to identify and quantify improvements. It is important to have either implicit models (knowledge of experienced experts) or explicit models (software tools) to determine this. Allocation of energy costs to IT users, too, requires a specific model. While the power consumption of servers could be measured directly and conceivably associated to IT users, the majority of the power in a data centre is used by loads other than serv-ers. In the energy management process, IT changes are made in response to energy and carbon data from the data centre model. The physical infrastructure changes are implemented in response to energy guidance from the model. In both cases, measurement is used, but it is the model that provides the interpretation and guidance to achieve the improvements.

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Storage

15

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CoolingW

Powe Network35 W

90 W

The server itself340 W

Auxiliary15 W

LightingW

cover story | cxos’ benchmark

1 6 itnext | S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2

oNeAll chiefs —It managers

become the target as enterprise chiefs chalk out key expectations from them as future CIOs

tArgetimaging: shigil n | Design: suneesh kPhotograPhy: Jiten gandhi & srivatsa shandilya

cxos’ benchmark| cover story

1 7S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | itnext

Directors, CFOs and CIOs, (the CXOs as we call them) to understand how they perceived IT and their expectations from future CIOs such as senior IT managers. It also aims at digging into the minds of these CXOs to solicit their suggestions and recommendations for budding CIOs on those skills they must imbibe related to business, management, and so on. Besides providing insights into qualifications and certifications that they deem fit for future CIOs, they also define the road map for CIOs in the midst of a changing business environment.

the Cxos’ many expectationsBusiness heads are experimenting with the hierarchical structure within the organisation to leverage IT to the full-est. One such case is at India Plaza: its CEO, K Vaitheeswaran, has made the software engineering team part of marketing to enable the two teams to work closely for better business results and understanding. Rostow Ravanan, CFO of Mind-Tree is pleased with the fact that he is able to exchange emails while on vacation, sitting on the beach - this, he believes, is possible through evolution in the IT function. However, there are gaps that IT managers need to fill, plus they must gain in expertise to measure up to the expectations of the top man-agement. Ajit Awasare, DGM-IT, Larsen & Toubro, says, “The challenges that IT managers face are addressing time man-agement and operational efficiency, multi-domain knowledge and people management skills.”(Read inside sections).

ower.It is all about power. The importance of every role in an enterprise is determined by the power the group wields. Taking a leap forward, holding the reins in one’s hands depends on the power you possess. That being so, the power of IT or the CIO cannot be undermined..

Ajit Awasaredgm-it, larsen & toubro

“the challenges that it managers face are addressing time management and operational efficiency, and multi-domain knowledge”

Thus, today, a new kind of CIO has emerged, one who’s a blend of a business strategist and operations tinkerer, one who’s altogether soaring to power beyond IT. IT Next seeks perspectives from enterprise heads such as CEOs, Board of

cover story | CXOs’ BenChmark


All chiefs, without exception, agree that for IT managers,business and

managerial skill development and understanding corporate

goals and strategies are as critical as becoming the

CEO of the department or enterprise. IT Next survey also reveals that nearly 80 per cent of CIOs and IT managers agree that it is important to contribute to business growth by acquiring the best skills possible. All Cs echoed that future CIOs should start minding the entire business and not just IT.

That clearly means that all skills under the business and managerial skills umbrella would lead to the path of adorning the role of a CEO in the long run. As for becoming a CIO, all pre-requisites of a business head are imperative.

For CIO Girish Rao, Head-IT, Marico Industries, mapping the value of the change and business impact due to the increased use of technology is a priority.

“IT managers need to focus on imbibing people management and talent management capabilities and channelise individuals to a newer growth path,” he says.

T G Dhandapani, CIO of TVS Motors, does agree that understanding business needs and proactively developing IT strategy for business is important. Dhandapani reiterates that providing solutions for solving business problems will reduce or control cost but developing solutions to grab opportunities will bring more value to the organisation. “IT managers should focus on “Shelf Engineering” and

mANAGemeNT SKILLS

Prepare and effectively manage IT budgets

Design, implement and manage IT processes, best practices & standards

Understand corporate goals/strategies and their impact on IT

Provide leadership, motivation and direction to IT team

Contribute effectively to corporate planning, agenda setting

Understand corporate governance, risk management, and compliance needs

Effectively lead transformational IT projects

Obtain buy-in, funding and approvals for IT projects

Forecast future IT needs

Set proper expectations from stakeholders

Manage unstructured situations and emergencies

Perform risk assessment and mitigation

Very Important Important Slightly Important Not Important Not relevant

02 04 06 08 01 00 120

to become a cIo,

MINd the entire

BusINessImbibing business and management skills are as important as It skills for It managers to become CeOs of It

CXOs’ BenChmark | cover story


keep solutions ready in anticipation of future business expectations,” says Dhandapani.

What does finance expect? As the finance head, Rostow Ravanan, CFO, MindTree, lays emphasis on future CIOs to understand who the customers for the business are, at what price points these customers would buy the organisation’s products/services, and in that context, what technology solutions can add value (ie, to either increase margins through cost savings, or increase sales or improve customer service levels etc) to the organisation.

“Drive technology based innovations while proving how those solutions can add value for the organisation via thorough financial analysis,” points out Ravanan. Be proactive, plan for growth, IT based threats etc. In today’s world, IT systems are core for any organisation, so high availability of IT systems is also a critical factor for success. Deploying solutions around mobility is also necessary since today’s workforce is more on the road, and also expected to be available 24x7, unlike before.

“People skills, facilitation skills, business domain understanding, negotiation skills, finance awareness and a “curiosity” mindset to look at diverse tech trends and see how they can benefit his/her organisation are key,” adds Ravanan.

Holding a finance portfolio, Narayan S Iyer, VP-Finance, Privy Organics avers that IT managers should understand the pulse of the business that the company is in.

“I expect the CIO to deliver and ensure that the software or the ERP tool used to generate

Financial Statements and MIS are free of any bug and

error. As the organisation grows, and people become scarce, it is very important that systems are set right properly, thereby avoiding manual intervention. That

apart, customised reports required for generating

various types of MIS and Statutory payments must be

Rostow RavanancFo, mindtree

“drive technology based innovations while proving how those solutions can add value for the organisation via thorough financial analysis”

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T G Dhandapani group cio, tvs motor

“it managers should focus on “shelf engineering” and keep solutions ready in anticipation of future business expectations”

and evolve an IT system which will ensure and take care of not only today’s requirement of the enterprise but also take care of the next 5 to 7 years of the company’s growth.”

From a CEO’s perspective, K Vaitheeswaran, CEO, India Plaza, admits, “Five years back, I would not have expected the CIO and team to think business. Now, I want my IT team to not only provide the platform for e-commerce, but expect them to track consumer behaviour, buying patterns, personalisation and monetisation of the information drawn through social media, and overall, be a businessman,” says Vaitheeswaran.

It is also important to use technology to figure out changes in the consumer behaviour and demand.

“I think there should be a cultural shift in how IT is treated and bring in the required change in the attitude among various teams towards IT and vice versa,” remarks Vaitheeswaran. To enable this, I am following a reverse flow; I brought in a structure where the software engineering and development team report to the marketing head.” The early results, according to him, are encouraging.

As a future CIO, Ajit Awasare, DGM-IT, Larsen & Toubro, points out that the CIO can influence the profitability, market reach and availability of products using innovative approaches based on customer need.

02 04 06 08 01 00 120

buSINeSS SKILLS

Prepare and effectively manage IT budgets

Negotiate effectively with stakeholders, contractors & vendors

Create and implement innovative solutions

Contribute to success of business units


correctly evolved. Lastly, a dashboard on the Finance heads’ PC to reflect major parameters like Sales, Bank Borrowings, collections, profitability etc., should also be evolved; this will help in taking any strategic decision,” avers Iyer.

Iyer adds, “The CIO of any company should definitely understand the corporate goals and strategies to formulate



ersonal skills contribute a great deal towards enabling aspiring IT managers to tide over the tough journey as they climb up the career

ladder towards the role of a CIO. Needless to say, there is complete

consensus about this among the top management across business heads, finance heads, board of directors and technology heads. It is crucial to understand the important personal skills that

they need to develop towards meeting their goals.

What do personal skills mean to the chiefs?TG Dhandapani, CIO, TVS Motors says, “I would say that IT managers should acquire business acumen and customer orientation as two important skills for their individual growth.”

What defines

PersoNAl skIllsthe three chiefs, including CeOs, CFOs and CIOs, reiterate the importance of developing personal skills which bring in the agility necessary to tide over challenges

for It Mgrs.

Vaitheeswaranceo, india Plaza

“it managers bring in adaptability skills

which help the project management team

lay the path for future growth”

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Narayan S Iyer, VP-Finance, Privi Organics Ltd., lays emphasis on developing effective practical communication which would help IT managers to put across their point clearly to the team, particularly in non-IT areas. “Developing listening abilities is crucial in diving deep into the subject; this helps analyse the issue in the right light and thereby improves his\her communication skills,” adds Iyer.

As finance head, Rostow Ravanan, CFO, Mindtree, drives home the point that future CIOs should nurture

Girish RaoHead-IT, Marico Industries

“Future CIOs need to adapt to changing environment at a faster pace and be open to fresh ideas and be able to change the status quo”

considered the fulcrum of technology and marketing, driving the business growth; this is where personal skills have contributed enormously.” The CEO says that IT managers are no longer technical people in the e-commerce industry. “They bring in adaptability skills which help the project management team lay the path for future growth,” says Vaitheeswaran.

The CIO of Marico Industries, Girish Rao, finds evolution in the role as well as expectations, as he finds being adaptable to change to be critical. “Future CIOs need to adapt to changing environment at a faster pace

and be open to fresh ideas and be able to change the status quo,” says Rao.

Future CIO, Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager-IT, Infrastructure, EiH Ltd., (Oberoi

Hotels) believes that understanding business needs and alignment with IT systems is the key skill needed to move up the ladder.

What bothers him most is that a lot of IT managers lack this quality and keep

blowing their own IT trumpet, whether it is a discussion with key IT vendors or with key

business stakeholders.

the ability to understand business drivers and be open to the technologies that can give business a competitive advantage. As a result Rostow says, “The ability to develop problem solving and thinking skills are vital, which will help them to get closer to business.”

K Vaitheeswaran, CEO, India Plaza, an e-commerce enterprise, finds a serious transition in the way technology and related teams are perceived. “The CIO and the team are

02 04 06 08 0 100 120

Ability to interact with seniors across departments

Adaptability to changing environment

Good presentation skills

Public speaking skills

Participation in professional events as a resource person

Diplomacy & conciliation skills

Ability to build networks outside the organization

Written communication skills

Ability to interact with peer managers across departments

Effective listening skills

PERSONAL SKILLS


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road Map to cIo’s

NeW AvAtArIn the new garb, a CIO adorns the role of a functional expert who draws a crucial intersection between business and technology in leading business expansion and growth

hange is always refreshing. Little wonder then that the current buzz in the industry is ‘Be the Change.’ CIOs and the top management, be it the CEO, CFO and the like, have emerged from their cocoons and embraced change. Most CIOs who IT Next interacted with emphasised that

future CIOs should change their status quo--this will drive them on the growth path they have carved for themselves. The change one can perceive among most enterprises, whether small, medium or large, is that every boardroom discussion invariably has the CIO keenly observing the changes in the strategies of the top brass. Any change that is made is towards driving better profitability, better work environment, better returns on investments

“i have witnessed scenarios where the Cio has become the Ceo in

many enterprises and the positive change is that Cio is now

involved in the day-to-day governance”

Narayan S IyervP-Finance, Privi organics ltd

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Best essential Practices to scale UP* Actively participate in business review

meetings

* Associate with company’s business

growth and strategies

* Develop soft skills to negotiate, decide

and present strategies

* Challenge the status quo

* bench mark with other colleagues

* Adapt to change management

* mature as an individual

* be able to understand corporate poli-

cies and company’s strategies before

implementing any It tool.

* ensure that the It department is well

managed both in software / erp and

hardware tools (this ensures error free

data flowing with no down time).

* try to adopt the latest It tools in the

market and use them in the business /

company in the best way possible

* be an innovator

* build alliances and partnerships

* build strong peer networks with CIOs

in other companies, both within the same

industry and across industries, on a

global basis

and a sincere need to be ahead of the competition. All these would be possible only if the operations were streamlined and efficient processes brought into being.

a future to-do list for a CioFrom a CIO standpoint, Girish Rao, Head-IT, Marico Industries, rightly points out that the change that is observed now is to believe that the CIO is not a technocrat, but the idol behind engineering the change in an organisation using better business processes and practices.

T G Dhandapani, CIO, TVS Motors, admits that the CIO should think of moving business metrics favourably using solutions, and think like a businessman. “I would recommend a sabbatical of one to two years of working in functional areas like logistics, operation, finance, in every four-year experience in IT,” says Dhandapani.

From a CEO’s standpoint, K Vaitheeswaran, CEO, India

Plaza, argues that the role of a CIO is completely business-dependent as certain sectors have a strong play around technology; this makes the job of the CIO much more critical, as he or she is the business enabler.

Finance heads receive many more demands from the CIO and team as they get much closer to the business than before.

As the finance head, Rostow Ravanan, CFO, MindTree, defines the road map for the future CIO: to become a functional expert whom business heads approach to seek innovations, thus drawing a business and technology intersection.

From a finance perspective, Narayan Iyer, VP-Finance, Privi Organics Ltd., finds the role of a CIO evolving. “I have witnessed scenarios where the CIO has become the CEO in many enterprises,” says Iyer and points out, “The change which is positive is that CIO is now actively participating in the day-to-day governance of the company and contributing towards corporate governance, security and policy matters.”.

Vital Professional skills* Develop skills to implement erp

* Hold a master’s Degree in business

processes

* the number of hours spent on the shop

floor a day, critical

* two facets of CIO—Application and

Hardware and communication skills

* engineering, mbA and Certifications

associated with network security, nego-

tiation skills, and finance for non-finance

executives

* A bachelor’s in It engineering and

degree in management

* Leadership courses, very critical

* Doing executive management

programmes from leading

institutes



Future CIOs arguably find several gaps

existing in the skills necessary

to scale up to CIO and visualise a

better path

AShISh KhANNAcorporate manager-it infrastructure, eih limited (oberoi hotels)

on Finance Knowing the numbers well and understanding finance is critical for IT managers. This is the primary reason why IT still reports to the CFO in many organisations: IT is always on the back foot when it comes to numbers.

on management skills A good listener, adaptability to a changing business environment, people management, effective communication and time management are must-have skills. The future CIO should also know the art of delegation.

Best essential Practices* Formulating a detailed IT strategy

*Understanding in depth a five-year road map for the enterprise

hese future CIOs have learnt the tricks of the trade and also understand

the importance of possessing personal skills, business and management skills. These vital professional skills form part of their goals, and while taking into account the needs of various groups within the organisation, they also help carve out a road map for the CIO of the future.

