CRN June 1, 2012 Issue by UBM India

contents

June 01, 2012 l Volume 1 Issue 15

Cover Story With enterprise data growing at 60 percent annually, demand for storage solutions is growing exponentially. We present 10 key solutions areas that partners must focus on

20 Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik

NEWS Analyses

Channel Chief

Dell to launch Elite Partner Program

Epson sees faster growth

Ricohâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aggressive push for laser printers

Netgear increases SMB focus

Symantec offers more opportunities 13 Sood quits Oracle

Sanovi strengthens pre-sales

Rajesh Janey, President, EMC, India & Saarc, spoke about the initiatives announced during EMC World 2012, and how they will benefit Indian partners

16 Special Focus The need for WAN optimization Virtualization, cloud computing and BYOD is fuelling the WAN optimization market and presents a significant opportunity for partners

Role Model Like father, Like son Anil Gupta started Artek Enterprises when there were no PCs in India. With son Anubhav, they have made Artek what it is todayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a reputed network integrator

Editorial 12 Opinion

Feedback

Channel Buzz

New Products

Shadow Ram

Get Personal

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Tech Focus Unlocked and overclocked Intel unleashes the Ivy Bridge chip and motherboard for high-performance desktop computing

starting line MUST

Dell to launch Elite Partner Program

Epson sees faster growth

n SONAL DESAI

Read

Epson has advanced its revenue forecast. The company now seeks to clock `1,000 crore in revenue in 2014 instead of 2015, as was decided earlier. Explained SM Ram Prasad, Senior Business Manager, Consumer Product Group, Epson India, “In 2011 we grew 30 percent compared to 2010, and clocked total revenue of close to `600 crore. This year we are targeting `780 crore. Despite a slowdown, we are confident of touching the `1,000 crore mark in 2014 itself.” In the inkjet printer category the company currently has a marketshare of 28 percent, up from 22 percent in FY2011-12. “We expect to grab around 35 percent marketshare in this category. What will help is the success of the three printer categories launched last year—the L and K series, and the WorkForce printers,” added Prasad. Epson garnered revenue of `250 crore from the 10 lakh printers it sold in FY201112. It expects to grow by 40 percent in the segment in the current fiscal. The company plans to expand into Ram Prasad unrepresented markets in the east and north-east, and HP, Punjab, Rajasthan and UP in the north. It will also pursue SMBs and very small offices with its low-priced products. In the projector category Epson garnered 13 percent in volume marketshare with revenue of `70 crore in FY2011-12, and expects to touch 18 percent marketshare with revenue of `100 crore in the current fiscal. It intends to increase its sales from 24,000 units to 45,000 units in the current fiscal. Scanners, large format and industrial printers, and PoS products contributed `280 crore to the turnover. For growth in the projector category the company will leverage on its HD-ready, full HD, 3D and Apple docking projectors. In printers it will continue to leverage on its Ink Tank Technology products. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee

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ell will launch an Elite Partner Program in mid-June. The company has already roped in 60 tier-2 partners (in the data center space), and is training them on the Dell solution stack cutting across its enterprise solutions portfolio. In the new program Dell has internalized the feedback from partners who had alleged a lack of transparency in deal registration. Partners had been complaining that while IBM and HP have opportunity registration which works at an account level, the Dell deal registration process mapped accounts on a transaction basis. Many partners also highlighted the conflicts between direct and indirect accounts. The company is taking steps to address these issues in the new program. “We spoke to partners, listened to them, and tried to address as many issues as possible,” said Suresh Reddy, General Manager, Global Commercial Channels, Dell India. However, the company is not willing to disclose the names of its Elite partners. Said Reddy, “They are working for the competition, but have pledged dedicated resources for Dell. We will work with them on a turnkey basis. Our partner account teams are interacting regularly.” Dell has already closed a couple of deals valued between $2 million and $2.5 million with two partners in the last two quarters. “These deals have come as a door opener for partners who were initially reluctant to partner with us,” Reddy remarked. The company has changed the incentive structure for the Elite partners. “Since these are big projects involving end-toend solutions, we decided to do away with monthly or quarterly incentives,” Reddy informed. “We will instead be paying these partners an annual incentive

“They—Elite partners—are working for the competition, but have pledged dedicated resources for Dell. We will work with them on a turnkey basis” Suresh Reddy

GM, Global Commercial Channels, Dell India

which is a significantly higher amount. We will train the partners and urge them to speak to their customers about our solutions.” Dell is leveraging its strong brand-pull to talk about its enterprise solutions to customers. “Customers are appreciating our IPs, and are seriously considering our solutions, so that is a positive for us,” Reddy reasoned. The vendor is also arming partners with account and presales managers who will closely align with sales executives in the company to stitch the deal. It will also convert the deal registration system for the Elite partners from transaction-based to account-based starting mid-June. In addition, the company will offer financing options to customers. There are certain pre-requisites to becoming a Dell Elite partner. Explained Reddy: “Every partner should have a core tech strength or be strong in a particular vertical. Besides, they should clock `150 crore in turnover, and 90 percent of the wallet should comprise data center and solutions. They should also have pre-sales and implementation capabilities.” The Elite partners will join the 2,000-strong community of the company’s GCC, of whom 460 partners do committed business at least once a quarter. n

starting line MUST

Ricoh’s aggressive push for laser printers

Netgear increases SMB focus

n AMIT SINGH

Read

Encouraged by the 60 percent growth in its SMB business last fiscal, Netgear has decided to expand its product portfolio and drive a stronger partner strategy. According to Gartner, the size of the overall network equipment market in India is close to $900 million. Netgear internally estimates the current addressable market for network equipment in India at close to $200 million. The segment is seeing demand for reliable, affordable and simple products encompassing switching, storage, wireless and security solutions. In a bid to address the increasing opportunities in the segment, the company recently appointed Subhodeep Bhattacharya as Regional Director, India & Saarc. Armed with a product portfolio comprising L3 switches; encore switches in 8, 10, 24 and 48 ports; 10 GB aggregators; storage boxes that can be scaled up to 18 TB; controller-based solutions for wireless; and UTMs, the company is aggressively targeting the SMB market. “In India our S Bhattacharya initial focus was on the low-end market, but now we want to be seen as a complete solutions provider,” said Bhattacharya, who is scouting for SMB partners to strengthen the ecosystem. “We are looking for competent partners who can help us penetrate deeper into the Indian market. We are now eying solution partners and small systems integrators.” Netgear currently has Ingram Micro and Rashi Peripherals as its national distributors; together they address close to 1,000 partners in the country. This fiscal the company will spread its footprints to the top 40 cities, up from the top eight cities and some B- and C-class cities last year. It will also participate in customer events for product demos, ATL activities and road-shows. In terms of post-sales the company provides lifetime warranty for most of its products; it has Intarvo as its service provider for the top seven cities and Rashi for the remaining cities. n — Abhijeet Mukherjee

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icoh has become aggressive for its laser printer portfolio, and aims to earn revenue of `95 crore in the current fiscal. To spruce up its portfolio, the company has unveiled three entry-level models of laser printers and A4 MFPs. According to the vendor, laser printers contributed about `37 crore to the total revenue of `432 crore in the last fiscal. “With the introduction of entry-level laser printers targeting SMBs, sohos and consumers, we aim to sell about one lakh laser printers. Of this, 80 percent will be entry-level printers,” said V Balakrishnan, Chief Marketing Officer, Ricoh India. He further stated that in FY2013-14 the company expects laser printers to contribute about 18 percent of the total targeted revenue of `1,000 crore. The company’s recently introduced SP 100 is a singlefunction laser printer priced at `6,500. SP 100SU functions as a printer, scanner and copier, and is priced at `9,900. SP 100SF is an A4 MFP with print, scan, copy and fax functions at `12,800. Both the SP 100SU and SP 100SF offer 36-bit color scanning and ID copy. All models have a print speed of 13 pages per minute, with a duty cycle of 10,000 pages per month. The company is offering a 1-year onsite warranty. The three models are supported by Ricoh’s Genuine Toner Refill Program. Said Balakrishnan, “This is a program in which we directly refill the toners at `650 with no compromise on quality.” The new cartridge for these models is available at `3,800. Ricoh has an aggressive marketing strategy for its laser printers. “We will spend about `15 crore in marketing activities,” Balakrishnan informed. To execute its plans Ricoh has

“With the introduction of entry-level laser printers targeting SMBs, sohos and consumers, we aim to sell about one lakh laser printers” V Balakrishnan

Chief Marketing Officer, Ricoh India

already conducted road-shows in New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and will hold more such events in Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ranchi and Kochi by June-end. The company will support partners through in-shop branding, customized consumer events and promotions, lead generation and partner schemes. Ricoh also has heavy expansion plans for its partner base. It currently has about 200 resellers and dealers, which it aims to increase to 1,000 in the current fiscal. The company is looking for partners who are already offering printers; it will of course also leverage its existing partners. Ricoh presently has six regional distributors, and intends to add at least four more in the current fiscal. “There may be more additions depending on the support needed in various regions. We will however maintain sanctity in the business by not recruiting too many RDs,” Balakrishnan said. The company has already expanded its channel manager base to 18. In addition, Ricoh has plans for the expansion of its aftersales service. The company has about 217 service points, which it aims to increase to 470 in the current fiscal. n

edit opinion Volume 1, Issue 15

Boom in storage dhaval valia

ccording to an EMC-IDC Digital Universe Study, in 2011 the amount of information created and replicated surpassed 1.8 ZB, growing by a factor of nine in just five years. In India the digital information explosion has been starker. As per the study, during this decade (2010 to 2020) digital information in India will have grown from 40,000 petabytes to 2.3 million petabytes—twice as fast as the worldwide rate. Even as the digital information in India is expected to grow 60-fold over the next decade, enterprise investments in IT and staffing are expected to grow in only single digits. What this means is that enterprises—small and big—are and will be eying storage solutions and services that are smart, scalable, de-duped, easily manageable and cost-effective. To my mind, storage solutions and services will be the fastest-growing segment over the next several years, hence it makes sense for partners to embrace this reality and convert it into a big opportunity. Storage-as-a-service will be the biggest area of growth. While it is still too early to cite numbers, the potential for the market to take off is huge. A few partners have already launched their white-label backup services targeted not at large enterprises but smaller businesses. For instance, Delhi-based Ace Data Devices has launched a cloud-based backup and recovery service targeted at small businesses with less than 99 nodes. According to Neeraj Mediratta, CEO, SMBs are the most attractive segment because they do not have any legacy infrastructure while large enterprises not only have legacy infrastructure but also have serious concerns about security and compliance. De-duplication is going to be another area of growth for partners, and they need to start investing in building expertise around it. With de-duplication one can compress data by up to 60-70 percent; this cuts down not just the pure hardware cost but also the cost of archiving and managing information. Storage virtualization should be another key focus area. With many organizations having virtualized their server infrastructure, the next phase of consolidation will be storage virtualization. Big data will attain prime importance, if not immediately then over the next couple of years, in every mid-to-large enterprise. Unlike data warehousing, which was about analyzing structured data, big data is all about doing real-time analysis of unstructured or semi-structured data even as it gets created. Big data will present a major opportunity, and partners should invest in the skillsets required to provide such solutions. This edition’s cover story highlights the 10 big storage solutions and services strategies for partners. Happy reading.n E-mail CRN Executive Editor Dhaval Valia at dhaval.valia@ubm.com 12

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Managing Director Printer & Publisher Director Associate Publisher & Executive Editor Group Commercial Director Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Principal Correspondent Senior Correspondent

: : : : : : : : :

Sanjeev Khaira Sajid Yusuf Desai Kailash Shirodkar Dhaval Valia Salil Warior Ramdas S Sonal Desai Abhijeet Mukherjee (Mumbai) Amit Singh (Delhi)

Design Art Director Senior Visualiser Senior Designer Designer

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starting line Symantec offers more opportunities n SONAL DESAI

eeping up with the needs of its SMB customers, Symantec has upped the opportunities for its Enhanced SMB Specialization partners. Central to the new initiative is the Symantec Information Management Group (IMG) to help SMBs protect their data with new delivery models such as Backup Exec cloud, Backup Exec appliances, and an enhanced version of the Backup Exec 2010 software. “With the IMG, SMBs will be able to leverage the benefits of backup from Symantec asa-software, as-a-cloud service, or as-an-appliance. To be sold through partners, the backup will help enterprises and SMBs to meet challenges related to data growth, virtualization and DR,” said David Dzeinciol, VP, Channel Sales & SMB, APAC & Japan, Symantec. “For small business customers and remote offices you can have on-premise servers and desktop workstations with backup on Symantec’s cloud—and not have to mess with on-premise storage.” Enhanced SMB Specialists can obtain expertise in SMB Backup, SMB Security, or both. Additionally, the company will train partners to pitch new offerings on VMware and NetApp to their customers. Said Dzeinciol, “We are focusing our resources on programs to help support partners in increasing demand and driving revenue in the segment. We have added new financial incentives, advanced SMB-focused technical support, and tailored tools and enablement benefits in the Enhanced SMB Specialization.” Among the incentives planned for the SMB partners are doubling the rebates/incentives and offering partners access to beta testing and technical enablement. “Over time we will also

“We have added new incentives, advanced SMB-focused technical support, and tailored tools and enablement benefits in the Enhanced SMB Specialization” DAVID Dzeinciol

VP, Channel Sales & SMB, APAC & Japan, Symantec

introduce the managed service licensing program for SMB partners,” Dzeinciol informed. “Although the program will be by invitation, we will first help partners understand the mechanics of hosting platforms such as Kaseya and NAble. After the training they will be able to independently use one of the platforms. The billing mechanism is in place, and we will start the managed services soon.” Partners who have hosting solutions capabilities, a proven track record, and security backup and recovery in their portfolio will be the first choices for managed services. “Although the partner will essentially cater to the hosting needs of SMB customers, he will also be able to work with large SIs for projects involving large corporate or enterprise customers,” Dzeinciol added. The company also seems to have learned a lesson from the flak it received during the CRN Channel Champions Survey. Partners had complained about the lack of clarity in product positioning among the Specialization partners. Admitting the faux pas Dzeinciol said that Symantec will drive more clarity around the product portfolio, product benefits, and how partners can access them. n

MUST

Read

Sood quits Oracle Kapil Sood, VP, Systems Business, Oracle India, has quit. While Oracle India refused to comment about the development, inside sources confirmed it. Asis Chaudhuri, CEO, Duckback Information Systems, a Kolkata-based Oracle partner said, “We have learned that this is Kapil’s last month at Oracle. He resigned two months back.” The company underwent a massive realignment following the acquisition of Sun and the subsequent merger. Oracle retained some top executives including Bhaskar Pramanik, MD, Oracle India; Rajesh Rege, Head, Tier-1 Accounts; Ravi Vishwanathan, CFO; Jaijit Bhattacharya, Head, Corporate Affairs; and Sood. Another partner said that Sun executives who joined Oracle after the acquisition in January 2010 and the subsequent merger have quit the company. Partners opined that the attrition (of Sun employees) at Oracle was nothing new. “Sood will also be replaced. It is too early to comment about the impact,” said a partner. n — Sonal Desai

Sanovi strengthens pre-sales In a bid to give partners more pre-sales support, DR management software provider Sanovi is establishing a team of pre-sales engineers. The company recently announced the appointment of Anurag Kuthiala as Head, Pre-Sales. “We are not changing the business model as it is still partner-centric. At the same time, we want more feet on the ground to help partners sell effectively and demonstrate the technology benefits to customers. Our pre-sales team is rapidly expanding, and our recent recruitment (Kuthiala) is testament to the importance we attach to this function. With his direction and guidance we will be able to proactively address the needs of customers and partners,” said Ashis Guha, President, Global Sales, Sanovi Technologies. The newly set up team will be trained to understand customer requirements and deliver services. “They will ensure that the DR software brings value to the customer’s IT environment,” Guha stated. n — Sonal Desai

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edit opinion EMC: Extra Mighty Channel? Kelley Damore

in servers but also in networking, storage and other infrastructural elements. Thanks team CRN.

ake no mistake: For years EMC built its business on the back of a super-aggressive direct sales force. When EMC began to court the channel more than a decade ago, solution providers were skeptical that it could change its stripes. But little by little, bit by bit, EMC convinced a select group of solution providers that it was serious about working with the channel. As a result, EMC created a small, very specialized and loyal channel that has helped the company nab many of our channel satisfaction awards. But now comes the hard part. As EMC moves downstream hoping to build a broader channel, it needs to prove to thousands of solution providers, instead of hundreds, that the channel is in its DNA. Some of its recent channel and product moves at the EMC World are encouraging. EMC’s VNX and VNXe are strong products that are targeted at SMBs. What is more, EMC recently released VSPEX, a reference architecture for building converged infrastructures that combines storage, server, networking and virtualization. While it is clearly a response to NetApp’s FlexPod, EMC has upped the ante by allowing solution providers to put their name beside EMC’s name on the box in a master stroke of co-branding that could change the converged infrastructure landscape. It is a powerful move which shows EMC understands that the solution provider is the trusted advisor and that the solution provider brand matters. Many vendors think their own brand will carry the day and scoff at co-branding or white-label requests from partners. EMC’s VSPEX co-branding play is a key differentiator for EMC in the intensely-competitive converged infrastructure market. In fact I can not think of the last time a major top-tier vendor has done co-branding like this. If EMC is going to win the hearts and minds of a broader channel it must convince solution providers that it is channelfriendly and that its sales reps will not steal accounts. To lay the groundwork, EMC has dusted off its rules of engagement and delivered it to the channel and the internal sales force. According to EMC, a sales rep must bring in the partner no later than the second sales call. The company is also upping commissions for EMC direct sales reps who work with solution providers, and putting in place sales compensation models which reward channel-friendly behavior. EMC will push all sales and services in all but the largest accounts to the channel via its Enterprise Select program. The company’s success or failure with the broader channel will be in the execution of these programs. It appears these initiatives have the support from the very top, Joe Tucci, Chairman & CEO, EMC. With the power of its brand, technology and channel leadership, EMC has the opportunity to build the broadest, most technically astute and most profitable channel in the market. n E-mail Kelley Damore at kelley.damore@ec.ubm.com 14

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Kalpesh Shah Via email

Forward Industries eyes `100 crore revenue by 2017 Growth consolidated Kudos to CRN for writing such a detailed cover story on server technology and the opportunities for partners in the segment. The article comes at an apt time, and the information is significant considering the number of constant developments. It provides a bird’s-eye view of the entire segment, and with virtualization and the cloud taking center-stage, throws light on the new opportunities partners can tap independently or through peer-to-peer collaboration, not only

Organizations such as Forward are supporting the increasing trend of multiple computing devices in a single home, so the opportunities for PC accessories are tremendous. The story carried by CRN about Forward’s entry in India is an awakening as to how more MNCs are planning to grab share in the Indian market. If the products get good visibility and partners get a decent margin, there is no reason why such companies will not flourish. Abhijeet Singh Indore