Future cIos’take onskIllINgFIelds


AjIT AwASARedgm-it, larsen & toubro

on Business and management skills Understanding business and architecting solutions according to business needs is critical: they can impact profitability, market reach and availability. Project management, time management, finance management, long term capital and operational impact of any proposed solution are most necessary.

Best essential Practices* Future CIOs should be part of business decisions and play a key role in decision-making* Checking frequent end-user or client feedback and ensuring improvements as per expectations* Keeping the IT budget slim* Constant ROI tracking * Talent acquisition and retention

Visualising Cio roleThe CIO role is changing from a back stage to a centre stage person, who has transitioned into an individual who can shape the company’s future, not be seen as a cost centre anymore.

The CIO can change the company’s outlook by impacting the top line, profitability, reach, cash flow prediction, or accuracy of inventory, or supply chain, which in turn can reduce the time line of back office processes. Soon, this position will become the pillar of the company’s future growth and sustenance, like the CFO’s.

retaining talent and developing design agile it sysems to support business

in a competitive market is one of the best practices followed

* Retain talent and design agile IT systems to support business in a competitive market* Keeping the operating cost low

Visualising the Cio roleThe CIO role is becoming more and more a business leader’s role than a technical head’s; it is expected to add value in improving revenue, customer experience and cost optimisation, rather than only technically evaluate a system.



IT managers need to take a 360 degree approach to take on the role

1. Leadership Skills--Move from being a manager to a leader, to make things happen despite limitations and beyond expectations

2. Business Acumen--Strong business acumen means awareness and understanding of business functions; getting insights into the challenges / concerns / problems / needs and enabling IT; resolving business issues

3. Team Player--Be cross functional to make things happen

4. Business IT Integration--Aligning business needs and integrating through technology to deliver value

5. Project Enablement--Move from project management to project enablement with regard to projects / initiatives that include leading and effectively managing the team

6. Discipline of Execution--Speed, timeliness and quality of execution

7. Committed to the role--A sense of responsibility and accountability besides great ownership for the role defined and assigned. 8. Customer Centric Approach--Walking the extra mile to render service beyond the defined role

9. Effective Communication--this involves effective communication on Business IT Initiatives including periodic update / tips on IT to create and strengthen the awareness of business IT across the enterprise

10. Effective presentation--Articulation and presentation of Business IT initiatives; this includes training to end users in non-technical (IT) language, aligning to respective functional needs

11. Vendor Management--Effective vendor management to ensure vendors are partners and extended team players; this includes outsourced and managed services

12. Continual Learning -- Continual enhancements of skills such as Leadership, Effective Managerial Skills, Business Acumen, Project Enablement, Technology Skills, Business IT Integration, Soft Skills etc

13. Technology Acume--In-depth understanding / awareness of technology, emerging trends; this includes evaluation of technology (understanding of technology) and aligning to business needs

14. Balance and Agility--Besides a work life balance, they need to know how to balance between multi roles and between technical and non-technical teams.

14 SecretS to Adorn a cIO rOle

V SubramaniamDirector - Information Technology & CIO(Otis India and Gulf Area),Board of Directors – OTIS ISRCOTIS Elevator (India) Ltd


2 8 ITnExT | S e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 2

insight | BIG Data


Big DataBig Dataspotting the

BIG Data | insight


here’s not an iota of doubt that businesses are under immense pressure to manage massive amounts of complex data. Informa-

tion levels are estimated to be growing at up to 80 per cent year on year, and the biggest challenge associated with that comes from the dramatic increase in managing unstructured data from emerging sources, such as desktops/laptops, audio/visual files, images, databases, social media and a variety of other data types that are prominent in an organisation, but frequently man-aged in ‘silos’.

This unrelenting growth is a major force driving the big data debate, which is further compounded by the universal adoption of virtualisation, the rapid shift to cloud-enabled services, the influx of mobile computing devices, demand for 24x7 operations and increasing consolidation.

Whilst big data brings with it a lot of good regarding new ways to create information that offers real business value, it also presents a new set of challenges for the IT department as organisations struggle to find ways in which to keep pace with more demanding service levels for recovery and collapsing backup windows--which often leads to overloaded networks and a tendency to turn to more costly alternatives. A fundamental issue here appears to simply be that there just isn’t enough time, resources or budget to manage, protect, index and retain massive amounts of unstructured data. The negative side effects of Big Data, which include risk, complexity and i

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cost, clearly need to be met head on if the positive benefits are to win out.

Preparing to Manage Big DataThere is still a long way to go in managing this change effectively, according to recent research. A survey of 207 security and IT operations professionals by LogLogic recently found “significant” gaps between theory and practice, across industries, with regard to preparation for and management of big data and cloud environments with more than a third of those questioned citing that they did not understand the concept of ‘big data’.

In fact, just under half (49 per cent) said they were “somewhat” or “very” concerned about managing big data, whilst 38 per cent said they did not have a clear understanding of what big data was. A further 59 per cent said that they lacked the tools required to manage data from their IT systems, resorting to using separate, disparate systems and even spreadsheets.

Legacy solutions found not ‘fit for purpose’Unfortunately, legacy data management methods and tools simply aren’t up to the task of managing or controlling the data explosion. Originally created to solve individual challenges, which has since led

It managers need to focus on core issues with a unified data management strategy to spot the big data and its benefitsBy Simon gregory

to multiple products being deployed to manage backup, archive and analytics and resulted in complex administration, information silos have now been created causing upgrade concerns and bringing forward the debate around the cost of alternatives versus current maintenance issues.

Traditional solutions also have two stages for each protection operation-- scan and collection. In order to perform backup, archive and file analytic operations, each product must scan and collect files or information from the file system. Synthetic full, de-duplication and VTL solutions may have been introduced to try to reduce repository problems but a lack of integration capabilities causes these solutions to fall short in the longer term. Typically, incremental scan times on large file systems can also require more time than actual data collection. We believe

According to Gartner, there are sev-

eral categories of vendors that claim

to offer big data. there are so many

solutions available today. All major It

vendors have solutions but no clear

mandates for interoperability and

standards: some of them include:

storage vendors and data manage-

ment system vendors: emC, Oracle,

Netapp, Ibm, tera Data

bI and analytics: Ibm, sAp, pentaho,

sAs, Oracle

big data in the cloud: Amazon elastic

map reduce, microsoft Azure, Google

packaged Hadoop distributions:

mapr, CLoudera, Hortonworks

Data integration and management:

Informatica, talend, Composite

software

Data warehousing tools

Best solutions ApproAch to Big DAtA

insight | BIG Data


“Unified data management approach enables data analytics and reporting to be performed from the index in order to help classify data and implement archive policies for data tiering to lower cost media”

— Simon Gregory, technology evangelist, CommVault

that there is an alternative approach, which is to adopt a unified data management strategy which collapses data collection operations into a single solution enabling the copying, indexing and storage of data in an intelligent, virtual repository that provides an efficient and scalable foundation for e-Discovery, data mining, and retention. Such an approach also enables data analytics and reporting to be performed from the index in order to help classify data and implement archive policies for data tiering to lower cost media. This also serves to reduce the total cost of ownership.

The advantages here are immediately clear. Built-in intelligent data collection classification will help to reduce scan times, which in turn allows companies to maintain incremental backup windows. Improved single pass and data collection for backup, archive and reporting also helps to reduce server load and operations. Integration, source-side de-duplication and synthetic full backup then further reduces the network load whilst a single index instantly decreases the silos of information.

The converged solution will create a single process that has the potential to

reduce the combined time typically

required to backup, archive

to the data heap is the objective behind recommending converged backup, archive and protection.

Companies should leverage a single platform that will enable those working with the information to intelligently manage and protect enormous amounts of data across a number of applications, hypervisors, operating systems and infrastructure from a single console. A policy-driven approach to protecting, storing and recovering vast amounts of data whilst automating administration will always be the best way to maximise IT productivity and reduce overall support costs. Eliminating manual processes and seamlessly tiering data to physical, virtual and cloud storage helps to decrease administration costs whilst increasing operational efficiencies.

A single data store would empower businesses to streamline data preservation and eliminate data redundancy during the review process which is now considered to be one of the major causes of skyrocketing data management costs. The ability to more easily navigate, search and mine data could fundamentally mean that big data is finally viewed as an asset to the business, not a hindrance.

simon Gregory, technology evangelist, Com-

mvault

and report by more than 50 per cent as compared to traditional methods.

Follow the ‘Core’ ApproachWhilst there are many ways to create big data, organisations that want to take control of the data tsunami would be advised to consider adopting a ‘Copy Once Re-use Extensively’ (CORE) strategy if they want to manage big data cost effectively in the long term. The key benefits to CORE are simple:

Process data once Store data once Retain data once Search data from one place Centralise policy management Automate tiering of data while

maintaining hardware and storage flexibility

Synchronise data deletion and automate space reclamation

There is no doubt that many organisations are having to walk a fine line between over-collection of data, which brings companies higher review costs, and under-collection, which presents them with the risk of missing key information, perhaps located in one of the emerging data sources - a critical issue in today’s world of information-on-demand, regulation and compliance.

The overall idea that all data sources, even those at the “edge” of the network could be accounted for – without adding

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It’s not utterly farfetched to con-tend that every G2000 company is seriously exploring some aspect of cloud computing or the other. Some are early adopters, and have

even implemented their core business systems on the cloud. Irrespective of where the enterprise is in its adoption journey, key stakeholders often won-der if all the moving parts fit together harmoniously, or if they will become a disastrous integration experiment.

It would have been great if there were cloud computing standards which were as simple and as widely adopted as, say, XML. It must however be noted that even though the first working draft for XML was published in 1996, it took almost a decade for it to become the de-facto standard for exchanging information (application interfacing, office productivity, etc.).

The question to ask ourselves is

about customer-driven prioritisation in standards development. The Open Data Center Alliance backed by Intel is focused on defining usage models and standards to speed the migration to cloud computing.

Standards are also being developed by various existing organisations. DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) has created standards on Cloud Management, The Open Group has a Cloud Computing Workgroup, NIST has detailed a Federal Cloud Standards Roadmap, and OMG has built a multi-view specification for cloud computing.

In addition, there is the Cloud Security Alliance, the Open Cloud Manifesto and The Open Grid Forum. It appears that The Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum has shut shop. The domain address pends deletion at the time of publishing.

With little or no defined cloud standards available, cloud experts advise IT managers to work backwards to develop and determine what is needed under cloud strategy

By suresh karra

whether it is economical to adopt some rudimentary standards now, or wait till much later. Meanwhile, though, cloud technologies will continue to proliferate within the organisation; so, if an enterprise wants to adopt cloud standards, should it start developing something from scratch, or is there something readily available?

Current State of Cloud StandardsToday, the cloud standards arena is a very crowded place. The protagonists predominantly are the various cloud vendors. Various new organisations have been newly set up to focus on developing cloud standards. The Open Stack project promoted by Rackspace and NASA is focusing on standards for a massively scalable infrastructure. The IBM-backed Cloud Standards Customer Council is trying to bring

For High Cloud Reverse Gear

3 4 Itnext | s e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 2

insiGHt | Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing | insiGHtIL

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What Should enterprises Do?Rummaging through all the standards websites to determine which best fits the needs of a large enterprise is a daunting task. Each of the above groups has a different focus. Being part of one of the aforementioned fora might not be the best solution either. Standards fora are typically divided into working groups that focus on specific areas. Each working group has hundreds of

members. Hence, the turnaround time for recommending new standards is usually long because deliberations are always consensus driven.1.Purpose-driven Retrograde ApproachTo solve the dilemma, we recommend a goal-oriented approach. This starts by determining what needs to be achieved, and then systematically works backwards to develop what is needed. The method is a little counter-intuitive

to the way standards are typically adopted in an enterprise. However, it must be noted that this approach is very lean, and results in minimal wastage of time and effort. In a fast-paced cloud landscape, frequent course corrections are necessary, and a retrograde approach gives organisations the flexibility to adapt.

The first step in this process is to clearly lay out the drivers for cloud adoption. ‘Drivers for Cloud adoption’

3 5s e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | Itnext

insight | Cloud Computing

3 6 Itnext | s e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 2

should not be confused with ‘drivers for standards adoption’. Often, teams go down this rabbit hole and lose precious time. Once the drivers for adoption are clearly laid out, the next step is to determine the primary purpose of cloud adoption.

Purpose-based StandardsThe primary purpose of cloud adoption should be one of the following, viz. Internal Cloud, Hybrid Cloud and Cloud Provider. This is an oversimplification. However, creating an elaborate taxonomy of 20 different purposes is also not very useful.

Internal clouds are set up by a small percentage of companies, either because of the nature of their business, or because of concerns regarding the security of their data. A hybrid cloud set-up is a superset of the setting up of an internal Cloud. Hybrid clouds need an internal cloud for the existing infrastructure and an external/public cloud for burst capabilities. Similarly, becoming a Cloud Provider is a superset of the setting up of a hybrid cloud. A Cloud Provider needs an internal cloud for existing infrastructure and provides the hybrid cloud to clients.

Do not Create Anew, Instead ModifyIn all the cases mentioned, new cloud standards should be built on top of traditional standards and processes. Most of the traditional aspects, especially such as security and access to systems outside the company firewall, should continue to be what they were before cloud adoption. It is not recommended to first adopt the cloud and then work on setting up the standards. Instead, adopt the cloud under the purview of the existing standards, and then modify these standards to account for the cloud.

Modifying something that exists takes a much shorter turnaround time than creating something new and getting it approved. The fundamental

assumption here is that

s t a n d a r d s t h a t currently exist have already gone through various stages of revisions and approvals. It is important to arm ourselves with the right templates and frameworks to ensure standards adoption does not become a multi- year exercise.2.Key TakeawaysMany large organisations typically spend effort and resources setting up a Quality or EA group to ensure consistency of technology adoption across the enterprise. Cloudification is typically a 3-to-5 year journey and, during this period, both Cloud and traditional IT will co-exist. Creating standards ground up will require re-training people and longer adoption cycles. Resistance to change and over-scrutiny is also something that cloud standards adoption will have to contend with.Some organisations (SMBs in particular) might not have any standards to begin with. In this case, there is nothing much to modify. It is recommended that these organisations should invest in creating standards from scratch. Otherwise, they will find themselves in a technology jungle within a short period of time.

Head of Consulting for Cloud, Infosys Ltd.

“In a fast-paced cloud landscape, frequent course corrections are necessary, and a retrograde approach gives organisations the flexibility to adapt”—Suresh Karra, Head of Consulting for Cloud, Infosys

Cloudification is typically a 3-to-5 year

journey and, during this period, both

Cloud and traditional IT will co-exist

Key stakeholders often wonder if all the

moving parts fit together harmoniously,

or if they will become a disastrous

integration experiment

Key question is--should it start develop-

ing something from scratch, or is there

something that is readily available?