Send your feedback at editor@ubmindia.com or post your views on www.crn.in

Advertiser Index Company name

Page No Web site

Sales Contact

Smartlink

1 www.digisol.com

helpdesk@digisol.com

Smartlink

2 www.digilite.co.in

helpdesk@digilite.co.in

IBM

4 www.ibm.com

response@in.ibm.com

Alcatel Lucent

india.mktg@alcatel-lucent.com

Compuage-Odyssey

7 www.compuageindia.com

odyssey@compuageindia.com

Seagate

9 www.seagate.com

www.seagate.com/goflexsatellite

Compuage-Edifier

11 www.edifier-international.com

info@compuageindia.com

Cisco

15 www.ciscospanishconquest.com

www.ciscospanishconquest.com/tnc.php

CLS

27 www.crn.in/lsummit

salil.warior@ubm.com

Interop

salil.warior@ubm.com

Envent

35 www.enventworld.com

WeCare@enventworld.com

Quick Heal

info@quickheal.co.in

Acer

37 www.acer.co.in

Biz

38 www.indiaantivirus.com

sales@indiaantivirus.com

Schneider

39 www.schneider-electric.com

in-care@schneider-electric.com

Kaspersky

40 www.sakri.in

sales@sakri.in.

www.interprise.alcatel-lucent.com

www.interop.in www.quickheal.com

channel chief “We aim to increase our partner-led business” Rajesh Janey, President, EMC, India & Saarc, spoke to Amit Singh about the initiatives announced at the recently concluded EMC World 2012, and how these initiatives will benefit Indian partners EMC announced Cloud Builder, Cloud Provider Practices and the EMC Cooperative Services partner programs at the recently concluded EMC World 2012. What are the benefits of these programs? Cloud computing represents a huge market opportunity for EMC’s partners. Cloud Builder and Cloud Provider Practices are our initiatives to enable our Velocity Solution Provider partners with the capabilities to design, build and operate their own branded IT-as-aService cloud offerings. Partners who earn the Velocity Cloud Builder or Cloud Provider Practice designations will be eligible to access EMC cloud solutions and services such as Storage-asa-Service, Backup-as-a-Service, Rapid Launch, Cloud Advisory, Field Enablement and Remote Monitoring. Under the EMC Cooperative Services program, the company provides service components to the partner to incorporate into a larger customer deliverable by using methodologies, best practices and analytical tools. Partners own the customer relationship and service engagement, and can choose to brand the overall service as their own. This program is available to service-enabled resellers who are a part of the Velocity Solution Provider program and have achieved Velocity Specialty status. Partners can take advantage of EMC’s technical experience and proven methodologies to offer high-value services to customers under their own brand, further strengthening the relationship with them and building long-term loyalty.

What are your recent initiatives for channel partners? 2012 is the Year of the Channel for EMC. We aim to increase our partner-led business from the current 65-70 percent to about 75-80 percent in 2012. To make it easier for our partners to work with us we have introduced a number of initiatives. Apart from the product portfolio enhancement and our cloud initiatives, we are focusing on partner enablement. We are focusing on developing a pool

“With SMBs in mind we have been working to bring more products in the sub-$75,000 range. The idea is to keep these products simple, efficient and affordable” 16

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of specialized partners who can do as much as system installation and implementation. We are encouraging our partners to gain specializations in cloud, backup, storage and analytics. We look forward to empowering our partners to deliver high-end products such as Symmetrix, Greenplum, Isilon (big data and analytics solutions) and Documentum. We have a joint GTM with our partners where we support them through various initiatives including lunchand-learn sessions, EMC education services, partner sales updates, EDMs on comparative analysis, and partner technical consultancy. We have a team of 10 sales executives and three partner technical consultants (PTCs) to support partners in their needs around training and tools. PTCs will play a critical role in creating a pool of specialized partners to give the best solution-set to our customers.

What are your product initiatives for channel partners? With SMBs in mind we have been working to bring more products in the sub-$75,000 range. The idea is to keep these products simple, efficient and affordable. In addition to the channel-only products focused on the SMB segment—the VNXe, an entry-level unified storage product, and the EMC DD160, a de-duplication storage system—we have introduced the channel-only VNXe 3150. Together with the recently-announced VSPEX Proven Infrastructure and VMAX Service Provider platform, VNXe 3150 provides EMC partners with a flexible cloud-enabling capability. The VNXe series is available through EMC’s Velocity Solution Provider partners or authorized resellers. We introduced 42 new products and technologies at the recently-concluded EMC World 2012 marking the company’s most significant single-day launch of new capabilities for customers and partners across our entire information storage, backup, virtualization and management portfolio. We introduced VMAX 40K to the VMAX family of enterprise storage arrays. Delivering as much as three times more performance and twice the usable capacity of any other enterprise storage product, the VMAX 40K is optimized to support hyper-consolidation of demanding big data, transaction processing, analytics and cloud computing applications.

channel chief The new combination of VPLEX virtual storage with RecoverPoint data protection delivers a solution to combine active-active data centers with third site disaster recovery protection. VPLEX now delivers up to 40 percent more performance on currentlydeployed platforms without requiring any additional investment in hardware, and twice the scale with the ability to support up to 1,600 host initiators per VPLEX configuration.

Apart from the increased focus on channel-led business, cloud initiatives for partners and product expansion for the mid-market, what are your other priorities for 2012? We are highly focused on educating customers as well as our partners on big data analytics, and have engaged four partners for our big data solutions. We have a pure appliance-based approach, software-based approach, as well as integrated approach with Hadoop file systems on Isilon. Although as of now big data solutions are limited to tier-1 channels, there is a clear opportunity for tier-2 channels as well. Another focus is to grow our scale-out NAS and back-up recovery solutions business by specialization of partners in these solutions. To support our thrust in this area, we recently included iValue Infosolutions as distributor for our backup solutions. Apart from these, we aim to build on our strength of solutions for the government. We recently introduced the Saksham eGov Case Management solution, an easy-touse and quick-to-deploy case management automation solution for government departments and agencies in

“We recently introduced the Saksham eGov Case Management solution, an easy-touse automation solution for government departments and agencies” India. The solution caters to the need for workflow acceleration, automation and tracking process in the government sector by addressing case management.

EMC recently enhanced its backup and recovery solutions. Please explain the benefits they bring to the table. EMC’s appliance-based backup and recovery platforms are expanding rapidly and bringing new levels of opportunities for our partners. With the introduction of the new Data Domain DD990, we have raised the industry bar for backup performance—over six times faster and with three times more capacity than its nearest competitor. The new Data Domain software broadens archiving capabilities for extended retention and regulatory compliance, expands the Data Domain Boost ecosystem, and enhances the Data Domain Data Invulnerability architecture. The new Avamar 6.1 de-duplication software and system delivers three times the backup performance and 30 times the recovery performance of its nearest competitor in VMware environments. It simplifies backup management for business critical applications and expands Microsoft Hyper-V support to deliver complete protection for virtual server environments. n

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special focus

The need for WAN optimization

Virtualization, cloud computing and BYOD are fuelling the WAN optimization market, and present a significant opportunity for partners n SONAL DESAI

ith the growth in Web-based enterprise applications and service delivery over the Internet, WAN optimization has become a critical component across organizations. Also, with more organizations going global, the technology is a boon to stay connected at all times, cut costs and boost productivity. According to F&S, the APAC WAN Optimization Controller market recorded growth of over 21 percent YoY in FY2011. The research firm has pegged the WAN optimization market in India at approximately $30 million for 2012.

Growth factors The growth can be attributed to the need to reduce latency across the corporate WAN. Cloud-based applications, infrastructure and services are opening up opportunities. The increasing number of branch offices is a key contributor to this trend. According to Nemertes Research, 90 percent of employees worldwide do not work at the headquarters, therefore assuring acceptable application delivery to branch office employees over the WAN is of utmost importance to IT managers. Today’s organizations are packing more networked devices as the demand for anytime, anywhere, any device network access has become a workplace mandate across all sectors, feels Mahesh Gupta, VP, Borderless Networks, Cisco India & Saarc. The expansion of mobility solutions into rural and tier-2 locations will also prod organizations to ensure that service appliances are delivered with limited resources, remarks Shibu Paul, Country National Sales Manager, Array Networks.

“Partners are positioning WAN optimization alongside applications such as SAP and Oracle in which customers are making large investments”

“The deployment of Cisco’s WAN optimization solutions has helped Union Bank to roll out new applications and projects faster”

Ambarish Deshpande

Mahesh Gupta

MD, India Sales, Blue Coat

Virtualization is another game changer. F5 Networks has started working with ISV vendors such as VMware, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle for application enhancement. Anil Pochiraju, MD, F5 Networks India, says that despite mushrooming applications, F5 has the early-mover advantage and can support virtual events through its application delivery control (ADC) technology. What is more, desktop virtualization (from the days of remote desktops) has undergone a major change in terms of user access and performance on virtual desktops. Users expect virtual desktops to perform as competently as physical desktops, and vendors are therefore developing solutions to accelerate the accessibility. The clogging of critical applications is one of the main reasons why organizations are deploying WAN optimization. Application acceleration plays an important role here. “We see, in many cases, partners positioning WAN optimization alongside key applications (such as SAP and Oracle) in which customers are making large investments; they want to guarantee the performance of these applications,” remarks Ambarish Deshpande, MD, India Sales, Blue Coat. The company helped a leading air and integrated transportation, distribution and logistics company to effectively utilize network resources to deploy new advanced services. Similarly, Union Bank of India, which deployed Cisco’s WAN optimization solutions across its 1,600 branch locations, was able to improve the response time for core banking applications and email. The bank can provide a LAN-like experience even to its remote users.

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VP, Borderless Networks, Cisco India & Saarc

special focus “The consumerization of IT, remote applications and desktop delivery from centralized data centers have opened up new avenues for WAN optimization”

“Opportunities for partners are coming from online gaming, Web servers and educational institutes which have automated the admission process”

Nilesh Goradia, Manager, Systems

Gunjan Shah

Engineering, India Sub-continent, Citrix

Director, Insight Business Machines

Says Gupta of Cisco, “The deployment has helped the bank to roll out new applications and projects faster, thus reducing its capex and opex costs. The bank has also witnessed an overall improvement up to 70 percent in bandwidth throughput by avoiding recurring bandwidth update requirements.” Internet usage is growing all the time, and applications are getting richer with multimedia content as well as Web 2.0 features (such as HTML5 and Ajax) which are creating more interactive applications. WAN optimization reduces the use of WAN bandwidth by 65-95 percent; reduces network congestion, server costs and IT maintenance; consolidates servers into data centers more effectively; and enables virtualization without impacting performance. The cloud has been a major enabler for new opportunities in WAN optimization. “The consumerization of IT, remote applications and desktop delivery from centralized data centers, and the bridge between private and public clouds, have opened up new avenues,” says Nilesh Goradia, Manager, Systems Engineering, India Sub-continent, Citrix Systems. The need to accelerate anything that touches or traverses a network is driving newer opportunities which benefit consumers and vendors, notes Paul Serrano, Senior Director, Marketing, APAC/Japan, Riverbed.

Opportunities for partners Partners can leverage opportunities offered by the data stored in the public cloud; such data is expected to increase as cloud storage prices continue to decline. In such a scenario they can play the role of counselors or advisors to their end-customers and earn service revenue. “Opportunities for partners are coming from online gaming, Web servers, and educational institutes which display results online and which have automated their admission process. Online search engine companies are also scouting for trusted partners for WAN optimization,” says Gunjan Shah, Director, Insight Business Machines. “These opportunities translate into opportunities for ADC.” There are also opportunities for security partners. Organizations are looking at Web application firewalls that integrate authentication of database, user control, application control and access control through a single sign-on. This provides security partners an opportunity to secure the entire WAN of an organization across geographies. Cisco enables partners to provide innovative and strategic solutions to customers and expand their existing

relationships. For example, it is enabling certified partners to provide Wide area application Services (WaaS) as a network device. “Its primary function is to optimize applications, and that opens doors to a new breed of prospects,” comments Gupta. ACPL recently deployed an ADC WAN optimization project for a client in Delhi. “Although they had sufficient bandwidth, it was choked for the most part. The DR window for data backup was also a big issue. They were planning to increase bandwidth but we offered them the ADC option. Three-fourths of their bandwidth was freed at the PoC level itself, and the time for data backup was reduced from two hours to half an hour. Besides, the company has launched new initiatives such as VoIP and video conferencing on the same infrastructure,” informs Sakpal Sandhu, Head, Information Systems, ACPL. Applications such as ERP and SCM are in demand, and the data gets transferred as the sales force is on the move. Also, with the increasing cost of infrastructure, building and maintaining data centers in Class-A cities has become expensive. Organizations are therefore scouting for real estate in Class-B and -C cities to build DCs or DR centers. According to Manoj Bhist, MD, MK Infosystems, these organizations are opting for load balancers as the mobile employees virtually connect with the office via data centers over the WAN.

Conclusion Though WAN optimization is playing an integral role across organizations, it is vital to note that the principals (barring one) are not yet comfortable working with tier-2 partners, as a result of which the community can identify opportunities in ADC but has not been able to participate in turnkey projects. “A WaaS deal normally starts at $2 million, whereas partners can earn anything from `25,000 to a couple of lakhs on the individual components of WAN optimization. Secondly, the vendors are not providing PoCs and support material to partners. We have done 2-3 WaaS deals, each worth `20 lakh or 30 lakh, but have still not invested in the technology,” reveals Shah. By contrast, ACPL has invested for technical certifications, resource training and PoCs. Sandhu argues that there are umpteen opportunities, and that the partner has to align with the right vendor. Despite his opinion, a large number of partners feel that the principals should do a lot more hand-holding—and only then will partners invest in PoCs and skilled resources. n

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cover story

With enterprise data growing at 60 percent annually, demand for storage solutions is growing exponentially. We present 10 key solutions areas that partners must focus on n RAMDAS S

arious research reports state that enterprise data is exploding at the rate of between 40 and 60 percent year-on-year. This data explosion guarantees that the enterprise storage market will continue to grow at healthy rates over the next few years. Gartner estimates that in India the enterprise market will grow at around 18 percent over the next five years. “Obviously, IT budgets do not grow at the same rate as data growth. Vendors as well as partners therefore need to position technologies that work smartly to help customers manage data better,” says Aman Munglani, Research Director, Data Center Systems, Gartner India. Below, CRN takes a look at the top trends in the enterprise storage market.

Storage as a Service

With the advent of the cloud, customers have taken a lot of interest in Storage as a Service (SaaS). Gartner reports that while it is still too early to cite numbers, the potential for the market to take off is

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huge. Though vendors agree that the potential exists, they are not in agreement on what storage components would comprise a service. “Without doubt the biggest traction has been for backup services which are predominantly being targeted at consumers and small businesses by the likes of Google or Microsoft,” says Syed Masroor, Head, Technology Solution Organization, NetApp India. “That aside, enterprises are evaluating SaaS more from an experiment point of view.” One of the issues associated with most cloud-based backup services is that they are not supported by strong service level agreements (SLAs). “The SLAs do not guarantee data integrity in most cases, though there are exceptions. Some of the service providers are indeed providing better support,” says Deepak Varma, Regional Head, Presales, EMC, India & Saarc. A few partners have reported that customers have been asking for backup services which are outside the customer infrastructure. “Since cloud-based storage does have the advantage of being an operational expenditure,

cover story “The biggest traction has been for backup services which are being targeted at consumers and small businesses by the likes of Google or Microsoft”

“Look at storage migration. Prior to virtualization it would mean hours of downtime especially when you moved data between appliances”

Syed Masroor

Sudarsan Ranganathan

Head, TSO, NetApp India

CEO, Veeras Infotek

it makes logical sense for customers to look at secondary backup over the cloud. Bandwidth costs are still a killer in India,” remarks Jai Natarajan, CEO of the Bengaluru-based Xentrix Studios. Says Sandeep Vahi, CEO of the Delhi-based Compton Computers, “We have started offering customers backup-as-a-service and are charging per TB of data per month. It definitely works out to be more profitable than system sales.” However, Varma feels that it is just a question of time before enterprise customers start thinking of opting for primary storage as a service. “We see that one application which customers may want to host outside their infrastructure could be analytics, where there would be a need for extra compute requirements. However, such needs may not be consistent enough to justify a capex investment.” He cited the example of Delhi-based Tulip Computers associating with MindTree and Iomega to provide Surveillance-as-a-Service. “Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) would be another storage area that should start picking up,” forecasts Munglani of Gartner.

IT convergence

The unified fabric concept (pioneered by HP and Cisco) has redefined the way storage, networking and computer infrastructure are architected especially in the data center. Over the past year or so every vendor has either aligned with or has developed its own complete stack for the market. While HP and recently Dell have announced complete stacks of server, storage and networking, others like NetApp and EMC have chosen to participate with Cisco. Meanwhile, IBM has introduced Pure Systems, and Hitachi has introduced its Unified Compute Platform. “Convergence across infrastructure silos also has an implication for the way we manage IT. Many IT shops are organized in silos, with separate administrators for servers, storage, networks, databases and hypervisors. Successful convergence will be better served by a horizontal organization,” observes Srinivas Rao, Director, Presales & Solutions, Hitachi Data Systems. The approach to solving the problem from a storage point of view is different. While HP and Dell strongly speak of their single stack approach, EMC and NetApp use an integrated solutions approach from different vendors. “FlexPod is a data center storage platform that has been put together through an alliance between Cisco, NetApp and VMware, and provides a streamlined response to identify and quickly solve potential issues

related to shared infrastructure,” says Masroor. The solution is sold through both Cisco and NetApp partners. EMC, Cisco and VMware formed the Virtual Computing Environment company which sells Vblock products based on various EMC storage systems and the same Cisco and VMware pieces included in FlexPods. Varma points out that the real difference is between a single stack reference architecture and a solution that is pre-tested, pre-validated and optimized. “What we are shipping is an integrated stack that is pre-validated and tested to work off the shelf,” he says. Deciding which approach is better could trigger an endless debate, but there is little doubt about the advantages posed by the unified approach. “Orchestration software helps to converge the management, automation, provisioning and reporting across local, remote and cloudbased server, storage and network infrastructure,” says Rao. “Reference architectures for applications such as Exchange and Oracle databases, which are pre-configured and pre-certified, will shorten the time and effort to stand up applications and make it a lot simpler for a partner to sell and deploy.”

Virtualization

Virtualized storage is essentially ensuring that a physical storage is made available virtually for multiple applications similar to the way server virtualization works. Almost all vendors see virtualization as the biggest technology in storage over the past few years. “It is no more a special feature, but a widely accepted fact, that even the entry-level storage box needs to support virtualization,” says PA Sathyaseelan, Executive Director, Enterprise Solutions, Dell India. The biggest movers in the storage virtualization space are not the storage vendors but the software vendors. “Look at storage migration. Prior to virtualization it would mean hours of downtime when you moved data between appliances. Now with the live migration of virtual machines there is little downtime,” says Sudarsan Ranganathan, CEO, Veeras Infotek. Varma notes that VMware has been leading the pack when it comes to virtualizing storage infrastructure. “An example could be VMware’s Vsphere storage APIs for array integration. This tool allows you to offload specific storage operations to support disk arrays, thus providing superior performance. Virtualization as a technology has revolutionized storage.” Masroor points out that for a partner to become successful in the storage business it is imperative that the

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cover story “Virtual desktop infrastructure automatically implies the need for enterprise storage, and this is one of the growth drivers in the enterprise market”

“Storage I/O control is used to provide I/O prioritization of virtual machines running on a cluster of ESX servers that have access to a shared storage pool”

Harikrishna Prabhu

Ganesan Arumugam

Director, Technobind Systems

partner develop virtualization skillsets. Desktop virtualization is also driving the storage market. “VDI automatically implies the need for enterprise storage, and this is one of the growth drivers in the enterprise market,” says Harikrishna Prabhu, Director, Technobind Systems, Bengaluru. Virtualization is also being deployed to replace traditional disaster recovery systems and high availability solutions. “The VMware Vsphere 5.0 introduces profile driven storage which will allow for rapid and intelligent provisioning of virtual machines based on SLA requirements and providing storage capabilities. Storage I/O control is used to provide I/O prioritization of virtual machines running on a cluster of ESX servers that have access to a shared storage pool,” says Ganesan Arumugam, Director, Channel & Alliances, VMware India.