The turnaround time for recommending

new standards is usually long because

deliberations are always consensus

driven

In a fast-paced cloud landscape,

frequent course corrections are neces-

sary, and a retrograde approach gives

organisations the flexibility to adapt

Clearly laying out the drivers for cloud

adoption is critical

Determining the primary purpose of

cloud adoption is important

Vital Aspects in Cloud

Today, IT organisations are faced with shrinking budgets and increased end user demand for better collabora-tion tools. As organisations create competitive positions

centred on collective knowledge and resources of their workers to build better products and create effective solutions, they need tools to make those assets more efficient and effective. IT executives are continuously aiming to position IT as a business enabler rather than a cost cen-tre. To maintain that balance, IT execu-tives are looking into solutions that let IT do more with less while remaining agile and continuing to innovate.

The need for collaboration and infor-mation-sharing is being particularly felt in the Architecture, Engineering and Con-struction (AEC) segment. Companies in the AEC segment have to constantly share architectural and engineering draw-ings, virtual models and other rich data among different sets of users, including architects, consultants, engineers, build-

With its rich features, ease of use and collaborative capabilities, Adobe Acrobat can accelerate and enhance enterprise projects, especially in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction segment

Success Through Collaboration

ers and suppliers. Given the highly cus-tomised nature of AEC projects and their dependence on multiple local/regional factors (different subcontractors, vari-ous building codes, etc.), the success and speed of projects often rests on collabora-tive tools.

That is where Acrobat from Adobe comes into the picture. With a rich set of features and easy deployability, the software offers organisations, especially in the AEC segment, a proven way to con-nect people, ideas, and information to increase productivity and achieve better results. Millions of customers around the world—including several AEC custom-ers—rely on Acrobat to streamline how they work, integrate rich media to engage in entirely new ways, and deliver high-impact com-munications.

High-Impact, Engaging CommunicationsThe bar is rising for compelling and persuasive communica-

tions. According to an Adobe-commis-sioned study by Forrester Consulting, titled “Building the Future of Collabora-tion,” workers report an increasing need to create high-impact deliverables—from sales proposals and presentations to how-to guides and financial reports—but have concerns about the ability of email and file attachments to convey their information effectively.

The expectations around documents are changing. With the increase of devices and software available to more easily produce rich content, knowledge workers want to use rich media to deliver better context around information and to pro-duce more engaging, compelling content.

This is fuelling the shift from static documents to dynamic documents.

Unlike traditional static docu-ments, dynamic documents are interactive. They can include links, buttons, embedded cal-culations, and rich content, including drawings, images,

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videos, embedded web pages, and forms. Dynamic documents display and behave as intended across platforms. They are also easy to create, can be shared with others using existing means, can be secured, and can be quickly integrated into existing document-based processes or document management systems.Acrobat allows users to: Rapidly assemble a wide range of file

types—including email, forms, web pages, audio, video, and interactive media—to create and preview an engaging, organ-ised PDF Portfolio. Customise PDF Portfolios with new,

professionally designed layouts, visual themes, colour palettes, and other prop-erties to reflect their company branding or personal style. Share PDF Portfolios with others to

communicate information the way they intend to. Quickly bring ideas to life through rich,

interactive documents. By easily insert-ing Adobe Flash Player compatible video into PDF files they can allow any-one to play them back, online or offline, using only the free Adobe Reader—no external player required. Convert information from the web into

PDF files that preserve links, fields, struc-ture, and multimedia content.

Collaboration and Productivity are KeyIn today’s information-centric enter-prises, individuals rarely produce and deliver work in isolation. Forrester reports that 99% of knowledge workers in the United States and Europe work together with others, with more than two-thirds saying they regularly col-laborate with people in different time zones and geographical regions. With

web folder, or SharePoint. Track review progress, deadlines, and

participation. Enable Adobe Reader users to partici-

pate in shared reviews, fill and save forms, and digitally sign and approve PDF docu-ments without requiring them to purchase and install additional software. Easily create a simple, consistent work-

flow for customers, a single department, or an entire organisation. Enhanced SecurityCompanies increasingly seek to reduce costs by streamlining expensive paper-based processes. However, they do under-stand that with increased collaboration,

increased awareness and availability of collaboration tools such as Adobe Acro-bat, organisations in India are adopting them faster than ever. This is especially true for AEC companies with dispersed teams working on complex projects.Acrobat allows these teams to: Save more time by accelerating docu-

ment reviews. Using Acrobat they can easily manage and accelerate electronic document reviews without the cumber-some manual process of exporting, emailing, and importing comments from multiple reviewers. Confidently share documents and collect

comments from others using services at Acrobat.com, a network folder, a shared

“Earlier, we circulated the hard copy or scanned copy, which consumed time and cost, while now with markup on PDF, we can directly circulate PDF files. So it saves the time, money and paper”—Jigar Patel, Manager (Design Team), Jyoti Ltd

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they must do a better job of protecting their sensitive information and intellec-tual property.

Here’s how Acrobat helps better protect sensitive information:

User can leverage built-in support for digital signatures and certification to foster trust utilizing hardware tokens, support for timestamp servers, and compliance with digital signature stan-dards, such as PAdES (PDF Advanced Electronic Signatures).

Companies can restrict access to confidential information by encrypting documents using Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES. In Acrobat, users can identify and permanently delete hidden information, or leverage the Sanitise

Document tool to remove sensitive data, such as metadata, with one click.

When converting files to PDF, Acrobat can be used to maintain critical docu-ment properties, including layers, object data, and structures from across sup-ported Microsoft Office applications, as well as specialised applications such as Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Project, and Visio.

What Next? To help an organization meet its busi-ness objectives, IT must be proactive in increasing the efficiency of docu-ment collaboration and enabling more dynamic methods of communication. Knowledge workers are already seeking

these solutions and, in some cases, are bringing these tools into the environ-ment, creating more complexity for IT. To maximize success, IT needs to deliver document collaboration and exchange solutions that are broad enough to scale across a wide variety of knowledge worker needs, can cost-effectively scale across and beyond the organization, offer required document controls for maintaining security and privacy, and can flexibly span languages, computing platforms, and computer skills.

ToP NEW fEATurES ANd ENHANCEmENTS IN AdobE ACrobAT X Pro: Customise PDF Portfolios

with an all-new collection of layouts, visual themes, and colour palettes.

Automate tasks with the Action Wizard.

Search and reuse scanned content with greater accuracy through improved optical character recognition (OCR).

Seamlessly integrate PDF files into Microsoft SharePoint workflows.

Easily create interactive forms

Streamline online document reviews

Share files online at Acrobat.com

Easily edit PDF files and quickly export PDFs as Word or Excel documents.

“Our employees use Adobe Acrobat which has helped us in streamlining document collaboration and review across project teams with reliable and more secure documents in dynamic PDF”—Prakash Lalwani, Head - IT, KEC International

advertorial | Adobe


more on web

Consumerisation of TechnologyAshish Mathur, CIO, WNS Global Services, talks about the role of IT in a sluggish economy and how most technologies are heading towards some stage of consumerisation, which will have a huge role to play in delivery mechanisms. Excerpts:

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expert ViewGames Can Trans-form businessThe ability to rapidly train

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s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | itnext

Q How do you see the future of IT in a tough economic environment? A When the economy gets sluggish, IT has a bigger role to play. It rides cost reduction and process automation and also cost efficiency. So when the economy tightens, the role of IT getting into innovative technologies and into higher levels of efficiencies becomes a lot more

brOUGHt tO YOU bY

important. So it is not just driving business goals and keeping the lights now, it has a lot to do with perfor-mance of delivering to our customers. I think with the change in the economic scenario, IT plays a lot more crucial role.

Q What kind of role do you see technology playing that will shape the future of IT?A We are talking about Big Data, M2M, BYOD, Cloud and Virtualization. This entire gamut of technologies is slowly coming in and heading towards some stage of consumerisation. I think these technologies will have a huge role to play in delivery mechanism and they will also be very vital for an organisation. For example, one of the things that is changing dramatically is the demand verses supply and the way it is being man-aged from a cost perspective. So with the cloud offer-ings, companies can scale up and down with very little upfront investments.

Q How can technology be used to deliver more with less?A Do more with less has been a common theme so it’s nothing new. It has been there for the last 20-22 years ever since I started my career. It will always be the theme in the future too. So continuously we see our customers wanting more from us with the same price point and a better value in what we deliver. In BPO terms, we call it price compression…The only way to beat it is by use of technology to the fullest and use innovations through technology to high levels of process automation and do things differently.

Q What are the changes being made in the IT architecture to meet the growing demands of business?A IT architecture will always evolve and see changes. But what we plan is a kind of roadmap and every quarter or every six months, we need to revisit and see if the roadmap is on the right track. One needs to also look at what else can come in. What are the other companies doing and also what your competitors are doing? What are the customers asking for? Looking at all of these, the models can be evolved.

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

Future OF Itwww.itnext.in/futureofit

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most impor-tant gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. Designed to deliver real-world insight, actionable

advice and executive-level skill-building for a variety of roles and responsibili-ties, it is the only IT event that takes full advantage of the authority and weight of the world’s leading IT research and advisory organization.

What is Symposium?Symposium is Gartner’s flagship confer-ence and Industry’s leading event for CIOs and senior IT and business strategists globally. It is held in six locations around the world, Orlando, Barcelona, Cape Town, Tokyo, Sao Paolo and Goa and is typically the most important event for CIOs and IT leaders in those regions.

Why is it the “Davos of IT”?Just as Davos is the world’s leading gath-ering of global economic and political thought-leaders, Gartner Symposium is a collection of the leading IT thought-leaders from within Gartner and from our clients and the broader industry. It is unparalleled in its ability to provide a strong forum for CIOs and IT leaders to meet with opinion makers from around the globe, and thus

The agenda will offer the insight and information CIOs and senior IT executives need to drive their organizations’ IT success.

GartnerSymposium 2012

advertorial | Gartner Symposium 2012


gain leading-edge insights which will help guide their strategy for their enterprises.

Why should one attend SymposiumGartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT Executives. It serves as an invaluable forum to help CIOs establish their strategic, tactical and even opera-tional plans for the near term to long term futures. It provides insights that marry the best of global best practices, adapted to local realities, to allow attendees to walk away with a wealth of ideas and inputs that can be immediately applied to enhance the business value that their IT organization delivers to the enterprise. No other event can justifiably claim to deliver this.

Symposium/ITxpo features keynotes from leading CEOs and innovators, hun-dreds of sessions spanning the depth and breadth of IT, and the opportunity to con-sult with Gartner Analysts. Symposium/ITxpo also provides invaluable networking opportunities with leading IT solutions pro-viders as well as your industry peers.

What sets it apart from all other IT events IT Delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of world’s leading IT research and advisory organization and provides access to the latest solutions from Key technology providers. The entire event is dedicated to pure content that is focused on impart-ing decision making insights and inputs to our attendees. With a process that starts with a detailed CIO & IT Leaders survey conducted with Indian attendees to understand key pain points and technology interest areas, to an advisory board com-prising of some of the leading Indian CIOs,

as sponsors to resonate with the event agenda) in India can assist with your tech-nology initiatives, and you can continue to extend that dialogue and interactions with them as well in a meaningful and produc-tive manner.

Important Tracks / Sessions. SOme Of The key SeSSIOnS aCrOSS The varIOuS TraCkS are:

Bank of the Future — Why It Won’t Be Apple, Google, Orange or Facebook

Insurance 2017: Digitalization Meets Consumerization

How Religion Impacts IT

How Disruptive Vendors are Threatening Your Incumbent Vendors

How Mobile Changes Everything And What To Do about It

The Future of Human: Get Ready for Your Digitally, Mechanically and Chemically Enhanced Employees and Customers

Realizing the Promise: Six Critical Steps to Successful

Outsourcing

the content is tailored to the unique local needs of an Indian audience.

how is it different from 2011?Last years theme of ‘Reimagine IT” set the stage quite successfully for CIOs in India to understand and define the very differ-ent value proposition that IT is expected to deliver to their enterprise. This years theme of ‘Focus. Connect. Lead’ picks up from last years theme and will provide more granular and targeted inputs in the context of today’s increased emphasis on a laser sharp focus on driving business outcomes and enhancing business core competence (FOCUS), helping to drive collaboration within the enterprise across stake-holder communities across all levels, as well as outside the enterprise with external stakeholders, and most importantly, customers (CONNECT), and using these levers to establish a business leadership role for the CIO and embed IT in the enterprise with the credibility of being a key ‘front office’ enabler and business partner (LEAD).

We do this in this years event with 5 IT role based tracks and 1 track dedicated to the Financial Services vertical.

What can we expect next? This event will provide a platform to really guide your plans and strategies for the coming year, and help to build in the agility of decision making that is critical in this uncertain economic climate. We provide a continued forum for interactions with Gartner Analysts as well as with your peers in the Indian IT industry, through the strong networking links that we help establish at the event. Through our IT-EXPO sponsor pavilion, you are likely to walk away with new insights as to how some of the leading vendors (“picked”

.

“Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT Executives.

It serves as an invaluable forum to help CIOs establish their strategic, tactical and even operational plans for

the near term to long term futures.”— Mr. Partha Iyengar, VP Distinguished Analyst

Country Manager – Research, India

Gartner Symposium 2012 | advertorial


Clas NeumaNN | interview


CUStOMeRS inSPiRe innOVAtiOn

What are the technological

innovations you are presently working on in the enterprise application space?Some recent innovations that attracted a lot of attention from customers have been with SAP HANA, that is a general purpose and ANSI standards-compliant in-memory database. Because of its design, it allows transactional and OLAP report-ing in a single system, which makes it simpler and much faster than traditional RDBMS systems like Oracle. In-memory DBMS technology will give businesses the perfor-mance necessary to quickly adapt to market changes and to enable them to discover trends as they occur and adjust accordingly. HANA is a key innovation from SAP and will also be a game changer in the market. SAP Labs located in Bangalore has about 4,500 engineers in the product development team and another 1,000 employees in the

software services team who have worked on this.