Increased efficiencies

Automatic tiering, thin provisioning and snapshots are some of the features that have become standard on most enterprise storage boxes. “Thin provisioning is a method for optimizing utilization of available storage,” explains Masroor. “It relies on on-demand allocation of blocks of data versus the traditional method of allocating all the blocks upfront. This method eliminates almost all white space which helps to avoid the poor utilization rates. It also allows space to be easily allocated to servers on a just-enough and just-in-time basis.” He says that depending on the application, thin provisioning often ends up saving 60-70 percent of space. Since a full backup often takes a long time to complete, most new-age storage systems allow the storage administrator to take a snapshot which essentially is a read-only copy frozen at a particular time. The snapshot can be backed up easily without the live data getting corrupted or lost. Snapshots are also created for versioning of data. “It gives the ability to use the same dataset multiple times for multiple reasons while storing only the changes between each dataset,” explains Sathyaseelan. Automated tiered storage is the automated progression or demotion of data across different tiers (types) of storage devices and media. This movement of data is automatic to the different types of disks according to performance and capacity requirements. Studies suggest that 80 percent of the storage I/O is often utilized by just 20 percent or less of data. “For this reason the file system is tiered in such a way that performing blocks are allocated to data that is

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Director, Channel & Alliances, VMware India

accessed often. Hitachi and many other vendors support this feature dynamically; it is also perceived to increase the efficiency and performance of the storage sub-system,” says Rao. While most of these features are only seen in storage boxes of enterprise storage vendors, some of them are being implemented in Linux and FreeBSD file systems too. For example, ZFS and Btrfs (two popular file systems) have preliminary support for tiering, snapshots and thin provisioning.

De-duplication

De-duplication has been around for four years now, and has become one of the most sought after storage technologies. Data de-duplication technology can be used to track and remove duplicate blocks of data inside a storage unit. There are a multitude of implementations, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. De-duplication has been traditionally recommended for backup and secondary storage. “We recommend deduplication as an effective mechanism by which storage efficiencies can be increased especially while archiving. Archived data can often be compressed by 60-70 percent,” says Rao. He recommends that for primary storage and live data, de-dupe must not be deployed because of increased computing overheads associated with the technology. However, other vendors have started recommending de-dupe even for primary storage. “We have seen 25 percent storage savings for databases, and around 60-70 percent for unstructured data. For a VDI infrastructure you are often able to reduce the storage space by 90 percent,” says Masroor. De-duplication is also encouraging vendors to launch specific de-duplication appliances. EMC had acquired Data Domain, and integrated it with its product portfolio. “We also have a client software called Avamar, which, positioned along with Data Domain, makes it one of the best-in-class de-dupe solutions. We often require less than 20 minutes to back up 1 TB of data with Avamar and Data Domain,” says Varma. Dell too recently launched a de-dupe appliance, the Dell DR-400. Even vendors such as Riverbed (which has traditionally focused on the WAN optimization market) has joined the de-duplication race by introducing appliances that offer data compression over a WAN or over the cloud. “Our Whitewater cloud gateways shrink storage requirements by 10-30 times, and the

cover story “Our client software Avamar, when positioned along with Data Domain, often requires less than 20 minutes to backup 1 TB of data”

“For customers who need to compress and backup data we have launched data compression appliances that do the job on the fly, and error-free”

Deepak Varma

Laura Guio

Regional Head, Presales, EMC, India & Saarc

VP, Storage, STG Growth Market Unit, IBM

data can be stored on a public cloud at a fraction of the cost. Customers can take advantage of the reliability of the cloud at much reduced cost,” says Anil Batra, MD, Riverbed Systems India.

Future of tapes

For more than three decades magnetic tapes were the most preferred way to store data. However, there are several questions that customers as well as vendors are raising about the future of tapes. “Only vendors who do not have efficient tape strategies are questioning the future of tapes,” insists Amit Malhotra, Director, Storage Sales, Japan & APAC, Oracle. “Tapes remain the most effective and cheapest way to backup data in the foreseeable future.” Others feel that the tape market is shrinking. “Without doubt many customers are increasingly opting for diskbased backup systems,” says Masroor. “One of the biggest challenges with tapes is that the technology is inherently slow for both backup and recovery compared to diskbased backup systems.” This is prompting vendors to ship data compression appliances that allow data to be compressed on the fly and backed up. IBM, for example, has launched the IBM Data Compression appliances. Explains Laura Guio, VP, Storage, STG Growth Market Unit, IBM, “We believe that tapes will be around for a long time as the technology is still the most reliable, often lasting for 2-3 decades. At the same time, for customers who need to compress and back up data, we have launched data compression appliances that do the job on the fly, and error-free.” Magnetic tape media is also expensive, with an 800 MB tape retailing at around `8,000, about 50 percent more than the cost of a 1 TB HDD. However, a point in favor of tapes is that, once backed up, the tapes do not require any power and cooling to run, thus making them cost-effective over a period of a few years. Says Malhotra, “Many segments such as BFSI— because of compliance requirements—need to store data for several years. Tapes are often the only bet. For example, through online banking, you can generate your bank statements of the past 3-6 months instantly. But if you require statements of two years you will need to wait for 24 hours or more. This is because such information is often backed from tapes which are offline.” Varma believes that tapes will increasingly be limited to segments where compliance requires that data has to be backed for years. “In all other cases, disk-based backup will be preferred.”

Fiber channel vs iSCSI

Big data

For years Fiber Channel (FC) was perceived as the fastest and most efficient technology for storage hosts. But with the advent of iSCSI there is debate about which technology will do better. In fact over the past two years there are three technologies which are being discussed: FC, FC over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI. FCoE is an encapsulation of FC frames over Ethernet networks, while iSCSI is essentially a standard that uses the existing Ethernet to connect. Unlike FC, iSCSI does not require any specific cabling. “It is a three-way battle,” comments Rao, “and frankly unless you have a bandwidth-intensive application such as streaming media or backup data the difference in performance will be minimal between the three technologies.” Some vendors opine that iSCSI has the edge since 10G rates have dropped to such an extent that many data centers (and even enterprise network backbones) are able to afford it. “The technology is simple, and can use a regular network switch, so there is a definite momentum for iSCSI. But FC and FCoE are both here to stay, and when it comes to mission-critical applications for storage hosts they will continue being the standard of choice,” says Varma. “Today, iSCSI accounts for 25-30 percent of the Indian market, and we feel that in the next 12-18 months acceptance will grow. The performance gap between iSCSI and FC is a thing of the past,” says Munglani. While some vendors are betting on FCoE taking off, Munglani is one of the analysts who do not see FC/FCoE doing well. He says that he will not be surprised if the hype around the technology dies off, and the technology itself does not take off. “There are prohibitive costs associated with FCoE, and it remains to be seen how it will sustain itself given that 10G costs are tumbling, making iSCSI an attractive option.”

Big data is perhaps the most hyped technology in the storage market these days. According to IDC’s fifth annual survey in 2011, 1.8 zettabytes (1.8 trillion gigabytes) of information were created and replicated in 2011 alone, which is up from 800 gigabytes in 2009, and the number is expected to more than double every two years surpassing 35 zettabytes by 2020. Big data is essentially all about a promise that some of this data can be collected, managed and analyzed to reveal patterns and trends which could improve decision-

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cover story making at every level for security, system optimization, market research, scientific discovery, etc. “Hype aside, there is a lot of misunderstanding around the topic, with many customers unclear about how to tap the big data opportunity to analyze unstructured data. We feel the market will take off only in the next financial year with this year being spent on educating the customer,” says Munglani. Unlike data warehousing which was analyzing structured data (mostly database information), big data is all about doing real-time analysis of unstructured or semiunstructured data as they get created. “Today we have both hardware and software that can analyze petabytes of data,” says Sunil Brid, Area Sales Director, Isilon Division, EMC India & Saarc. However, does big data offer a huge opportunity for partners? No one believes it could be imminent unless the partners themselves invest in skillsets and make investments in building POCs for customers. Acquiring and retaining skillsets around big data is not easy either. It requires professionals who need to be skilled across a number of technologies from distributed

file systems and computing to software algorithms.