What part of HAnA was developed in india? How is it impacting your customers’ requirements?HANA was jointly developed across all the SAP R&D centres in USA, Germany, China and India. The Indian development centre located in Bangalore has devel-oped some of the applications on top of HANA. A significant part, say 20-25 per cent, of this prod-uct was developed here, which is a big deal for us. We are seeing increasing effi-ciency in the customer transac-tion and scheme (data points) redeeming process. Just to state an example: assume a customer accumulates several points on every purchase--it takes a lot of effort to keep track of the accumulated points and keep a tab on credit points. Using HANA solutions which are 1,000 times faster in real time processing, a customer can easily calculate these.

to what extent are your customers involved in your innovation strategy? Can you elaborate on some of the co-innovations happening out of india?While we constantly get feedback and requests from our 100,000 odd customers on a regular basis through the group forums, events etc, we work on co-innovation projects with our customers across the world. From our strategic customers standpoint, we run co-innovation projects together on a different scale which would be more customised. These projects revolve around enterprise mobility or any other technology they would ask for. The product or solution evolution would be completely based on the ideas and innovations that the customer would suggest. In fact, you can see a number of customers working at our labs 24X7 on the joint innovations. We have an event called SAP Sapphire held on a regular basis

The Indian development centre located in Bangalore has contributed about 20-25 per cent to HANA development, says Clas Neumann, Senior Vice President, Global Head SAP Labs. In conversation with Manu Sharma, he discusses some of the co-innovations happening and technology road map

interview | Clas NeumaNN


“In a co-innovation strategy, the product or solution evolution would be completely based on the ideas and innovations that the customer would suggest”

globally which is a platform to drive innovative ideas along with customers. The event will shortly be held in Beijing. We have classified technological innovations based on customer need and industry trends and also the verticals that we are strong in. For instance, we conduct focused events in Bangalore around supply chain management, mobility to understand customer requirements and develop the products based on global standards to suit local requirement and those which have better compatibility. Co-innovation is not restricted to large customers, we encourage smaller companies such as SMEs, too. One of the well appreciated and co-innovated products is mInspection, a Sybase Unwired Platform based handheld device application used in plan inspection visits, to view assigned inspection lots and post the results and usage decision into SAP ERP. mInspection is developed in co-operation with SAP Co-innovation Lab as a part of partner delivered mobile applications (Padma) initiative. In fact, five SAP partners participated in an app development program held last year. For developers to bring out the best of apps, SAP has instituted various programs to support and educate developers in building apps for Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP). The SAP Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) and SAP Mobility Unit carried out one such program called Padma with five SAP partners: Accenture, AkaaRa, Arteria, SIGGA, and Wipro.

Some of the other s i g n i f i c a nt ap p l i c at i o n s include: Chaitra, Condor, File Lifecycle Management, Policy Management Framework,

Address Data Cleansing, Accenture (HCM Employee Lifecycle); AkaaRa Consulting (Project Insight); Arteria (Mobile Sales Force Automation); SIGGA (Work Order Execution); and Wipro (Meter Reading and Billing Solution).

How do you see future innovations in it and spending given the global economic challenges?Despite global recession, SAP Labs has not been impacted and has gone ahead with its research. We have been working along the lines of our core philosophy, which is growth. All of Europe and the rest of the world is still cautious about spending too much on research.

But we have kept to our guid-ance of continued research in the areas of cloud computing, mobility, HANA, BI and our core ERP for which we are stated to be market leaders. Most customers, even today, approach us to seek solutions from us that could address their market need. The co-innovation process begins here. Like in the retail space, small neighbourhood kirana shops across India can run a cash regis-

Clas NeumaNN | interview


Find other inter-views online on

the website www.itnext.

in/resources/interviews

ter for themselves, but no one has a product for them yet. But large FMCG customers such as Nestle, ITC, Proctor & Gamble and oth-ers use SAP products and want something more. These companies would demand a co-innovation on top of SAP that would help them grow their business. We have developed a product with one of the FMCGs, but it is still in the development stage and is scheduled to be out soon.

How do you work out a pattern or model in terms of co-innovation and the logistics around it?If it is a dedicated project and a good growth opportunity and a

novel concept for us, we would jump into it immediately. For eg, if we have, say, 10 customer feed-back on certain solutions and a request for specific solutions to be developed about that, and the customer is ready to spend resources in the co-innovation process, we carry out a feasibility test and a proof of concept around five solutions. On an average, for instance, we get over 1,000 customer feed-back; we screen it down to a 100 and take it on a two-year process. But for the bigger retail projects like the one mentioned earlier, one cannot go through the stan-dard process. We need a real ded-icated team at the onsite project, maybe across various locations in India.

We have various models that we follow. The key is that the project is developed under our guidance and then rolled out. We ensure that the project runs smoothly on SAP and does not damage any data in the system. Another model is where we invite the customer to co-develop the product in our labs.

So it could be 50 per cent or even 80 per cent of development by us. But we follow a certain protocol for co-innovation and stick to our standards.

SAP and the customer sign a contract in the process. Customers choose the model which closely matches their need.

In some cases, we help them develop the product so the IP is with the customer.

If we develop it, then we have the IP and the customer gets royalty. But we are open in co-innovation.

How would you see the future of technologies and innovations shaping up? How are it managers leveraging this?Cloud computing as a technology

will grow faster than other tech-nologies. We see it expanding very rapidly because it has mul-tiple advantages. I would rate this among the top technologies going forward. Another technology would be mobility. With the number of mobile phones with internet increasing, I see huge opportunity for enter-prises to leverage this technology. Big data is another technology which redefines how enter-prises will handle huge data in the coming years and how com-piled data can be understood correctly.

So like the traffic jams in Bangalore - if someone could collect and analyse the data, it would help resolve the traffic problem in this city. The same holds good in medicine: if you are de-coding your DNA, it would take weeks to analyse it; but by using big data, it could be faster. IT managers will need to keep the systems up and running all the time, besides manage and oversee medium and large scale projects like networking, storage etc. Now we have a BYOD policy within SAP, wherein multiple entry points are open for potential hackers.

Today the threat from hackers is not so much from outside but within the employees themselves. This is a big challenge for IT managers. I feel many IT heads from SMEs companies don’t have the knowledge yet to handle big new projects like cloud or mobil-ity on their own, so they depend on a consultant or the vendor to implement it.

I feel cloud architecture is very complex and a major challenge for many IT managers.

An innovative model around these technologies could be developed by IT teams leveraging the development labs’ research capabilities.


tOp reAD

$2.1 Trillion: Global consumer spending on tech in 2012Spending will continue to grow at a faster rate, at around $130 bn a year, to reach $2.7 trillion by 2016, says Gartner

Consumers will spend $2.1 tril-lion worldwide on digital informa-tion and entertainment products and services in 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. That’s a $114 billion global increase compared with 2011. Spending will continue to grow at a faster rate than in the past, at around $130 billion a year, to reach $2.7 trillion by end 2016.

OPINIONATED

IT Managers have entrepreneurial edgeSwami Manohar, founder and MD of LimberLink Technologies, says given the rapid changes, complexities and choices faced by IT managers, they are capable of starting out on their own.

At some point in life, each of us is bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and we cling to the strong desire to carve out a niche for ourselves. Being an entrepreneur, even the journey towards making it big, is akin to hang-gliding where you are ready to jump off the cliff with nothing but a flimsy glider holding you up. However, the desire doesn’t die. So where does the entrepreneurial journey begin? It begins the day you tell your boss you are quitting to be on your own. Once the words are out, there is no going back, except for a fervent hope by the rational part of your brain that the boss will convince you to stay back.

TOP INTERVIEW

Mobile is Driving Cloud Testing

David Taylor, President of Asia Pacific & Japan, Micro Focus, talks about

the mainframe business in India and how COBOL is no more restricted

to the platform. He also talks about companies that are offering mobile

access to applications.

It NeWs

Cognizant to Philips: Let’s make IT better

the It firm has been selected by philips to make its

business more agile and competitive through technology

Cognizant has been selected by royal philips electronics,

a global provider of healthcare, lighting, and consumer

lifestyle solutions, as a strategic partner to drive a broad

range of technology-enabled business transformation

and growth programs. Under the multi-year engagement,

Cognizant will provide a comprehensive range of

consulting and application services globally to help philips

consolidate znc rationalise its It landscape.

tOp-DIsCUssION

Top 5 investment priorities of board directors 86 per cent of directors said in a sur-

vey they believe that It’s strategic

contribution to business will increase

by 2014. board directors are priori-

tising customers, core competencies

and competitive advantage.

the webf r o m

www.itnext.inread It Next stories published online. the links of these stories

can also be accessed through your mobiles/smartphones using Qr code.

http://www.itnext.in/

content/top-5-invest-

ment-priorities-board-

directors.html-0


content/it-managers-

have-edge-entrepre-

neurs.htmlhttp://www.itnext.in/content/david-taylor-

mobile-driving-cloud-testing.html


content/21-trillion-

global-consumer-spend-

ing-tech-2012.html

http://www.itnext.in/content/cognizant-

philips-let%E2%80%99s-make-it-

better.html

from the web


FEATURE READ

Cyber criminals use Olympics as bait The first Olympic-related spam that was seen was an email that asked for personal information. Cyber criminals are known to be opportunists. They will take advantage of anything newsworthy and craft their schemes around (for example) sporting events like FIFA and the Olympics. As the London 2012 Olympics opening event drew near, Trend Micro Researchers spotted spammed messages using the 2012 Olympics as bait; one involved an email that said “winning notification”, another message asked for personal details in exchange for a prize, while yet another asked users to notify a specific contact person. Users who fell

for any of these traps were at risk of having their information stolen or their machines infected with malware.

SECURITY NEWS

Over 150% performance improvement in unified threat mgmtNew WatchGuard XTM 5 Series claims to break price/performance barriers and redefine next-gen UTM

WatchGuard Technologies, a global leader in manageable business security solutions, has

PRODUCT NEWS

Speeding up the CloudAutomated discovery capabilities of Hp’s Cms 10 decrease the time spent on manual discovery by

more than 50 per cent.

Hp has introduced new offerings that improve visibility into the relationship

between software and physical, virtual and cloud It infrastructure.

VENDOR NEWS

Wipro implements core banking for 5 co-operative banksCore banking solution to help banks provide the latest e-banking facilities to rural customers in remote areas. Wipro Infotech has announced implementation of core banking solution (CBS) for 5 co-operative banks under National Agriculture Bank for Rural Development (NABARD). The application is hosted from Wipro’s Data Center and would be supported for 5 years from the date of Go Live. As a part of the contract, Wipro is currently implementing the project for co-operative banks across different states.

TOP INSIGHT Knowing the

NumbersIt is critical that IT managers

understand finance if they want to take up bigger roles, says Sharat

Airani, Chief - IT (Systems & Security), Forbes Marshall.

While effective communication is critical to the success of every

business, understanding finance and financial terms is equally vital. For IT managers whose activities primarily

revolve around IT, internal or external, understanding organisational

goals is critical

announced a ground-breaking change for the unified threat management (UTM) market with the release of the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series network security appliances.

As next-generation UTMs, the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series sports the fastest throughput in its price class without sacrificing security efficacy, manageability and ease of use.

http://www.itnext.in/content/arkadin-acquires-conferenceplus.html

http://www.itnext.in/content/knowing-numbers.html

http://www.

itnext.in/content/

wipro-implements-

core-banking-5-co-

operative-banks.html

http://www.itnext.in/content/cyber-criminals-use-olympics-bait.html

http://www.itnext.in/content/speeding-cloud.html

The CIOs of tomorrow are expected to be outstanding business leaders, not just good technical experts, who can collaborate and communicate in their professional environmentITNEXT invites you to participate in the 2-day Pocket CIO programme to equip yourself with strategic, technical and soft-skills needed for senior management roles. The training sessions will be hosted by experts, and will feature eminent CIOs.

SESSIONS WILL COVER Contemporary trends in a current technology area Delivering innovation or improving business outcomes through IT solutions Best practices for installing, operating and improving enterprise services/infrastructure Thinking strategically about IT Leadership in the corporate context Communication skills for top managers

Visit www.next100.in to register for Pocket CIO programme. The full-day (9:00 am to 6:00 pm) program is entirely free of cost.*

* Seats are limited at each location and will be offered only to qualified candidates

An MBA may not make you a CIO, but this can

MUMBAI :14th – 15th SEPTEMBER

BENGALURU : 21st – 22nd SEPTEMBER

NEW DELHI :28th – 29th SEPTEMBER

DATE &CITY

EVENT BY

APPLY NOW !www.itnext.in/next100

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

KNOWLEDGE PARTNER MEDIA PARTNERNEXT100 BOOK PARTNER SUPPORTING PARTNER

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

Dreams:

Next100 winners have dared to dream about their future roles, projects,

education or goals and are making concerted efforts to

pursue with confidence

Everyone has a dream. Whether an Olympic hopeful, or an individual or a professional. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue

them,” said Walt Disney, and there can be no better example of a man who dared to dream. While all have dreams, some chase their dreams in a concerted manner, with unwavering focus; others are rather casual in their approach. What about IT professionals? Don’t they dream? About their future? About their work? What are the dreams that keep them going, lift them out of the mundane and prod them

on to achieving the impossible? This brings us to the Next100 winners, have special dreams they focus on, and make a conscious effort to achieve. So, ITNext attempted to get insights into what dreams meant to the Next100 winners. The study tries to focus on the dream projects that the winners had in mind, dream roles they aspired to adorn, the dream industry they liked to be associated with and dream sources of knowledge that they looked at. Most Next100 winners instantly vouched for the fact that Next100 awards gave them the necessary credentials.

What they Mean to Next100

Winners

LEADERSHIP | NEXT 100

5 1s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2 | itNext

Your Dream ProjectIt has been my dream to lead an IT governance project which envelops a whole lot of enterprise risks. While working out strategies to capture and evaluate varied risks in the project, I would aspire to arrive at all possible mitigation plans which can help nullify the risks. I am waiting for the opportunity to take up such a project.

Your Dream IndustryRetail and banking industries have been my all-time favourites. While I have had a stint in the banking sector, I am happy to have got into the retail sector - I carry a lot of aspiration to grow in this segment, a segment which shows much promise.

Dream Certifications or Dream CoursesI have a keen interest and am passionate about acquiring new qualifications and possess certifications which have helped me grow in my career. I have a strong desire to complete the COBIT 5 certification. I aspire to acquire this certification over the next year or so - it will help me to get ahead in my career.

Your Dream RoleA dream role? I have dreamt of becoming the CIO in a leading organisation in the future. Being an IT professional, I want to lead a team which can add value to business growth. I intend to be instrumental in driving the top line business growth through IT processes and projects. Besides, I have always been keen to be clued into organisational strategies which can translate into growth. This I expect to happen in the next five years, growing at a consistent pace.

shiju GeorGe, SENIoR MANAgER, SHoPPERS StoP LtD

“it has been my dream to lead an it governance project which envelops a whole lot of enterprise risks”

5 2 itNext | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 2

NEXT 100 | LEADERSHIP

‘Dream’--it is a very ‘volatile’ word, for dreams may or may not happen. To succeed at anything, we should not expect things to happen on their own, without all necessary efforts on our part. For me, dreams are my goals, not only for professional growth but also for personal contentment.

Dream GoalWhatever our dreams or goals, they are critical, and can be a challenge, if we are not good at time management, if we do not have visionary support from our family or do not have a monetarily /materialistically contented self and family. Before I invest in my dreams, I would like to ensure all these parameters are met.

As an individual, I dream (want, not hope) to work towards improving India’s technology sector, along with looking equally at taking up the social responsibility of bringing about uniformity in technology across the nation.

I wish to be a CIO, CEO or a COO of an organisation and contribute to the nation’s social responsibility. But that would still be an interim step. So, what lies beyond? The human responsibility to take everyone along, on the path to success.

Contribute to Technological ProgressIndia has emerged as a global IT leader, despite ups and downs in the economy. There are schools and colleges where pens and note books are no longer essential. Tabs and cloud schools operates efficiently. On the other hand, there are still many schools where the same prototype black-board and chalk exist, while some more operate under a tree. My dream is to bring about uniformity across all sectors by utilising IT. IT can do that--empower the students of today, into the skilled professionals of tomorrow. India is one of the major

exporters of agricultural crops but also continues to use deadly pesticides which are banned across the globe. India is also one of the largest producer of waste which actually goes waste, never recycled. IT can implement effective recycle units to conserve loss of our natural resources and make use of what we have already wasted.

Wish List to Make the Dream Come TrueI have framed clear objectives to achieve my dream. The first objective is to aspire and work to attain a CxO (CIO, CEO, COO, CDO) role which will help me gain exposure, experience and competency. The next is to aspire for an entrepreneurship role which will help me expand the scope. That would be my first step towards my goal. I wish to achieve this before I turn 45, not beyond. I intend to keep myself up to date with trends, current affairs and enrich my skills and knowledge periodically through case studies, practical scenarios etc. Sharpening the tools required will also help--to attain perfection, to always deliver, identify and focus on the best possible solution.

“i wish to be a Cio, Ceo or a Coo of an organisation and contribute to the nation’s social responsibility”

arChie jaCksoN | SENIoR MANAgER & It SERvIcE DELIvERy MANAgER, StERIA INDIA Pvt. LtD.



Your Dream ProjectI think all professionals, whatever the field, want to lead a dream project. My aspiration has been no different. In my opinion, a dream project will comprise of these: a) the delivery outcome should lead to a quantum (not marginal) value addition (b) it should be unique (c) each and every member of the team must gain out of it, both personally and professionally.

I have been fortunate to be part of one such project, a comprehensive SAP implementation in the Indian

infrastructure construction sector. It had many other firsts to its credit, such as no precedence and

hence, SAP too lacked industry know-how. It was the first time in Asia that a particular sub-module

IS-ECO was being implemented. The project redefined how future business would be done in the organisation.

As a team member, it was an exhilarating experience throughout and a great learning curve which has helped in shaping my career. It had all the elements required for a successful project – world class software, highly committed and motivated team, high visible commitment from the top management, adherence to methodologies, tightly controlled project management ably led by the CIO of the organisation.

Dream Courses \ CertificationsConsidering the fast paced IT industry, it is critical to be informed about changes; otherwise, you run the risk of becoming obsolete. I believe that one needs to acquire basic degrees and certifications to the post graduation level and then acquire knowledge through various other sources. Besides having hands-on experience, it

is good to be part of various groups to share and receive knowledge on various topics. The areas of interest, of course, would depend on what one’s goal in life is. One of the reasons whyI applied for the Next100 award was that it gave me instant access to the cream of IT professionals across the industry. I had the benefit of gaining and sharing knowledge much faster than perhaps would have been possible by just doing a course or a certification.

Your Dream Role My dream role is one which allows me to create value to the organisation through effective use of IT. I have been fortunate to get this opportunity for the past 4-5 years in my current profile as Delivery Head for SAP & other allied applications. The next logical path would be definitely to play a greater role covering the entire gamut of IT applications and infrastructure. My immediate aspiration is to successfully play the role of a CIO and imbibe all the qualities of a CIO, and as part of this endeavour, I acquired an MBA degree in finance. The Next100 award has enabled me to get exposed to the outside world, a rich source for acquiring knowledge.P

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kaustav Das, DELIvERy HEAD-SAP, HIgHbAR tEcHNoLogIES LtD

“my immediate aspiration is to successfully play the role of a Cio and imbibe all the qualities of a Cio”


Dream Courses\Certifications I have enrolled myself for research, for a Ph.D. I also plan to do ITIL, CISM and PMP, the globally accredited and accepted certifications. To achieve academic excellence and to acquire a research mindset, I am pursuing my dream course--a Ph.D--and getting into intricacies of how research-work is done. The aim is to cover various methodologies, report writing, study statistics and analytics, mentor the next generation of IT leaders and beneficiary communities. The Ph.D is already under way. I will start on other professional certifications from January 2013 onwards.

Your Dream Role My dream role would be that of a ‘CIO,’ sitting in the co-driver’s seat, helping the CEO towards complete business agility/transformation/innovation. I’ll look forward to wearing a business cap in addition to technology responsibility. It is indeed my favourite, as it offers greater space for innovation. ITNext has already geared me up by bestowing the ITnext100 award in 2011. As a Next100 winner, I was able to recognise my potential and I am now putting in more efforts to understand what inventory of skills really matters to reach a CIO’s position.

“my dream role would be that of a ‘Cio,’ sitting in the co-driver’s seat, helping the Ceo to drive business agility and transformation”

vijay ChouDhary, DgM-It, HRH gRouP of HotELS

Your Dream ProjectI have always aspired to lead a dream project whenever I notice business problems and then tried my best to apply technology to fix it. Being in the hospitality industry and management of IT infrastructure, my dream project is something which can be a BI tool, where in the system draws up the future strategies, while taking inputs from the environment, industry, research organisations, in-house data. It will be about coping with Big Data advantage and its analytical capabilities.

Your Dream industry The service industry accounts for the maximum in our GDP growth. Hospitality and tourism is one of the prime drivers of this segment, and I have been working in this segment for the past 13 plus years. It’s my favourite as technology is always at the forefront playing a big role. The reasons I love to be part of the hospitality industry are:

Exposure: Being in the hospitality industry, we face/learn about varied processes/people/technology/stakeholders.

Unique Workflow integration: The IT department is like an organisation in itself, running within an organisation. Even the smallest department is integrated with the main core application/platform because the most important factor is uninterrupted guest services.

Respect given to IT: High and deserving.Team work: In this sector, the team’s work is

immediately reflected in quick ‘guest/client feedback.’ It’s required as a strong KPI measuring business insight.



Your Dream ProjectMy current dream project is to lead an end-to-end ERP implementation using a single software stack for a company which will totally re-engineer the way the processes are handled with 100 per cent automation of processes. Also the implementation should be cost effective and well managed, a lack of which is the primary reason for failure.

I am yet to see an ERP Implementation which has resulted in 100 per cent automation of processes. Having all the requirements met in a single consolidated ERP Software is a dream come true for me.

Your Dream industry My dream is to be associated with a web-based start-up which involves lot of creativity and innovation. It would be an exciting opportunity to build an IT team from scratch for

such a company.I can think of a change in the next three years only as I

have many tasks to perform and challenges to address.

Dream Courses\Certifications My dream has been to do a PhD in Business Management from a premier institute. I would be interested in carrying out research on the reasons for failed IT implementations, particularly in the ERP space and discover the best approach for such projects.

I have started applying for a part time course to pursue my PhD, which should take off in the coming year.

Your Dream RoleSince Chief Strategic Officer and CIO, CIO and CSO roles go hand in hand with most business operations revolving around IT and its efficient use, I would aspire to be one. As a strategic officer, I would be able to merge both the IT system and the company’s long/short term strategy and bring about efficiency in operations.

To reach this goal, besides IT, I am also learning about and overseeing the IT infrastructure space and have taken to reading a lot of books on convergence of business and IT.

I should be well equipped to take up this role in two years as I have begun associating myself with strategy and business in a small way.

BalaraNjith t gENERAL MANAgER, AtuL LtD

“my current dream project is to lead an end-to-end erP implementation project with 100% automation”


NEXT 100 | LEADERSHIP

Your Dream ProjectFor me, a dream project is one which changes the life of the common man by way of simplifying processes. For example, the “Unique Identification Number,” a project which hopefully should benefit our nation in a big way and make processes simpler for our countrymen.

I have also been fortunate to be associated with some very good and challenging assignments in my career so far which also involved working with clients like UBS, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, RadioShack, Debenhams and many more.

Your Dream IndustryNew trends like BI, Voice Recognition, social networking and Internet-Retail boom (in India) are among my favourite segments.

These are the segments which will lead the next change in the life of people. Currently, voice operated assistant (for example, Siri) is available on cellular devices and this is just the beginning.

Fortunately, my work involves working on some of these segments, it’s part of my current profile.

Dream Courses\CertificationsI do have many interests and passions but I am not sure if it’s the best way to go about acquiring a certification or a qualification, since there are several ways of acquiring knowledge.

I am yet to find certificates which offer the knowledge that we have acquired over decades, especially those related to leadership and entrepreneurship skills.

However, I must share that programmes like “NEXT100 & Future CIO” are programmes which I really admire. For one, it is available in open space for all participants to share their experience and knowledge.

I do believe a certification like NEXT100 has more value than most courses currently in the market with fancy price tags and a lot of jargon.

Your Dream RoleMy dream role is to contribute to life changing initiatives. I do agree a designation like CIO and CEO does give you authority to take final decisions and would help in realising dream projects. I haven’t set any designation-oriented goal. What is more important to me is to lead teams to develop more technology solutions that will make people’s lives easy.

“i do believe a certification like Next100 has more value than most courses currently in the market with fancy price tags and a lot of jargon”

jatiNDer aGGarwal, gRouP MANAgER, HcL tEcHNoLogIES LtD




Strategy: MDM for Mobility this page

Review: Nexus 7 Tablet page 62

Trends: Virtually Real page 63 Training Calendar: Telecom page 64

Enterprise mobility is among the most critical subjects that IT heads and senior IT managers han-dle currently. Four trends

have helped mobility take centre stage and prompted IT heads to take control of the situation. The first is “consumeri-sation” of IT, where everyone brings his or her own mobile device to work, the BYOD (bring your own device) trend as it’s called. The second is a dramatic improvement in network bandwidth and lowered cost of access which has driven the trend. The third is the reduc-ing cost of smart handsets. The fourth is the rapid growth in mobile apps, which is luring consumers and employees to use their own device. Research group such as IDC study endorses the trend through its survey, carried out in early 2012 (Worldwide Mobile Worker Popu-lation 2011-2015 Forecast), which says that the world’s mobile worker popu-lation will reach 1.3 billion by 2015, representing 37.2 per cent of the total workforce. However, the greatest impact will be felt on Infosec within the firm.Security ChallengesResearch groups such as Zinnov, in its enterprise mobility study, identified the key challenges faced in enterprise mobility adoption relating to data

trainingeducationworkplace

compensationworkforce trends

skills developmentpersonal development

HealtHy tipS for

a better living

page 60

enterprise mobility

mdm for mobility

It managers find new ways to manage the increasing mobility trend with best mobile device management strategies

15minutem a n a g e r

BY sunil lalvani

im

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g: m

an

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sa

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15-miNUtE mANAGEr

Healthy eating tips:

eat less red meat. reduce the frequency

and the serving-size of red meat portions.

Add more poultry and fish to your meals:

avoid sausage, frankfurters, bologna and

other processed meat because they are usu-

ally high in fat.

eat only those dairy products which have

low fat such as skimmed milk, cottage

cheese and yogurt.

restrict the number of eggs to no more

than three per week.

As for cooking oil, use only recommended

oils such as corn, soya, or olive.

eat more vegetables, particularly peas and

beans - fresh or dried - because they are a

very good low-fat source of protein.

eat wholemeal bread as your staple food.

eat wholemeal breakfast cereals. take extra

bran if the rest of your daily diet is rather

refined.

Dos and Don’ts

Include a variety of whole grains in your

healthy diet, including whole wheat, brown

rice, millet, quinoa, and barley.

eliminate from your diet: saturated fats,

found primarily in animal sources including

red meat and whole milk dairy products;

trans fats, found in vegetable shortenings,

some margarines and processed foods.

Longetivity:Keeping cool with healthy diet for a better living

Tips To HealTHy eaTing

healthy habits

breaches, increased threats from both internal and external sources, etc. The study indicated that enterprises are struggling with issues around software license conformance, support costs, tracking devices and device downtime associated with the mobility trend.

best mobile Security practicesIt is critical to manage the risks emerging from increasing mobility or the BYOD trend. IT heads need to absorb technology that helps in managing mobile devices faster, easier and more organised than ever before. Adoption of mobile balance technology is another critical practice which enables smartphones and tablets to be used for business and personal purposes without compromising on security. Mobile device management (MDM) is made easy with BlackBerry or any smartphone. Today, there are a variety of devices, operating systems and environments that are giving birth to a plethora of MDM players. Shortlisting and picking the right MDM system is a thorny issue. CIOs need to think of remote wipes, locks, backups, authentication, encryption, restricting access by IP or network, selectively enabling access by device, automatically turning off mobile device functionality such as cameras and recorders in certain situations and environments, etc. The issues around mobile security can be roughly broken up into end user device management, application security, data security and network security. CIOs are struggling with rogue devices, network intrusions and threats from malware/ viruses. The real problem is that the perimeters of an enterprise are constantly being redefined and users have multiple access points. How can an IT head ensure that security policies, measures and updates are distributed and installed across devices that are with employees who are remote and always on the move? Device compliance is quickly emerging as a natural starting point for mobile security. Based on enterprise needs and employee demands, IT heads must create a list

Seven golden ruleS for HealtH diet1. Drink plenty of water.

2. eat more fruit and vegetables.

3. manage your portion sizes.

4. eat less processed food.

5. eat regular meals – don’t skip meals – and always eat a healthy breakfast.

6. restrict your alcohol intake.

7. Limit your intake of extra food like lollies, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, pastries, soft drinks, chips, pies etc.

source: www.helpguide.org

15-MINUTE MANAGER


of devices that are permitted. The next step is to ensure that security software is deployed to determine non-compliant devices accessing the network and pro-actively blocking them. The upside of the strategy is that it helps an enterprise create comprehensive policies around device capabilities and behaviour. The

IT managers will have to keep pace with changes in devices and their adoption, constantly changing the permitted list of devices and security policies.

Security ChecksEnd point security is the next biggest concern. Mobile devices are prone

to getting misplaced and lost (unlike desktops). They must therefore be configured correctly to stay aligned with corporate security policies and compliance needs. User authentication, role-based access, and unique personalisation features need to be attended to at this step, along with ensuring that when a device is lost or misplaced, it can be backed up, locked or neutralised remotely and quickly. The selection of an efficient MDM system to enforce, manage and mitigate issues around end point security cannot be emphasised enough.

The next step is to ensure secure network connectivity that also provides IT visibility to network activity. Manual and automated event management tools are recommended to improve control, risk reporting and administration, thereby also reducing costs and ensuring that productivity is not impacted.