Scale-out NAS

Scale-out NAS is being touted as the solution to the ever-growing unstructured data inside an enterprise. Though concept-wise it has been around for a long time, the recent developments around big data have shifted the spotlight to scale-out NAS. Legacy NAS systems have a limit to the amount of file system space they can address. The NAS controllers have a limit to the performance they can achieve, dictated by the type and number of processors and cache used in each system. At the same time, using traditional unified storage to scale for higher capacities has tremendous cost implications. The industry has opted for multiple ways to solve the problem. The first method is using clusters of lowend servers with processing and I/O capabilities where each node is independent of the other, and gets added to the cluster as and when there is demand for more space. Red Hat (which acquired Gluster) and Gridstore are the prime examples. There are also several open source

GEOMETRIC’s storage virtualization success story

umbai-based Geometric Software, a specialist in the domain of engineering solutions and services, faced the challenge of increased complexity as a result of a growing number of desktop users and applications run within the enterprise environment. The heterogeneous environment consisted of servers and storage from vendors such as IBM, HP and NetApp. Specific areas of concern included security, productivity and flexibility, all of which ultimately affected the equipment and management costs of the overall infrastructure. Geometric has offshore development centers for various client product companies. It was imperative to maintain proper infrastructure segregation between the groups working for different customers (as well as internal stakeholders) to protect the IP rights of all parties. Geometric’s engineers downloaded data on individual desktops for creating builds and testing as part of their work. Besides, end-users wanted to work from home, which also meant a potential security breach. Further, over 300 man-hours in just one year alone were spent on installing and uninstalling software on machines. This gave rise to support infrastructure isolation between different customers and business units. These business challenges led Geometric to look at a modern, flexible infrastructure such as server virtualization from VMware and Microsoft, and desktop virtualization. Mumbai-based SK International was called in as a solution provider. “We envisaged that a solution built with Cisco UCS, NetApp and Citrix would help Geometric to address issues like scalability, security and employee productivity,” said Hemant Kenia, Director, SK International. Engineers from Cisco, VMware and NetApp came together to help architect the VDI deployment. With VDI, the data

would reside on central servers, thus resolving data security concerns. “At the same time, centralized installation and management meant significantly reduced IT administration time and cost, as well as downtime for users,” said Kenia. In the first phase, 300 virtual desktops were deployed on hardware that was budgeted for 250 desktops. The goal is to eventually bring 600 desktops into this pool. NetApp FAS 3140A with 12 TB SAS storage was deployed to host the virtual desktops with NFS on the Citrix Xen servers. A private cloud using the OpenNebula, OpenStack and Xen XCP platforms was deployed for tests, and is under consideration for production. In the next round of deployment, they will use Xen or Hyper-V as a hypervisor with Citrix VDI for the desktop while continuing to use VMware for specific server virtualization requirements. The server virtualization will be set up on FCoE while the VDI will continue to be on standard 10G Ethernet. The multi-tenancy feature available on the NetApp and Cisco UCS platform in combination with both Citrix and VMware was one of the major long-term drivers for selecting this platform. The virtual machines belonging to different customers and business units can be isolated in a secure manner within the same physical data storage, thus preventing any possibility of data leakage. Finally, the ability to centrally store data allows employees to telecommute when necessary without fear of security breaches. Downtime has also significantly decreased. Total time lost due to crashes used to be 136 hours, but is now only eight hours for the 250 desktops that are virtualized. Increased storage efficiency has also reduced storage requirements by up to 40 percent. n

We envisaged that a solution built with Cisco UCS, NetApp and Citrix would help Geometric to address issues like scalability, security and employee productivity

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cover story “Only vendors who do not have efficient tape strategies are questioning the future of tapes, which are the most effective and cheapest way to backup data”

“Hype aside, there is a lot of misunderstanding around big data, with many customers unclear about how to tap the opportunity to analyze unstructured data”

Amit Malhotra

Aman Munglani

Director, Storage Sales, Japan & APAC, Oracle

Research Director, Data Center Systems, Gartner

implementations including Gluster and Lustre which try to solve the problem through the clustering of computers. Vendors such as EMC, NetApp and Oracle have introduced new versions of their file systems that do exactly the same. “The OneFS file system in our Isilon range offers independent, linear scalability of performance and capacity to over 100 gigabytes per second of throughput and more than 15 petabytes of capacity in a single file system,” says Brid. Similarly, Oracle has launched storage product lines based on their Zetta File Systems (ZFS). According to Malhotra of Oracle, “The Oracle ZFS-based storage product can scale virtually to any capacity. The technology has been developed by Sun, and is extremely stable.”

Storage Management

Most enterprises have multiple storage products; many of these purchased when storage vendors promoted proprietary standards. Almost all vendors are investing in developing tools that get shipped with their

latest storage boxes that promise to protect investments. “Hitachi has pioneered this effort,” says Rao. “With the Hitachi Command Director we can manage the legacy hardware which is shipped by the competition, and through virtualization offer all the latest features, including dynamic tiering, made available on the older hardware, thus protecting your investments.” Varma says that moving storage management to the cloud, including data protection, could be a trend for the future. Rao adds that application programming interfaces, which offload workload to storage, can make the servers and memory more efficient. Another area where a lot of interest is being generated is for accelerating applications that are running on storage boxes. Larger data sizes often bring in bottlenecks that slow down applications. “Our customers are excited about the multi-fold performance gains, and we see that optimized hardwaresoftware bundling is the way to go in future,” says Malhotra. n

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market focus The potential in home networking The increasing number of IT-related devices in the modern household has increased the need for better connectivity and opened the door for networking products n ABHIJEET MUKHERJEE

ccording to IDC, the size of the current market for networking products in the home and soho segment is `450 crore, and the segment is growing at a CAGR of 27 percent. Network vendors such as Cisco (Linksys), Netgear, Digisol, D-Link, Belkin and Asus are creating opportunities for partners by introducing products at regular intervals. There is also a shift in home networking from standard routers, range expanders, and eight port switches (for small offices) to 3G wireless routers, repeaters, NAS storage devices and cloud-based network devices. The proliferation of devices such as smartphones, tablets, notebooks and netbooks in various form factors, plus other devices such as the Xbox, smart TV, media player, NAS and 3G dongles are driving the connectivity needs of homes. The devices can also be connected via Digital Living Network Alliance-enabled devices to common storage devices and 3G dongles. “The market is driven primarily by the consumer desire to remain connected, to download music or movies, or to chat with friends,” says Mohit Anand, MD, India subcontinent, Belkin. Another factor driving the market is price. “Compared to a couple of years ago, networking equipment such as wireless routers, range expanders and 3G routers are now available at prices that are at least 25 percent lower,” notes Navinder Singh Chauhan, GM, Marketing, Smartlink Network. Portable devices are another driving force. For example, a 3G SIM can now be placed inside a Wi-Fi 3G router instead of plugging the entire dongle to the router directly. Remarks Chauhan, “Customers demand products that can enrich their lifestyle and that have a feel-good factor. Gadgets do add to the home decor, and are also being

Wi-Fi devices Multiple devices in households have increased the demand for Wi-Fi connectivity. “We have around 2.5 million consumer notebook users and 20 million smartphone users,” says Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & Saarc, Netgear. “We also have three million tablet users, a figure which is expected to cross nine million in the next two years. This translates to a huge growing demand for wireless devices.” Routers also come with smart apps which help consumers to download movies without the need for human intervention. Vendors are also launching routers with pre-loaded apps that automate backup in an external hard drive even if the PC is switched off.

Cloud networking “Cloud computing was a nascent concept till about three years back, but now we are beginning to deliver a whole new world of personalized content with anytime, anywhere, any device connectivity,” comments Amanulla Khan, Regional Manager, IMEA, Home Networking, Cisco. “These shifts and disruptions in the market are creating new opportunities and driving the growth of the home networking category.” According to Tushar Sighat, CEO, D-Link, surveillance is a major opportunity for partners. “Working parents are now able to monitor their homes through surveillance cameras and keep an eye on the children, their parents and possessions from anywhere over the Internet. This can be done by using their smartphones.” Cloud networking devices such as cameras, storage and routers allow consumers to control, view, share and

“Compared to a couple of years ago, networking equipment such as wireless routers are now available at prices that are at least 25 percent lower”

“Cloud computing was a nascent concept till three years ago, but now we are delivering personalized content with anytime, anywhere, any device connectivity”

Navinder Singh Chauhan

Amanulla Khan

GM, Marketing, Smartlink Network

looked at as style statements.”

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market focus “Using smartphones, working parents can now monitor their homes through cameras and keep an eye on their children from anywhere over the Internet”

“There are players who sell cheap wireless routers. These devices are health hazards because they emit microwave radiation but do not shield the radiation”

Tushar Sighat

Subhodeep Bhattacharya

CEO, D-Link

access their network devices anytime and anywhere. Netgear’s Smart Network Cloud Application Platform will enable the management of smart home devices from Wi-Fi thermostats for increased energy efficiency to tablets for simple print sharing and cloud printing capabilities. There is also increased demand for IP surveillance cameras at home. The products are available for `4,000 onward, and are easy to install. With the cloud making remote access easier, more people are using them. Even in smaller cities partners are doing brisk business. “We sell around 250 3G routers and 200 ADSL routers per month,” informs Vaibhav Jain, Director, Jai Paras Infotech, a Dehradun-based RD. “Most of our customers have 2-3 devices at home such as an iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and notebook. The cloud-based IP surveillance camera is another product that’s doing good.”

Network storage Mobile apps have boosted the utility value of NAS drives for home users. Many advanced entry-level NAS drives are bundled with support for mobile apps that let users access content remotely, share files and upload content on social media. Vendors have come up with NAS products for the home segment whereby users can wireless store images, movies, music and other data from multiple devices simultaneously. Netgear’s ReadyNAS, Seagate’s Goflex and WD’s WD2Go and Remote are some such products. There are wireless routers available in the market which can connect to such storage devices wirelessly. And Belkin is launching a wireless router that can help beam content in a notebook on to a TV. Says Khalid Wani, Sales Director (branded business), IMEA, WD, “Small storage servers built for SMBs have arrived in the market. They serve as one-stop solutions that offer centralized storage and networking, and do not need to be operated or maintained by IT personnel.”

Greater speed The trend of home networking devices is moving toward speed. From 802.11n routers to the soon-to-be-launched 802.11 AC routers, networking is fast enabling high data speeds from 1.8 gigabits per second to five gigabits per second. Most vendors are now gearing themselves to use the new technology in their devices. Since 3G costs are still on the higher side, consumers opt for broadband devices and create a Wi-Fi eco system using broadband routers. “Today, speed is the deciding factor while choosing a router. Due to the demand for high-speed routers, the industry has moved from 64

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Regional Director, India & Saarc, Netgear

Mbps routers to 150 Mbps, 300 Mbps or more. Vendors have also come up with easy-to-install solutions,” says Bhattacharya. Agrees Nand Kishore Rathi, Proprietor, NK Enterprise, an Erode-based reseller, “Earlier I used to sell 64 Mbps routers; these have now been replaced by 300 Mbps routers-cum-modems. I sell around 80-100 such routers per month. Consumers are demanding more of such stuff because most have multiple devices at home.”

The opportunities The changing consumer mindset regarding home networking products has increased the opportunities for retailers and resellers to earn money. “The perception earlier was that networking meant complicated installation procedures and cumbersome wiring. But today’s products are easy to install and there are plenty of wireless options available. This change in consumer perception has helped partners grow their business,” explains Chauhan. With the explosion of connected devices and richer Web-based services, consumers are using their home network to improve the quality of life, and these market shifts create opportunities for partners. Opportunities also arise because many broadband consumers who are yet to go wireless will convert. Adds Khan, “Many current wireless consumers are still on older technology, and they will be ready to upgrade to higher-end products specifically to support their new video-centric Wi-Fi tablets and Wi-Fi TVs.”

Three challenges The biggest challenge across industries is the depreciating rupee which has increased the input costs of vendors. While some have absorbed the increased costs, many have been compelled to pass them on to the end-user. There is also the view that the proliferation of ultralow-cost devices in the market is a big challenge because they not only ruin the market but are also a health hazard. “There are many small players who sell cheap wireless routers. These devices are health hazards because they emit microwave radiation but most of them are not prepared to shield this radiation,” says Bhattacharya. The lack of widespread Internet penetration is another challenge for vendors and partners alike. According to Internet World Stats, India has achieved an Internet penetration of only 10.2 percent as of December 2011. “The lack of last-mile connectivity is a big challenge as ISPs are struggling to reach the smaller cities in India,” says Anand. n

Role model

Like Father, Like Son Anil Gupta started Artek Enterprises when there were no PCs in India; his son Anubhav joined him in 2006. Together they have made Artek what it is today—a reputed network integrator n Amit singh

nil Gupta, Director, Artek Enterprises, is still as enthusiastic about technology as he was when he started the business in 1979. The company, which began by distributing industrial equipment, has now transformed itself into a renowned networking integrator run by Anil and his son Anubhav with a major focus on the government and PSUs. Artek has mastered the art of dealing with the intricacies of the tendering and bidding process, as well as the extended payment cycles of government departments and PSUs. Governments and PSUs contribute about 90 percent of Artek’s revenue. The company has several high-value customers including the Indian Railways, IAF, Indian Army, Defence Ministry, ordnance factories, Airport Authority of India, NIC, JNU, IITs and IIITs. Anil Gupta and Anubhav Gupta

The early days Soon after completing his MBA from Punjab University in 1978, Anil worked for a small company as GM, Marketing, for a year. He started Artek Enterprises in 1979 with his friend Ravi Khanna. Artek began with the distribution in north India of Aplab’s electronic test equipment. The company also partnered with Imeco to distribute their ultrasonic cleaners, Monga Strayfield for their radio frequency driers, and Wonderpack for their plastic packaging machines. The company received a setback when Khanna quit to pursue his family business in 1986. But Anil took it as a challenge and in the same year expanded Artek by forming the IT business division. “I always strive for something different; this enables me to learn and adopt new technologies. Back then I saw a great opportunity in the IT industry which was at a very nascent stage.” Artek’s IT business started with the distribution of Epson and Wipro printers in north India. Seeing huge opportunity in networking, the company partnered with MRO Tek in 1987 for its modems. “PCs did not exist at that time in India, but large organizations had data processing machines and we sensed a need for networking,” explains Anil. Surprisingly, it was the government organizations and PSUs which were willing to try out the new solutions. “We spoke to officials and apprised them of the technical solutions for their pain-points. I have always believed that

“I have always believed that even if you are a small company, if you are technologyoriented and understand customer painpoints then customers will listen to you”

even if you are a small company, if you are technology-oriented and understand customer pain-points then customers will listen to you,” Anil says. Riding on this approach, Artek won several small projects in government entities such as NIC, IAF, railways, Rashtrapati Bhavan, ordnance factories and various ministries.

Business expansion Artek expanded its networking portfolio in 1990 by partnering with D-Link for active components and AT&T for passive components. A major break came in 1991 with a project worth `50 lakh for designing and implementing a LAN network for 400 nodes at the NIC headquarters. In the same year, the company won a networking project worth `1.5 crore across 14 ordnance factories. Artek also implemented a ticketing network (WAN) worth `20 lakh for New Delhi railway station in 1992. Besides, the company established a WAN for nine locations of the IAF in 2000; the project was valued at `7 crore. In 2000 Artek expanded its focus to include educational institutions. The company executed a project worth `1 crore to implement a LAN and firewall security for IIT Kanpur in 2001. Besides this, Artek executed projects at various IITs, IIITs, Dayalbagh University and Chaudhary Charan Singh University. Between 2005 and 2010 the company executed various large-scale networking projects for the Indian Army. In 2006 Anil again expanded the business to include audio-visual products. In the same year Artek established an operations room with audio-visual equipment worth `1.5 crore for the Indian Army. The company also

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role model 1979

Started Artek Enterprises by distributing industrial equipment Formed an IT business division; started distributing Epson and Wipro printers in north India

1987

Current business

MILESTONES

1986

installed audio-visual equipment for the Indian Railways. Also in 2006 Anil was joined by his son Anubhav, an MBA. “My aim was always to join my father’s business and help him grow. Soon after doing my BSc in IT from Amity University I joined the business, and then in 2008 I completed my MBA from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,” says Anubhav.

Partnered with MRO Tek;

payment delays were the major challenges nowadays. “Bitten by several accusations of corruption, government organizations have been slow on investment in infrastructure. Moreover, delayed payments in the channel business are also a burden.”

Best practices Artek adopted Tally ERP in 2010 for better financial planning, inventory management and payment cycle management. The company is ISO 9001-2008 certified since 2000, and received ISO 27001-2005 certification in 2009. It is also looking to automate its MIS, and make it Web-enabled.

2011

2010

2006

2000

1990

tapped opportunities in Artek grew its topline to `118 crore in FY2009-10 compared to `109 crore government and PSUs in FY2008-09. However, in FY201011 the company observed de-growth Partnered with D-Link and with revenue of `111 crore and AT&T; entered systems further de-growth in FY2011-12 with Future strategy integration revenue of `109 crore. The company expects a revival of Anil explains why this happened. government spending on IT infraExpanded focus to include “We were not able to sustain our structure projects in 2012. “The education; deployed LAN and revenue growth in the last two fiscals union government’s National Knowlsecurity projects at various because several large deals from edge Network initiative to connect universities government organizations were postuniversities and institutions across poned. In addition, a major chunk of the country is a major step to boost Anubhav joined Artek; business was lost after we dropped the IT industry. Various government our partnership with D-Link in 2010 organizations and PSUs are also company did more business because they changed their distribuconsidering the expansion of their IT with the Indian army tion strategy and ended our exclusivinfrastructure,” says Anil. ity for distribution.” Meanwhile, the Artek aims for a 15 percent Dropped D-Link as a partner; company invested in partnerships increase in revenue in the current expanded portfolio by signing with Digisol, Buffalo, APC and Trustfiscal and a 40 percent increase in on with Digisol, Buffalo, APC Port to expand its product portfolio. FY2013-14. The company is now and TrustPort In 2010 Artek executed a projfocused on select projects. “We are ect worth `1.7 crore for the Indian not going after every tender, but only Executed cabling project for Railways to upgrade its signalfocusing on projects which we have Airport Authority of India worth initiated at the pre-tender stage,” Aning and networking systems. The company installed a communicaubhav says. He adds that by being as`5.5 crore tion system valued at `1.2 crore for sociated with a project from the ideadistance learning, e-classrooms and generation stage they get a deeper interactive learning in IIT Jodhpur. Artek also executed a understanding of its requirements and pain-points and surveillance project worth `20 lakh for long-range radio this increases their chances of winning the bid. links and high-speed dome cameras to enable central The company is also expecting better returns from the monitoring of the remote sites of NHPC. In 2011 the combrands it included in its portfolio recently. “Digisol conpany executed a passive cabling project worth `5.5 crore tributed 5 percent to the distribution revenue in the last for the Airport Authority of India. Artek also completed fiscal; we expect at least 8 percent in the current fiscal a WAN project valued at `70 lakh for Indian Railways in and 12 percent in the next. Buffalo, APC and TrustPort Allahabad. It implemented a campus networking project will also contribute more to the revenue,” says Anubhav. worth `66 lakh for JNU. Anubhav said reduced government spending and On a personal note While Anil does not have any role model, Anubhav considers his father as his role model. Although a workaholic, Anil plays chess in his free “Bitten by several accusations of time. Anubhav likes to play games on his Xbox; spendcorruption, government organizations have ing time with family and friends is his idea of a vacation. While Anil reads technical stuff to keep himself been slow on investment in infrastructure. updated, Anubhav likes to read thrillers, his favorites Delayed payments in the channel business being Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer and Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth. n are also a burden” 30