Mobile enterprise security has another dimension to deal with. Many applications have unpredictable

“The solution to the growing mobility risks lie in well-integrated MDM systems that are geared to address the compliance needs of the firm”

“With a 10% increase in our it budget, i plan to implement smart phone mobile apps among other projects”manish Shah, Gm-It, Indusfila Ltd.

“it managers will have to keep pace with changes in devices and constantly change permitted list of devices & policies” Sunil lalvani,Head-enterprise technology, rIm India.

mobiliTy CHallenges* top management and CIOs are in

a dilemma surrounding enterprise

mobility

* enabling relevant secure access

across the entire network, while pro-

tecting corporate assets

*Allowing access to personal devices is

not an answer

* Creates heterogeneous environment

and the integration process will chal-

lenge the internal security system

* Data projection being the need of the

hour, enterprise mobility should be

restricted to accessing emails only

* Increased risk of exposing company

data and operational hassles of manag-

ing different types of devices

* enterprise data and applications such

as Hr and finance needs to be given

special attention and avoid situations

which would call for security violations

15-MINUTE MANAGER


Google’s Nexus 7 ($199 or roughly rs. 11,300 for 8Gb, $249 or roughly rs.

14,000 for 16Gb) is a game-changer. the first tablet with Android 4.1 “Jelly

bean,” it’s the most bang for the buck you can get in the market right now. It’s

versatile, well-built, fast, and a lot of fun to use.

in faCt, Google Nexus 7 tablet’s India pricing has not yet been announced, and

for now, is only available for pre-order in the Us; but the device is expected to be

globally available soon, perhaps in August.

physical Features and Internet: the Nexus 7 feels well-built, even classy for

a $200 tablet. Kudos to the hardware manufacturer, Asus, a company that

typically builds good stuff. A Gorilla Glass screen dominates the front of the

tablet, and around back, there’s a slightly grippy, stippled black rubber panel. At

7.8 by 4.7 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 340 grams, it’s comfortable to hold in one

hand for long periods.

turn the tablet on using the prominent power button at the top right corner, and

you’ll see a perfectly fine 1280-by-800, 7-inch Ips LCD with a huge black bezel

around it. the screen is higher-resolution than the Kindle Fire, which clocks in at

1280-by-600.

A Wi-Fi-only device, the Nexus 7 connects to the Internet using 802.11 b/g/n,

albeit only on the 2.4GHz band. I had no problem hooking into several WpA2-

protected networks, although it dropped off of one of them at one point during

testing. the tablet supports bluetooth for audio and NFC to transfer files to

other NFC-equipped Android devices.

performance and Apps: the quad-core Nvidia tegra 3 chipset inside is one of the

fastest mobile processors around. this unit runs at 1.3GHz in single core mode,

and 1.2GHz when two to four cores are active. It’s far faster than the Kindle

Fire’s older dual-core chipset.

the best small-screen tablet you can buy, simply put, the Nexus 7 delivers the

best balance of price and performance you’ll find in the tablet market right now,

so it’s an easy editors’ Choice for best small-screen tablet. source: thinkdigit

behaviour; some may use the contact book or other data on the mobile device without adequate notification to the user. One method is to blacklist applications or prevent them from launching on the device. But for apps that users do need, IT may have to consider encryption of data and secure networks.

effective Steps in mobile Device managementThe solutions to the growing mobility risks lie in well-integrated MDM systems that are geared to address the risk management and compliance needs of the modern enterprise. An MDM solution must address the following:

Mobile policy and standards management

Remote device configuration management across multiple platforms

Remote device control including data leakage protection (DLP) and data isolation

Remote device monitoring including rogue app detection across multiple platforms

Device locationing and tracking Inventory management Trouble-shooting across multiple

platforms User support across multiple platforms Audit and reporting capabilities Ability to keep pace with changes in

the mobility spaceThe rapid change in mobile

technology means that security solutions will need periodic re-assessment. Businesses must be prepared to as quickly extend the scope and coverage of their security policies and processes, always keeping user experience in focus. The bottom line is that users are more demanding. Devices are getting more sophisticated. Networks are getting faster. Access is becoming cheaper. Competition is growing. Not only is there a need to place mobile security on a high priority to-do list, there are ways to efficiently create solutions.

sunil Lalvani, Director-enterprise technology, rIm India

indians exCiTed abouT nexus 7 TableT launCH

reviews

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in

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15-MINUTE MANAGER


being innovative to put business critical apps on a virtual platform BY vijaY Mhaskar

storage and server performance through virtualisation; however, over 81 per cent said they were not very confident about business critical applications meeting performance needs if placed on the virtual mode.

But a deeper dive into the customers’ reaction over virtualising servers indicated that most of those who had virtualised the servers had realised the benefits of virtualisation. These included lowering capital and operational expenses, less downtime and faster delivery of applications from streamlined test and development processes. The success boosted the confidence of the IT heads towards considering virtualising infrastructure and applications.

the promise of virtuali-sationIn general terms, it is critical to understand the benefit of virtualisation as its promise extends beyond economy and efficiency. Virtualisation has the potential to dramatically raise IT’s service levels and the ability to meet

virtUAlly rEAl

virtualising busi-ness critical apps

It is natural to leverage tech-nology to the fullest extent to deliver new customer services, improve operational efficiency and cultivate collaborative

efforts that lead to innovation. Most IT heads across industry

verticals have made positive strides in leveraging server virtualisation technology to transform IT and thereby reduce hardware and operating costs while increasing speed and responsiveness of the infrastructure. The effort is only getting better in virtualising applications, which are on the rise.

Some virtual insightsToday, most organisations have already virtualised some of their applications and plan to virtualise more. While IT heads have virtualised less important applications, there are certain hindrances with regard to virtualising business critical applications as customers are skeptical about security.

In one of the surveys conducted by Symantec, “Virtualisation and Evolution to the Cloud survey, 2011,” a majority of the respondents said security concerns stopped them from porting business-critical applications on virtualised servers. Besides, the main goals of the participants were improving i

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15-MINUTE MANAGER


changing business requirements, while reducing development, deployment, and management costs of application infrastructure and operations.

It is important to discuss the journey towards virtualisation before laying emphasis on business critical applications. For most organisations, initial projects focus on IT’s own test and development. As IT experience and business confidence with the technology grow, organisations begin to consider virtualising business production applications. Since the quality of service and resiliency determine the rate of adoption of virtualisation for business critical applications, it is slightly slow at this juncture. Before getting on to production applications, companies are making the environment virtualisation ready and ensuring high-availability, easy DR, making the environment secure, combined with high level of service offerings. A gradual progression is made to more important applications, while demanding SLAs.

Key transformation StrategiesIT organisations are trying to unlock the potential of virtualisation by combining three elements. They include:

*Virtualising more infrastructure* Consolidating application silos into

shared pools*Automating provisioning and

service-level processes

virtualising more infra-structureVirtualisation and cloud computing promise scalability, automation, elasticity, and cost-effectiveness. But restricting virtualisation to development environments or non-critical applications limits the benefits it can deliver; the best returns are achievable only by virtualising more applications.

For most organisations, overcoming security, availability, and storage management challenges is an essential step to adopt cloud computing environment managed in-house to an extent, as well as externally.

eVeNT VeNue DaTes

asian Carriers’ Conference 2012

shangri-La’s Mactan Resort & spa Cebu, Philippines

september 4-7, 2012

automation Mumbai Bombay exhibition Center(BeC) september 7-10, 2012

aPT Conference Preparatory Group for WRC-15 (aPG15-1)

Danang, Vietnam september 10-11, 2012

Negotiate enterprise Communications Deals

Manchester Grand Hyatt, san Diego, usa

september 12 – 14, 2012

13th Meeting of the aPT Wireless Group (aWG-13)

Danang, Vietnam september 12-15, 2012

Telco Cloud Partnering strategies 2012

singapore september 12-13, 2012

2012 BICsI Fall Conference exhibition

anaheim Convention Center, Ca september 16-20, 2012

LTe asia summit singapore september 18-19, 2012

P&T/ eXPO COMM China 2012

Beijing, China september 18-22, 2012

event CalenDarTelecom Global Event Calendar for september 2012

15-MINUTE MANAGER


Consolidate resourcesVirtualising application infrastructure delivers hardware savings and operational efficiencies, but real transformation requires more. True data-centre transformation requires consolidated pools of server, network, and storage capacity that can be applied to many different application workloads and utilisation requirements.

Properly implemented virtualisation delivers flexibility, quick provisioning of new servers, dynamic allocation of storage on demand, and helps address business requirements like demand spikes. Such a shared-services model can reduce costs by increasing utilisation of server capacity and avoiding over provisioning.

automate provisioning and service-level pro-cessesVirtualisation and consolidation pave the way for dramatic increases in the level of automation an environment will support. Automating request, provisioning, and management processes for server, storage, and network resources cut staffing costs and accelerate execution. Automation of processes with service-level impacts — high availability, disaster recovery, data protection, security and

compliance, and more--are essential steps in delivering on the strategic promise of virtualisation.

next Wave-virtualising business Critical appsThe most important and biggest step is to virtualise business critical applications, which will drive the real business benefits for any organisation. Here are some recommendations that organisations can follow to virtualise business-critical applications with confidence:

Business-critical workloads need advanced security, availability, and storage management. Adopt solutions

that work effectively on all leading virtualisation platforms

Rapid changes in demand for critical applications can affect latency, performance, availability, and other key service levels. Adopt solutions to instrument your virtual data centre and adjust processes that affect service levels automatically and continuously as demand changes.

Virtualisation expands an organisation’s end points which get vulnerable to security attacks. Keep risks under control by extending current security policies across physical and virtual environments. Use technology that auto-detects rogue virtual machines and scans offline virtual machines to detect vulnerabilities before they cause a problem.

Because server virtualisation can increase storage requirements dramatically, inefficient storage management can reduce or even nullify cost savings from server consolidation. Manage your storage efficiently with de-duplication, reclamation of orphaned storage, virtualisation of pooled storage and dynamic storage tiering and provisioning.

Have the visibility and control to automate service-level processes, accelerate virtual server and desktop deployments, and cut the cost and complexity to manage and protect high-density virtual and physical infrastructure.

“Rapid changes in demand for critical applications can affect latency, performance, availability, and other key service levels” vijay mhaskar, Vp-Information management Group, symantec

business apps go virTual* Innovative approaches to migrate business critical applications to a virtualised

platform

* virtualising critical servers resulted in lowering capital and operational

expenses, less downtime and faster delivery of applications from stream-

lined test and development processes

* virtualising business-critical applications delivers significant strategic

benefits, and is considered the first step towards moving to cloud

* Before virtualising production applications, making the environment virtu-

alisation ready is critical through ensuring high-availability, easy Dr, mak-

ing the environment secure, combined with high level of service offerings.

* unlocking the potential of virtualisation through virtualising more in-

frastrcuture, consolidating application silos into shared pools and automat-

ing provisioning and service-level processes

* rapid changes in demand for critical applications can affect latency.

cube chat | Sharat M airani

My deep interest in exploring the IT security space prompts me to do research, probably take up a PhD in the subject,” says Sharat M Airani, Chief-IT (Systems & Security), Forbes Marshall

Learningis Living

He is insatiably passionate about learning the newer nuances of technology. Chief-IT (Systems & Security) of Forbes Marshall, Sharat M Airani’s quest for

enriching his knowledge doesn’t seem to end ever as he aspires to bag a PhD in the IT security space in Advanced Persistent Threat (APT).

“My deep interest in exploring the IT security space prompts me to do research, probably take up a PhD in the subject. This would give me personal satisfaction, and at the same time, enable me to help the IT community,” says Airani. A deep knowledge in such a specialised field would help him gain much recognition in the industry. Not surprisingly, Airani has been adding new credentials in the form of new degree/certifications every two years in the security, networking and storage arena.

Though Airani does not possess an engineering degree, he is a science graduate with Physics and Mathematics as his specialisation. He was fascinated by computers and fell in love with AT 486; so he did not hesitate to join UB Engineering in 1990-92 as a storekeeper. His proximity to computers created a strong desire in him to pursue his career in computers. In early 1992, he resigned from his job and nurtured his interest by learning Q BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL programming on DOS 3.2 and later, on Unix OS. “The early 1990’s saw a boom in email firms without Internet and I joined one such company --ICNET in late 1992. I used to maintain its UNIX server and helped in pre-sales support,” he says. “I opted for night shifts so I could get time to study and take up courses during the day,” he adds. In 1994, he joined DartMail when Windows 3.x and later, the Windows

“Desire to acquire per-

fect skills ”

My sucessMantra

By Manu sharMa

6 6 ITnexT | S e p T e M b e r 2 0 1 2

server, OS, was rolled out, and he learnt to work on them. It was here that Airani had the option to make a choice between programming, application support and end user server/infrastructure management; but he chose server/infrastructure management as a career.

In 1995, when Windows NT4 was rolled out, a course in computers from NIIT helped him gain experience in NT servers. In 1997, Airani joined Forbes Marshall as a network and server administrator and has since grown to the current position as chief of IT. One of the major challenges he faced at Forbes was converting the desktop to VDI. Being a large manufacturing company, design and production teams were spread across the location. There was a need to move the data to a centralised location.

“We involved the management as the key stakeholders in the project and created a proof of concept before we implemented a secured VDI project in 2009. “The benefits accrued in terms of centralisation of data, backup, and return of investment (RoI) of about Rs 50 lakhs from for the first year itself,” he adds. Others would have sat on their laurels, but not Airani, even after achieving so much. “My thirst for knowledge remains and I continue to present technical papers on various ICT subjects at international conferences,” he says. He owes his achievements mainly to his father and family members who supported him all through. He draws inspiration from the writings and philosophy of great thinkers like Swami Vivekanand and Guru Aadi Shankaracharya.

Fact FiLe

NAME SHARAT M. AIRANI

CURRENT DESIGNATION CHIEF IT (SYSTEMS & SECURIT Y)

CURRENT ROLE MANAGING AND SECURING IT INFRASTRUCTURE EXPERTISE: CREATING BUSINESS VALUE SUPPORTED BY TECHNOLOGY; ALIGNING IT WITH BUSINESS IT TRANSFORMATION, TURN AROUND IT ORGANISATION AND IMPROVE EFFECTIVENESS STRATEGIC OUTSOURCING AND COST MANAGEMENT

AWARDS * WINNER OF CISO 100 AWARD 2012 * CIO ASIA MAGAZINE’S “THE 2012 CIO 100 HONOUREE”. * AWARDED NEXT GENERATION CIO BY IT NEXT 2011 * WINNER OF THE “TOP 10 GREEN IT ENTERPRISE AWARD 2011” SUPPORTED BY APC-SCHNEIDER * WINNER OF THE CISO 100 AWARD 2011 - RECOGNITION OF THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST IT SECURIT Y LEADERS OF TODAY * “VALUE CHAMPION” FOR THE YEAR 2009 -10 FROM FORBES MARSHALL * WORK EXPEREINCE 22 YEARS

FAVOURITE QUOTE CONCEIVE--BELIEVE --ACHIEVE (WITHOUT COMPASSION)FAVOURITE DESTINATION MAURITIUS & ANDAMAN-NICOBAR

FAVOURITE BOOK DIFFICULT Y OF BEING GOOD-BY GURCHARAN DAS

“I opted for night shifts so I could get time to study and take up

courses during the day”

cube chat

6 7S e p T e M b e r 2 0 1 2 | ITnexT

update


this is one of the slimmest projector smartphones launched

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

mobility | Sharing memorable moments is now even easier, with Samsung Electronics announcing the launch of Samsung Galaxy Beam projector smartphone in India. The smartphone enables users to display and share multimedia content anywhere on a large luminous projector screen or on a clear wall (surface). Based on the Android 2.3 OS platform, Galaxy Beam helps users to share their multimedia (including photos, video clips, maps, business information, and games) and other digital media content with their family or friends by beaming it directly onto walls, ceil-ings or improvised flat surfaces. Galaxy Beam’s ultra-bright 15 lumens projector and high-definition projection up to 50’’ wide at a distance of 2 metres, allows users to freely share their memorable moments instantly with crisp clarity. With the 5 mega pixel camera, you can capture and share pictures and videos with loved ones instantly, enriching the sharing experience. The beam is powered by an impressive 1.0GHz dual-core processor, ensuring great versatility and a highly responsive user interface. Priced at Rs. 33,900, it is available at exclusive stores.

the high-end phones launched are a

seamless amalgamation of style and

technology. lG electronics announced

the launch of 3 new smartphones in in-

dia - lG l series (l7, l5 and l3) and lG

4X HD Quad core. these sleek hi-tech

phones run on Android 4.0 ice Cream

Sandwich, except for l3 which runs on

Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

What’s more, these high-end phones are

a seamless amalgamation of style and

technology. the quad-core featuring

720p display-flashing lG optimus 4X

HD is a wonderful addition to lG’s mo-

bile family. this 4.7 inch true HD ipS

display on the optimus 4X HD offers a

superior high-clarity viewing experience

with a superb resolution of 1280x720.

the phone has a 2150mAh battery, the

largest among quad core smartphones.

the core essence of l style features a

timeless design with defined details,

which further differentiates lG mobiles

from competition. l-Style’s design

philosophy comprises of five elements -

modern Square Style for a comfortable

grip, the lG optimus 4X HD is priced

at rs 34,990, the lG optimus l7 at

rs.19,900, the l5 at rs. 13,199 and the

l3 at rs. 8,895.

New range of Smartphones from lG in india

KeY feAtURes

*Allows to jot memos instantly

* 1.5GHz quad core plus 1 processor

* Comes with NViDiA tegra3 and tegra3

* Near Field Communication

* Android 4.0 and Android 2.3

KeY feAtURes* Android 2.3 oS platform

* Share multimedia & digital media

content

* equipped with ultra-bright 15

lumens projector

* 5 mega pixel camera

Samsung rolls Slim Beam Smartphone Projector

update


feAtURes* Attractive front panel design

* offset mesh grill front panel

* improved air circulation

* Can hold five 3.5mm devices

Headsets for Mobile Workers

Comes with Android 4.0 with

massive storage and front dual

speakers. A leading e-commerce

company has launched the all-new

Samsung Galaxy tab 2 510 p5100.

the latest Android 4.0 comes with

massive storage and front dual

speakers. the All in Communication

tablet features powerful usability

and is a total multimedia hub. the

Galaxy tab 2 510 p5100 is built to

support voice calling, multi party

video calling and includes preloaded

messenger Chaton to aid fun and

easy communication. plus there’s

16 Gb internal storage (expandable

up to 32 Gb). the Android 4.0

contains innovative features of ice

Cream Sandwich enabling greater

accessibility, user-oriented features

and quicker access to Google

mobile services. it is priced at rs

32,990 and can be ordered through

Snapdeal.com.

samsungGalaxy Online

CAbiNet | New line-up comes with black interiors, plus industrial designs and superior cooling performance. Infotronix, a supplier of products and accessories for Computers, Consumer Electronics and Communication under the brand Zebronics has introduced three new cabinet models--Scallop, Aero and Mines--that incorporate unique matt black interiors for that stylish look. The new cabinets come with attractive front panel design. Scallop is embellished with a combination of matt and glossy finish front panel shaped like undulating waves, while Aero has an offset mesh grill front panel that gives it a chic industrial look and improves air circulation. The third model, Mines, incorporates a mesh grill and elegant glossy finish on its front panel. All three cabinet models have the capacity of holding

HeAD Set | Jabra Supreme UC headset sets the standard for workers constantly communicating on the go

According to a study from IDC, the worldwide mobile worker population is set to increase to 1.3 billion in 2015, accounting for 37.2 per cent of the workforce, indicating that workers everywhere are leaving 9-to-5 days in the office behind by working remotely, travelling and collaborating via the cloud. Much of this increase is driven by the popularity of laptops, smartphones and tablets. To meet the demands of the mobile worker, Jabra has announced the Jabra Supreme UCTM. After introducing the Jabra Supreme last year--the first non-stereo headset to incorporate Active Noise Cancellation to block out noisy environments for the user wearing the headset--Jabra is introducing a variant that expands the capabilities of the original product to work with all leading Unified Communications (UC) applications (Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, Skype, and several others), as well as mobile phones and tablets. The Jabra Supreme UC comes equipped with a nano Bluetooth USB adapter, to support all mobile phone calls and available in retail and through partners at Rs. 11,000 (Inclusive of all taxes).

PRoDUCt feAtURes* Active Noise Cancellation

* Noise blackout 3.0

* Nano bluetooth USb adapter

* Stay connected and switch

seamlessly

five 3.5mm devices and two optical disk drives or 5.25” devices and can support both ATX and mATX type motherboards. While maintaining a simple layout, users still have heaps of space to manage their drives. Widely available through retailers in accessories markets and select online resellers, the cabinets are priced at Rs 1,699 for the Scallop, Rs 1,899 for the Aero and Rs. 1,899 for the Mines.

PC Cabinet Range With New Models

BlackBerry 10 Dev alpha

New BB is loaded with RIM’s

next-gen BlackBerry 10 OS in

its alpha avatar, with a 4.2inch HD

screen-totting and 1GB storage-

sporting Micro SIM slot.

Price: NA

1923 leica O-series

Leicas the holy grail of the

cameras comes with best

handmade lenses in the world,

part of the original Leica

O-series made in 1923.

Price: $3,000,000.

NaBuccO, cuOre vivO

Holy crap, a watch from

Raymond Weil, it is inspired by

Guiseppe Verdi and comes with

a titanium and steel case that

oozes

NeW

Price: `3,20,760.

paNasONic viera Th-l47DT50k

The 47-inch 3D LED panel

comes with a 2D to 3D up-

conversion, 8 surround sound

speakers with HD content

good colour reproduction.

hOT

Price: ` 1 ,33,900.

update

7 0 iTNexT | S E p T E M B E R 2 0 1 2

Get your hands on these fast-forward gadgets to inspire your peers and make yourself trendy

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


the big q

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...is private cloud the solution for Bhaskar Rajan to fetch better business results? The organisation is witnessing rapid expansion and the need for IT resources and services is increasing. Bhaskar Rajan, the Senior IT manager of a large discreet manufacturing firm is under pressure to drive better RoI and business benefits by leveraging IT to the maximum. The challenge before Rajan is to lower the capex. He and his team think it is time to consider deploying a private cloud that can put a layer of abstraction over the IT resources and offer users managed application services. There are umpteen challenges the team faces and Rajan, as head of the IT team, will have to work out a private cloud project plan.

He must consider what kind of cloud model he needs to work out, which critical applications he must to put on the private cloud and who the stakeholders in the private cloud group would be. Besides, it is also critical to take into account the existing infrastructure and evaluate the pro-

cess to ensure that the organisation is cloud ready.His next step is to define the scope of the project

taking timelines and budgeting into consideration. There are several things running in his mind. The first obvious question is whether the private cloud would bring in the necessary results. Given that the cloud phenomenon is very nascent despite the hype around it, will it address all his challenges in driving better business benefits? The dilemma is also about choosing the right partner who can im-plement the cloud model effectively and address security related challenges. Rajan must convince the top management about how cloud comput-ing standards will make sense to the business by lowering the cost.

However, irrespective of where the enterprise is in its adoption journey, Rajan thinks that key stakeholders often wonder if all the moving parts will fit in harmoniously, or whether they will result in a disastrous integration experiment.

Amid such confusion, Rajan seeks answers from experts on two intriguing questions, answers to which will help him make the right move.

AjAy BAkSHI, VIce PReSIdenT – PRoceSS AuTomATIon & ImPRoVemenTS, HIndujA GLoBAL

u c duBey, execuTIVe dIRecToR-IT, Iffco-TokIo GeneRAL InSuRAnce co. LTd

PeRTISTH mAnkoTIA, cIo, SHeeLAfoAm IndIA

eXpert pANeL

NeXt

PRIVATe cLoud

break through the cloud

cu

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fR

om

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Re


the big q

FiRSt AnSWeRGiven the backdrop and Rajan’s work environment, it makes perfect sense for his organisation to take advantage of a cloud environment.

Of the two types of private clouds (on-premise private clouds and externally hosted private clouds), Rajan could expect a huge reduction in capex investment not only with new assets but also replacements in the hosted private cloud option, besides reducing manpower investment.

While questions pertaining to RoI and benefits from cloud are inherent, experience shows that lack of support from line of the business group is one of the primary reasons for projects not taking off. Rajan’s cloud project plan will not succeed with the CFO sign-off alone; it requires an expanded team for understanding the change and subsequent improvement in the new work environment. SPOCs from various line departments must be part of the change group. Rajan must ensure this group is appropriately informed and empowered

to play a crucial non-technical but functional role. The IT team must handle differences arising from various departments effectively without disturbing the regular routine of many functional end users during the change and post stabilisation period. In advanced stages of the maturity cycle, Rajan can think of connecting with key distributors, varied applications and data points relevant to the business.

Second AnSWeRRajan’s initial sequencing should be to first take pure internal applications to the cloud; and in the second stage, take up applications used and controlled by multiple owners.

For successful implementation, Rajan must take certain steps:* Pick a suitable IT partner to take it through the cloud journey* Access the current hardware, their utilisation, make a priority list of applications

to be moved to cloud. * Close the decision on virtualisation and hardware platforms, which impact the

whole cloud journey. * Assess the scale of the project. Compatibility is the most important focus area. Most

often, organisations invest only when required; so, in 5-10 years, there are different systems running parallel, a challenge. Hence, it is the right time for him to bridge the gap.

As for business benefits, the cloud can help in reducing capex, reduced data centre costs, saving in real estate, less stress on access control and savings around air conditioning and power bills. Cloud also enables quick response time. It helps Rajan in embedding security through identity assurance and access control, encryption and key management and fraud protection. Private cloud would drive operational flexibility, enable dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning of servers in a secured environment.

The big queSTionS...

? WhAt kiNd of privAte cLoud modeL do you thiNk is most suitAbLe for rAjAN’s orgANisAtioN ANd Who Are the key stAke hoLders; WhAt kiNd of

iNNovAtioNs shouLd he thiNk of?

? WhAt kiNd of AppLicAtioNs shouLd he coNsider migrAtiNg to the cLoud, WhAt shouLd the key impLemeNtAtioN steps be, WhAt kiNd of busiNess

beNefits cAN he eXpect to Achieve?

here are The anSwerS...

AjAy BAkshi

vice president - process Automation &

improvements, hinduja global

about me: responsible for it

solution architecture, automation and process improvement; involved in building operational and strategic plans for

various business groups.

be PrePareD To hanDLe Change


the big q

FiRSt AnSWeRPrivate cloud is an extension of virtualisation. Before embarking on the cloud journey, Rajan should deliberate with the IT infrastructure team, IT application team, key users in various business functions, finance, and the top management team. Once these stake holders are convinced, the journey for cloud adoption can begin. Cloud adoption can enable him to have agility in providing IT infrastructure faster. Apart from quick provisioning, it will also help in meeting fluctuating work load requirements. Any cyclic or seasonal peak load can be serviced without earmarked resources designed for peak load. Sharing of resources for various applications will also result in considerable reduction in IT cost.

Thus a private cloud can meet his first challenge of supporting rapid business expansion.

Second AnSWeRCloud adoption is a journey. The following types of applications may be considered for migrating to cloud.

Application used by large number of users like e-mail Software development and prototype making Application testing Applications used as software as a service ( SaaS ) Applications having load fluctuation and demanding peak loads occasionally Collaboration applications

Key implementation steps: Organise a cloud concept workshop for key stake holders Decide on private, public, or hybrid model of cloud adoption Identify applications to be migrated to the cloud. Clearly understand software licensing issues in cloud model Make sure that regulatory compliances are not violated by cloud adoption

The benefits would revolve around reducing IT resources provisioning time from weeks to hours, having applications up and running faster, low cost due to sharing of resources, scaling the IT resource usage up or down as per requirement.

U C DUBey

executive director-it, iffco-tokio general

insurance company Ltd.

about me: expertise in vendor management, it strategy and planning,

business alignment; mentor to employees..

ConVinCe The STaKe hoLDerS

NeXt

Grouped Security/compliance Requirement in the cloudPRivAte

cloud private vLANs, network layer firewalls and ddoss is imperative to ensure security and compliance in the cloud

So

uR

ce

: Go

GR

Id

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

HIPAA PCI Private VLANs, network-layer firewalls

and DDoSs

Private Cloudsingle tenantenvironment

Virtual PrivateNetwork (VPN)

Not RequIReD

RequIReD

Data Grouped from Prior Survey question.

noTeS


the big q

FiRSt AnSWeRGiven Rajan’s challenges, private cloud is an ideal option. The first step is to take up Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - it can streamline the process and straight away reduce certain investment. Then, focus on the software platform to work out an effective cloud strategy using Platform as a Service (PaaS). This would address his core challenges and bring in certain standardisation. Have the business teams buy in into the cloud game. Make a project plan around IaaS and Paas and share it with various internal stakeholders. Take up a pilot project and run a small group through the private cloud to understand its benefits.

Second AnSWeRDo an impact analysis - it will determine the benefit of the cloud. The primary applications that can go on the private cloud are mailing, file servers, document management systems, sales force and the like.

Never put core applications on the cloud – the model is still not mature. The licensing cost may also be high. However, if there are home-grown applications, it is easy to migrate to the private cloud; and Rajan can find significant cost reduction as there is no role for a third party service provider. One aspect to keep in mind is MPLS connectivity. A robust strategy must address data leakage. Since the information load is unpredictable, putting small applications on the cloud mean better savings.