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tech focus Unlocked and overclocked Intel unleashes the Ivy Bridge chip and motherboard for high-performance desktop computing n Edward J Correia

ntel continues to push the envelope of processor performance as it attempts to keep up with Moore’s Law. The latest example announced recently is the Intel Core i7 3770K running at 3.5 GHz. This chip incorporates four dual-threaded processor cores, an 8 MB cache, and Intel HD Graphics 4000 in a single die. This is the first part to be released under the name Ivy Bridge, the code name for its latest series of powerful and power-efficient processors to come from its 22 nm process, and the first to be built with Intel’s revolutionary 3-D Tri-Gate technology. The company has also released a new motherboard—the Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K with D77 chipset—optimized for its K-series of unlocked processors fit to the LGA1155 socket. On top of the usual array of slots and ports, Intel adds 8 USB 3.0 ports (plus 10 of the USB 2.0 variety), four 6.0 GB/s SATA ports (along with four at 3.0 Gb/s), a pair of firewire ports, HDMI output and support for as much as 32 GB of two-channel DDR3 memory running at a maximum of 1600 MHz. Oh, and then there is Intel Visual Bios, an implementation of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The all-new mouse-controlled environment includes an overclocking assistant for K-series processors that turns the once-complex practice into child’s play and removes some of the uber-geek mystique. For VARs and everyone else, the environment uses tabs, drop-down menus and sliderbars to simplify the system and processor settings configuration, and provides a wealth of information about system performance and health as well as fan speeds and slot status. UEFI was initially developed by Intel and is now managed by a consortium that includes

The environment includes an overclocking assistant for K-series processors that turns the once-complex practice into child’s play and removes some of the mystique 32

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Out of the box using the default clock rate and with only the barest of drivers installed, the system turned in a top Geekbench 2.2.7 score of 16,240 the company and major BIOS makers along with AMD, Apple, Dell, HP, IBM and others. Initial performance results of Intel’s new processor and motherboard are impressive. Out of the box using the default clock rate and with only the barest of drivers installed, the system turned in a top Geekbench 2.2.7 score of

16,240. That is about 25 percent faster than its Sandy Bridge predecessor, which turned in a top score of 12,286. In both cases, the test system was running 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on 4 GB of Dominator GT 2000 MHz DDR3 memory. The CRN Test Center recommends the new Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA and Intel Core i7 3770K processor. The motherboard’s LGA1155 (H2) socket will support not only third-generation Ivy Bridge processors but also Intel’s second-generation processors and numerous older parts down the line. Its $249 list price includes an accessory bundle with a frontpanel bracket for mounting a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a Bluetooth/Wi-Fi networking module, SLI bridge connector and software utilities. It also comes with a motherboard-sized mouse pad complete with the silkscreened skull logo. n

channel buzz Aarvee Computers’ new Sony outlet

n Aarvee’s newly inaugurated Sony Center

arvee Computers recently opened its third Sony retail outlet—a Sony Center in Santacruz, Mumbai. The 2,000 sq ft store was inaugurated on 20 May 2012 by Satish Padmanabhan, Deputy General Manager, Sony India. Aarvee already has two Sony Vaio flagship stores—in Andheri West,

n A guest being felicitated after the inauguration

Mumbai, and in Ahmedabad, each measuring 700 sq ft. It is planning to open a fourth Sony retail store (and the third Sony Vaio store) in Thane (which adjoins Mumbai) in the next three months. The four stores will contribute approximately 40 percent of Aarvee’s overall revenue. Of this, the Sony

Center is expected to fetch 25 percent of the revenue. It will sell all Sony products, both IT and consumer durables, including its Bravia and Vaio brands, handycams, digicams, PlayStations and cameras. Aarvee also has Epson and HP service centers which contribute the rest of its revenue. n

Socomec’s Power Specialist Day seminar at Kochi

ocomec UPS India, an independent French UPS manufacturer and one of the leading UPS sellers in the Indian market, recently conducted a Power Specialist Day seminar at Kochi, the commercial and industrial capital of Kerala, and which is also often referred to as the Gateway to Kerala. The seminar was attended by key existing and potential customers, consultants, facility managers, systems integrators and business partners. Identifying the huge business potential in tier-2 and -3 cities, Socomec is working aggressively to expand its customer base and partner network in these cities. Pursuant to this it organized the seminar in Kochi with the objective to educate the audience about the important components of UPS systems such

n Participants attending the seminar

as rectifier, battery and inverter, and explain their functions and topology. Some of the questions asked were ‘What are the main factors to consider while choosing a UPS?’ and ‘How can one select a UPS which provides high quality, high availability and helps to reduce both capex and opex?’ Speaking at the event, Jerome Rodriguez, Managing Director,

Socomec UPS India said, “Last year we conducted these seminars in metro cities such as Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. This year our focus is mainly on tier-2 and -3 cities. It is our constant endeavor to educate our customers and partners about the recent evolutions in the UPS market, and we will continue to do so.” n

To feature your company’s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com

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New Products Buffalo AirStation wireless N router

uffalo has launched the AirStation Wireless N router WCR-HP-G300 in India. The new router features double detachable 8 dBi antennas for speedy data transfers even on smartphones and tablet devices. The router features the 802.11n standard for higher data transfer rates up to 300 Mbps, backward compatibility with 1x1, 802.11g/b devices, and the high-spec Ralink 400 MHz CPU. Its wireless distribution system extends the network across access points, and offers

easy network configuration with application for Android smartphones, AOSS for Android and multi-level wireless security support. It allows up to four simultaneous wired connections. The router is priced at an MSRP of `3,000, comes with a 3-year warranty, and is available with Buffalo authorized distributors.

Envent Webcam Studio-U

nvent has launched its multi-faceted Webcam that comes with a tripod stand. The Envent Studio-U allows users to make video calls, share videos, and take and print photos. The Webcam is fast and sets up when it is switched on. The Webcam’s universal clip allows you to attach it to a notebook or a desktop LCD monitor. It can be placed on a shelf or desk to use the tripod stand for still video recording. The Webcam can also be used in a low light environment or even in total darkness. The Webcam comes in a foldable design and features a 2P lens with a power of 300k, and has a maximum resolution of 20 MP with software interpolation. The product is priced at `1,349, comes with a 2-year warranty, and is available with Envent authorized distributors.

Asus multimedia and gaming notebooks

A Trend Micro Titanium Internet security

rend Micro has launched its Titanium Internet Security 2012 —an advanced data security solution. Titanium uses cloud technology to proactively stop viruses, spyware and other threats, and prevents system slow down. It comes with features such as parental controls, data theft prevention and secure online storage. Titanium stops threats before they reach the user’s computer. It uses less than half the disk space and memory of competing security products, and monitors and limits kids’ online activity and access to inappropriate content. It keeps information like credit card numbers private. The version for one user for one year is priced at an MRP of `999, while the version for three users for one year is priced at an MRP of `1,899. The products are available with Trend Micro authorized distributors.

sus has launched a multimedia notebook (N56VM) and a gaming notebook (G75VW). N56VM offers SonicMaster Premium audiophile-worthy sound, wide-view screens with Full HD 1080p, and a deluxe look with zinc alloy casing that won the Reddot 2012 design award. Intel’s third generation Core processor powers the N56VM, which also uses Asus’ Super Hybrid Engine II technology for 2-second instant-on resume and two weeks of standby time. The G75VW is a 17.3 inch notebook equipped with a full HD non-glare 3D panel. Based on the Intel Chief River platform, the Asus G75VW has a third-generation Intel Ivy Bridge processor with the nvidia GeForce GTX 670M (3 GB DDR5) dedicated graphics. It comes loaded with 16 GB RAM, 1.3 TB hard drive and Blu Ray Comb drive. The N56VM is priced at an MRP of `89,999 while the G75VW is priced at `1,39,999. The products are available with Asus authorized distributors.

The products featured here have not undergone any benchmarking or testing. The trailers contain information provided by vendors and distributors. To feature your company’s products in CRN, send write-ups with photos to editor@ubmindia.com

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shadow ram GET

Tender loving care P

artners and vendors have started communicating to the government to include rupee valuation as one of the criteria to invoke the force majeure clause in tender documents. According to a MAIT official, this was one of the requests made by a leading PC vendor who was caught on the wrong foot following the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar. Since October 2011 the rupee has slipped by 22 percent, and may fall further. “Government projects are often delayed, and from the date of quoting to the final award the delay is sometimes 6-9 months. In an industry where single-digit margins are common, and supply challenges are many, business becomes very risky,” says an industry source. Vendors are afraid to back out of tender commitments because of the fear of blacklisting. One MNC vendor was forced to make supplies at a loss because of penalty clauses in the tender that would have forced the vendor to forgo the EMD amount in a large state education department tender. Last year, following the HDD shortage, MAIT had appraised the government about the difficulties faced by the PC industry in honoring tender commitments. n

Personal

“Education must be compulsory” Parag Arora, Director Sales, Enterprise and Public Sector, Citrix Systems drives business and growth initiatives in India. He has 16 years of sales experience, and has worked with Cisco and HP. If not in the IT industry: I would have started K-12 school or a restaurant.

Parag Arora

Biggest Passion: Good food and workout.

Behind the wheels: New Ferrari Enzo. Gadgets I can’t live without: iPad, iPod, BlackBerry and MacBook. Weekends are for: Workout, reading, writing my journal and spending quality time with my daughter. Favorite holiday destination: New York and Goa. Hate the most: Procrastinators. Favorite Movie: Janne Bhee Do Yaaron and Sound of Music. Favorite Stars: Tom Hanks, Shabana Azmi, Aamir Khan, Naseeruddin Shah. Role Model: Steve Jobs. Ultimate ambition: Never stop aspiring for better, higher and bigger in whatever I do. Wildest thing I have ever done: Scuba diving in Cancun, Mexico and the Canyon, roller coaster ride at Vegas. Thing I most want to do in life: Write a book. If I became the PM: I want to change the education system in India and make it contemporary, fun-filled and vocational. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: Katrina Kaif. One person I would like to meet: Amitabh Bachchan. To know the secret of his enthusiasm, passion and excellence. Deepest and darkest fear: The day the earth has no trees and water. n

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— CRN Network

a brand of

RNI NO. MAHENG/2011/39915 Postal Reg. No. MH/MR/NORTH EAST/193/2010-2012 Posted at Patrika Channel Sorting Office, Mumbai Due Date 2nd, 3rd & 16th, 17th Of Every Fortnight