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

buY The buSineSS TeaM inTo CLouD

Pertisth MAnkotiA

head-it, sheela foam india pvt. Ltd.

about me: instrumental in developing and implementing

home-grown erp; responsible for

digitisation of an enterprise.

noteS

update


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

KAPiL MeHROtRA CHIEF MANAGER – IT APPLICATIONSAPOLLO MUNICH HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITEDA mobile is no longer a

luxury, it’s a necessity.

right implementation of

a mobile device strategy

across the organisa-

tion and mapping that

strategy to local device

settings can address

security concerns. make

and implement an It

policy that governs

usage and employees’

understanding. Use

threat management

to identify the risks of

moving applications to a

mobile platform. educate

application developers in

secure coding practices

for mobile device plat-

forms.

SDPL nARAYAnA ASST GM-IT NEULAND LABORATORIES LTDto ensure security when

using mobile computing,

the protection should be

commensurate with the

risks. When using mobile

computing facilities, eg.

Notebooks, palmtops,

laptops, smartphones

and tablets, special

care should be taken to

ensure that the busi-

ness information is

not compromised. the

policy should include

requirements for physi-

cal protection, access

controls, cryptographic

techniques, back-ups and

virus protection. remote

access to business

information across public

network using mobile

computing facilities

should be authenticated.

KAnAKA DURGA BHAVAni PRASAD SSENIOR IT MANAGERFIFTH AVENUE SOURCING PVT LTDSome security chal-

lenges include protecting

corporate data in transit

over public Wi-Fi and cel-

lular networks. encrypt-

ing data stored on device,

making it available only

to authenticated users

on domain. Limiting end

user’s access, preventing

harmful internet down-

loads and unauthorised

software installation. It

managers can overcome

the challenges by secur-

ing over–the– air com-

munication to protect

data in transit, use SSL

/ tLS Certificates to se-

cure data and encrypted

file transfers and store

on the device etc.

How is security addressed in Enterprise Mobility?

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

Cheating the Impossible

Star Value:

IT NEXT VERDICTPetit, who is a self-taught artist, makes compel-ling points about learning and taking on chal-lenges. Not to be missed.

tItLe: CheAtINg the ImpoSSIbLe: IdeAS ANd reCIpeS From A rebeLLIoUS hIgh-WIre ArtIStAUthor: phILIppe petItpUbLISher: ted bookSpAgeS: 50 (kINdLe edItIoN)prICe: $2.99revIeWed bY: SANjAY gUptA

how much time and preparation would

it take to cross 200 feet? the answer

becomes less obvious and the question

much less silly when you throw in

other facts. We are talking about the

space between the twin towers (of

9/11 fame), and the crossing was to

be done on a rope slung nearly 1,400

feet above ground. In 1974, French

high-wire wizard philippe petit actually

performed this feat. It took him six

years of meticulous planning—which

involved multiple intricacies of archi-

tecture, engineering and aerodynam-

ics. No wonder film director james

marsh has dubbed his exploit as “the

artistic crime of the century.” In Cheat-

ing the Impossible, petit recounts the

lessons he has learned. Some of his

musings would indeed be music to the

ears of It execs. Sample this: “Why

does problem solving bring me joy?

because it’s a game. the solutions

provide permutations—and multiply...”

my log


Sanjay GuptaConsulting Editor—It next (Online)

DReAMS:

next100 winners have dared to dream about their future roles, projects,

education or goals and are making concerted efforts to

pursue with confi dence

Everyone has a dream. Whether an Olympic hopeful, or an individual or a professional. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue

them,” said Walt Disney, and there can be no better example of a man who dared to dream. While all have dreams, some chase their dreams in a concerted manner, with unwavering focus; others are rather casual in their approach. What about IT professionals? Don’t they dream? About their future? About their work? What are the dreams that keep them going, lift them out of the mundane and prod them

on to achieving the impossible? This brings us to the Next100 winners, have special dreams they focus on, and make a conscious effort to achieve. So, ITNext attempted to get insights into what dreams meant to the Next100 winners. The study tries to focus on the dream projects that the winners had in mind, dream roles they aspired to adorn, the dream industry they liked to be associated with and dream sources of knowledge that they looked at. Most Next100 winners instantly vouched for the fact that Next100 awards gave them the necessary credentials.

WHAT THEY MEAN TO next100

WINNERS

leaDership | NEXT 100


Your Dream ProjectIt has been my dream to lead an IT governance project which envelops a whole lot of enterprise risks. While working out strategies to capture and evaluate varied risks in the project, I would aspire to arrive at all possible mitigation plans which can help nullify the risks. I am waiting for the opportunity to take up such a project.

Your Dream IndustryRetail and banking industries have been my all-time favourites. While I have had a stint in the banking sector, I am happy to have got into the retail sector - I carry a lot of aspiration to grow in this segment, a segment which shows much promise.

Dream Certifi cations or Dream CoursesI have a keen interest and am passionate about acquiring new qualifications and possess certifications which have helped me grow in my career. I have a strong desire to complete the COBIT 5 certification. I aspire to acquire this certification over the next year or so - it will help me to get ahead in my career.

Your Dream RoleA dream role? I have dreamt of becoming the CIO in a leading organisation in the future. Being an IT professional, I want to lead a team which can add value to business growth. I intend to be instrumental in driving the top line business growth through IT processes and projects. Besides, I have always been keen to be clued into organisational strategies which can translate into growth. This I expect to happen in the next five years, growing at a consistent pace.

SHiJU GeORGe, senior manaGer, shoppers stop ltD

“it has been my dream to lead an it governance project which envelops a whole lot of enterprise risks”


NEXT 100 | leaDership


Clas neumann | INTERVIEW


CUStOMeRS inSPiRe innOVAtiOn

What are the technological

innovations you are presently working on in the enterprise application space?Some recent innovations that attracted a lot of attention from customers have been with SAP HANA, that is a general purpose and ANSI standards-compliant in-memory database. Because of its design, it allows transactional and OLAP report-ing in a single system, which makes it simpler and much faster than traditional RDBMS systems like Oracle. In-memory DBMS technology will give businesses the perfor-mance necessary to quickly adapt to market changes and to enable them to discover trends as they occur and adjust accordingly. HANA is a key innovation from SAP and will also be a game changer in the market. SAP Labs located in Bangalore has about 4,500 engineers in the product development team and another 1,000 employees in the

software services team who have worked on this.

What part of HAnA was developed in india? How is it impacting your customers’ requirements?HANA was jointly developed across all the SAP R&D centres in USA, Germany, China and India. The Indian development centre located in Bangalore has devel-oped some of the applications on top of HANA. A significant part, say 20-25 per cent, of this prod-uct was developed here, which is a big deal for us. We are seeing increasing effi-ciency in the customer transac-tion and scheme (data points) redeeming process. Just to state an example: assume a customer accumulates several points on every purchase--it takes a lot of effort to keep track of the accumulated points and keep a tab on credit points. Using HANA solutions which are 1,000 times faster in real time processing, a customer can easily calculate these.

to what extent are your customers involved in your innovation strategy? Can you elaborate on some of the co-innovations happening out of india?While we constantly get feedback and requests from our 100,000 odd customers on a regular basis through the group forums, events etc, we work on co-innovation projects with our customers across the world. From our strategic customers standpoint, we run co-innovation projects together on a different scale which would be more customised. These projects revolve around enterprise mobility or any other technology they would ask for. The product or solution evolution would be completely based on the ideas and innovations that the customer would suggest. In fact, you can see a number of customers working at our labs 24X7 on the joint innovations. We have an event called SAP Sapphire held on a regular basis

the indian development centre located in Bangalore has contributed about 20-25 per cent to hana development, says Clas Neumann, senior Vice president, Global head sap labs. in conversation with Manu Sharma, he discusses some of the co-innovations happening and technology road map

CUBE CHAT | sharat m airani

My deep interest in exploring the it security space prompts me to do research, probably take up a PhD in the subject,” says Sharat M Airani, Chief-It (systems & security), Forbes marshall

Learningis Living

He is insatiably passionate about learning the newer nuances of technology. Chief-IT (Systems & Security) of Forbes Marshall, Sharat M Airani’s quest for

enriching his knowledge doesn’t seem to end ever as he aspires to bag a PhD in the IT security space in Advanced Persistent Threat (APT).

“My deep interest in exploring the IT security space prompts me to do research, probably take up a PhD in the subject. This would give me personal satisfaction, and at the same time, enable me to help the IT community,” says Airani. A deep knowledge in such a specialised field would help him gain much recognition in the industry. Not surprisingly, Airani has been adding new credentials in the form of new degree/certifications every two years in the security, networking and storage arena.

Though Airani does not possess an engineering degree, he is a science graduate with Physics and Mathematics as his specialisation. He was fascinated by computers and fell in love with AT 486; so he did not hesitate to join UB Engineering in 1990-92 as a storekeeper. His proximity to computers created a strong desire in him to pursue his career in computers. In early 1992, he resigned from his job and nurtured his interest by learning Q BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL programming on DOS 3.2 and later, on Unix OS. “The early 1990’s saw a boom in email firms without Internet and I joined one such company --ICNET in late 1992. I used to maintain its UNIX server and helped in pre-sales support,” he says. “I opted for night shifts so I could get time to study and take up courses during the day,” he adds. In 1994, he joined DartMail when Windows 3.x and later, the Windows

“Desire to acquire per-

fect skills ”

MY SUCESSMANTRA

BY MANU SHARMA


server, OS, was rolled out, and he learnt to work on them. It was here that Airani had the option to make a choice between programming, application support and end user server/infrastructure management; but he chose server/infrastructure management as a career.

In 1995, when Windows NT4 was rolled out, a course in computers from NIIT helped him gain experience in NT servers. In 1997, Airani joined Forbes Marshall as a network and server administrator and has since grown to the current position as chief of IT. One of the major challenges he faced at Forbes was converting the desktop to VDI. Being a large manufacturing company, design and production teams were spread across the location. There was a need to move the data to a centralised location.

“We involved the management as the key stakeholders in the project and created a proof of concept before we implemented a secured VDI project in 2009. “The benefits accrued in terms of centralisation of data, backup, and return of investment (RoI) of about Rs 50 lakhs from for the first year itself,” he adds. Others would have sat on their laurels, but not Airani, even after achieving so much. “My thirst for knowledge remains and I continue to present technical papers on various ICT subjects at international conferences,” he says. He owes his achievements mainly to his father and family members who supported him all through. He draws inspiration from the writings and philosophy of great thinkers like Swami Vivekanand and Guru Aadi Shankaracharya.

FACT FILE

name sharat m. airani

Current DesiGnation ChieF it (sYstems & seCurit Y)

Current role manaGinG anD seCurinG it inFrastruCture eXpertise: CreatinG Business Value supporteD BY teChnoloGY; aliGninG it With Businessit transFormation, turn arounD it orGanisation anD improVe eFFeCtiVeness strateGiC outsourCinG anD Cost manaGement

aWarDs * Winner oF Ciso 100 aWarD 2012 * Cio asia maGaZine’s “the 2012 Cio 100 honouree”. * aWarDeD neXt Generation Cio BY it neXt 2011 * Winner oF the “top 10 Green it enterprise aWarD 2011” supporteD BY apC-sChneiDer * Winner oF the Ciso 100 aWarD 2011 - reCoGnition oF the Best anD the BriGhtest it seCurit Y leaDers oF toDaY * “Value Champion” For the Year 2009 -10 From ForBes marshall* WorK eXpereinCe22 Years

FaVourite QuoteConCeiVe--BelieVe --aChieVe (Without Compassion)FaVourite Destinationmauritius & anDaman-niCoBar

FaVourite BooKDiFFiCult Y oF BeinG GooD-BY GurCharan Das

“I opted for night shifts so I could get time to study and take up

courses during the day”

CUBE CHAT


Digital Debristhe online world is replete with junk. still thinking whether you need that email in your inbox forever?

3 EssEntial REads

Clas Neumann, Sr VP, Global Head-SAP Labs on Customers Inspiring Innovation Pg 44

Dreams: What They Mean to Next100 Winners and how they intend to fulfill them Pg 51

Sharat Airani, Chief-IT (S&S), Forbes Marshall, believes Learning is Living Pg 66

Recently, Facebook made a startling rev-elation : 83 million of its 955 million users are not genuine but a mix of add-on profiles, fake identities, etc. Some suspect this num-ber’s much higher.

Then there are lots of people with multiple email profiles on services such as Gmail, Yahoo and MSN who never delete any mails. Not to miss matrimonial profiles, defunct blogs, long-lost online catalogues, and tons of photos and videos on the Flickrs and YouTubes of the world that hardly get seen.

Now, why am I recounting all this?I’m pointing to something I like to call

digital debris: a huge data mass scattered all over cyberspace. The digital equivalent of mountains of trash you see in city landfills, the debris seems to be proliferating at the speed of thought.

Sometime back, Google Chief Eric Schmidt is said to have famously remarked: “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.”

What he probably omitted? That much of that data is trash, junk, hardly used, of no use at all.

Think about it: How many would find it useful to sift in Twitter archives and find out who ate what and when? Or to find some usable pictures of the Grand Canyon from millions of photos uploaded by tens of thousands of tourists?

Beyond the euphoria of seeing our “creation” online — and coercing a few friends to gawk at them — much of these remain hidden deep inside the flood of bits and bytes.

Which brings me to another interesting question: what happens ultimately to all that digital debris? With storage cost hitting rock bottom and the “likes” of Facebook, YouTube and others offering users more avenues to plonk their stuff online, it wouldn’t surprise me if data scientists end up scratching their heads in the same desperation as environmentalists do today: “Oh my, I feel so nauseated by all this trash!”

And then, there is the physical aspect of digital junk: all those servers, racks and buildings where it sits.

A growing clutch of cloud providers, social media giants and other ambitious souls are in a frenzy — not only to stock that junk (along with useful data, including biz apps, let me hasten to add) but also fetch it speedily and, I’m told, securely. Whenever, wherever, however you want.

My question again is: Do we really, really want everything? Or can we return to the good old habit of deleting the unnecessary?

Fortunately, in the digital realm, we can “incinerate” stuff we no longer want in a more effective and environment-friendly way than in the physical reality. But how many of us will?

illustration: p

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an

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1800 3000 9990 | [email protected]® Core™ i vPro™ enabled *In unit shipments for Jan 2012 – March 2012© Lenovo 2012. All rights reserved. Lenovo, the Lenovo logo, For Those Who Do and ThinkCentre are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Core, Core Inside, vPro and vPro Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microso� and Windows are registered trademarks of Microso� Corporation. Lenovo reserves the right to alter product o�ering and is not responsible for photographic or typographic errors. Product images are just for reference and might not resemble the actual products.

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IT Next September 2012

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Transcript of IT Next September 2012